Just returned from a long trip back east and I got my new over clocked EVGA 8800GT card. I am tired so I'm going to wait until morning to install it but I did run a test with Fraps by playing the Black Death track on my old card. And I looped it after that for 40 minutes to get maximum temps for my old card which I will compare to my new one. I am expecting it to run hot though. I have a 600 watt PS so I should be able to run the new card ok because the load on it now is not too bad.

I plan to post back in here tomorrow with the comparison results...........

ooh, nice one

the thing thats putting me off the 8800gt is the temperature (and the price of the one I want...). Ill probably be getting an XFX OC'd 9600gt, if and when I do, maybe I'll post my results to compare between the cards?

I changed the stock cooler on my 8800GT to a Thermaltake DuoOrb and since then have not seen GPU temps above the 40s under serious loads (according to both ATITool and Nivida Control Panel). Mine's OC'd too to 700/2000...

For me that's pretty cool, better than the 9800 Pro I used to have.

how much did that cost you? and what brand/model 8800GT was it?

I got it here:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?TT-DUORB

I suppose it's not cheap but it seems to work very well. It's on an Asus EN8800GT 512 which came clocked at 600/1800 but soon went to 700/2000 as they actually sell a version clocked at those speeds. No troubles with it so far.

Mine has the Akimbo dual slot cooler and I'm doing a 40 minute heat test on it now. Will be done shortly. I'll post back in a jiff as soon as it's finished.

Ok, I am now done with my test. The highest temp it went up to is 59C, which is insignificant for a GPU. And it's only two degrees higher than the Core #1 of my processor at its highest temp. This is with the game cranked up to max except only 8xA and 8XAAQ. My room temp is exactly 68F or 20C.

So this proves that a 8800 superclocker can run cool enough. Anything less than 90C is acceptable and it was 31 degrees from reaching that.

In my first post I said I expected it to run hot but it's cooler than I imagined as I was expecting about 70 to 75C.

Sounds good to me

And how does it look in-game?

Looks excellent and I can now publish the non-Vsync frames, as I had to totally uninstall my drivers and reinstall after changing cards. Before I did that I was locked into Vsync mode no matter what I tried. Here's what I'm getting as opposed to the old card.

Old 8600GT ( with 2XA/2XAA ) Avg: 55.588 - Min:32 - Max: 85 Maximum temperature during 13 loops on Black Death = 49C ( Room temp =20C )

New 8800GT ( with 8XA/8XAAQ ) Avg: 111.7623 - Min: 40 Max: 206 Maximum temperature during 13 loops on Black Death = 65C ( Room temp =20C )

All settings were the same except Aniso and AA.

That's me, wailing in the corner!

quote:

Originally posted by Lurch1962:


That's me, wailing in the corner!

What the heck for?

quote:

Originally posted by mortoma:

quote:

Originally posted by Lurch1962:


That's me, wailing in the corner!

What the heck for?

Crying out of envy is better than yelling out of jealousy, lol.

I'll have to say that I'm as pleased with the graphics quality as much as I am the frames themselves. Flying at about 1 or 2 thousand meters the ground looks a bit better than with the old card although some of that is due to the higher AA an A settings. But not all of it.
The lighting is even better than the 8600 and it looked pretty good, just a tad slow was all.
The water looks better too but not a great deal.
Overall a more enjoyable experience for me.

Good stuff mortoma, I thought you'd be pleased with your new card

I'm thinking I need to do a similar test for temperature. As mentioned before I've only seen high 40s so far but that wasn't with a 'proper' log, it was looking at ATITool after I close down 1946 or COD4 etc. Do you record yours?

I use CPUID Hardware monitor and it will work with any card. I just bring it up before I go into the game and leave it running. It records the current, minimum and maximun temp during the time it runs. A nice freeware program. It also tells core temp for multi-core processors and a lot more.

Okay, had a quick go with CPUID. Only looped 3 times on BD. Same AA/AF settings at res 1280 x 1024 (native on my monitor).

FRAPS recorded Av 59.7, Min 17, Max 78 with Vsync on.

CPUID gave max GPU temp 46C, max core 49C on Core2 (E6750 @ 3.2GHz).

Just tried Vsync off for comparison. Not what I was expecting but

FRAPS recorded Av 62.4, Min 20, Max 117 with Vsync off. Not much difference?

Temps unchanged from previous max figures.


FWIW, my settings in game are:
[Render_OpenGL]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=0
TexFlags.UseDither=1
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=1
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=1
TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=1
TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0
TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1
TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1
TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=1
TexFlags.ClipHintExt=0
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=0
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=1
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1

TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=1
TexFlags.DepthClampNV=1
TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=1
TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=1

HardwareShaders=1

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=2
Forest=3
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

LandGeom=3
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=3
Water=4
Effects=2
ForceShaders1x=0

PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.15
PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0

I am at 1152X864 and that might be the difference. Your graphics are at over 1 megapixels while mine is below 1 mega. I only have a 17 inck CRT so that is why I don't need to go any higher. At 1024x768 my frames would be through the roof but I like the looks of this resolution better. Do you have some kind of oddball aspect ratio monitor, like a widescreen or something? That seems like a non-standard resolution to me.

Nevermind, I just checked and your aspect ration must be normal. I have 1280X1024 at the highest end of my resolution settings. I'd never use it but I have it. How big is your monitor? If I were running at that resolution, I'd go to SLI personally.

quote:

Originally posted by mortoma:
Nevermind, I just checked and your aspect ration must be normal. I have 1280X1024 at the highest end of my resolution settings. I'd never use it but I have it. How big is your monitor? If I were running at that resolution, I'd go to SLI personally.

I run 1920x1200 on my X1950Xt, no need to go SLI for 1280x1024, or even 1680x1050 for that matter .

It's only a 19 incher, and yes it's normal aspect ratio. I think regardless of fps numbers it plays very nicely with the single card so I don't have any plans for SLI.

Either way we both seem to have pretty nice setups compared to a few months ago!

EDIT Agree with Urufu and can only imagine what that sort of res looks like.