Graphics Cards

[Coach_lmc]

Those nifty GPU's that make your graphics oh so pretty!

[Coach_lmc]

I got my Geforce 6800 Ultra not to long ago from eVGA and I must say it is the shiz.

Running it at 450mhz for fun.

After getting the latest drivers and updating the GPU Bios I am getting top notch performance. A worthy buy if you got the money, it is by far the best card out there. The drivers still need work of course, I got a 20% boost in fps at everything after my last update.

I am perfectly capable and have been running Doom 3 at 80-100 fps at 1280x1024 High quality (wish I had a better monitor) with 8x aa and at 16x with 40-50fps. I even tried ultra quality and had very little lag when first starting a level and then worked fine (can't tell the difference though so I keep it at high).

UT2004 runs completely maxed out at 1280x1024 80fps but can jump as low as 50 or as high as 200 depending on whats happening (somethins up with my sound card because it forces fps way to low, with no sound its a 100-300fps)

Overall only had a few compatability problems with games all fixed when I updated drivers and patched games up.
Any instability is fixed by the bios update (should come updated now).

Outperforms my friends x800 anyday of the week, if you have the money go with it otherwise go for the GT, basicly it's the same but lower clocks, can't speak from experience though.

Thanks Nvidia for the greatness that is the 6800 ultra. I won't need to upgrade it for at least 4 years, I prolly will though :) , but thats me :p .

[Lewiji]

I got an Nvidia FX5600 around christmas time and although it's nowhere near top of the range, it does me fine.

The earlier FX range recieved a lot of criticism due to the dodgy chipset, but the 5600, although based on the same thing, fixes a lot of the problems. It's 128mb agp 8x.

It handles almost anything you throw at it at 1024x768 pretty well, although my system is pretty shoddy so I can't compare (P4 1.4, 256mb ram). The only thing it suffers in are particle effects like smoke and waterfalls, although this may be my lack of RAM.

I haven't tried overclocking it and although I'm interested, I can't afford to replace it :p So I can't tell you anything about that.

Average framerate for everything (CS, UT2K4, Mafia) is about 65fps, which I can say as a game dev is pretty much perfect for games. I haven't tried it with Doom3 yet, but the stolen HL2 (I didn't get it on purpose, honest :ninja:) ran OK even on my system, with everything looking smooth.

The Nvidia drivers have digital vibrance controls which makes things stand out more while still attaining a good brightness level, it doesn't drop the framerate at all which is nice.

Mine is an "XpertVision" which I hadn't heard of, but the cooling is very good on it and it looks very nice if you're into case modding. It has TV and DVI out which are nice addons.

Another plus, it's very very quiet. Nuff said.

I think that covers it all, as I've said my system doesn't really compare to the graphics card's level so I can't go into great detail.

[Stringy Pete]

XFX Nvidia 6800 128MB Gamers Edition

Based on the NV40 core
12 Pixel Pipelines
325 MHz Core Clock
750 MHz Memory Clock

Bought this card to go with my new rig. Box was nice enough, a bit of a fiddle to open, nice(ish) bundle, came with:

-X2: The threat
-Commandos 3
-Moto GP 2
-Driver CD
-2 DVI -> VGA adaptors.

As this is a dual DVI card, it would be great for a dual LCD setup, and for CAD/CAM usage. My testing rig (brand new):

Athlon 64 3000+
Asus K8V Motherboard
1024MB GeiL PC3200 RAM
120GB Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 8MB Cache
Iiyama 17" CRT
Creative Wireless Desktop

The first game I tested it on was Gun Metal (a game that uses a lot of dx9 intensive features). Although I've run not specific benchmarks, it runs like Hot Piss on 1280x1024 with 4xAA and 8xAF, maybe more specific details to come.

3D Mark 03
At stock frequencies, it got 8846 3dmarks, which isn't very shy at all.
Using the drivers' built in overclocking tool, I autodetected clock and memory frequencies. It upped the memory from 750 to 830, a 80mhz increase which is quite nice. However, it only upped the core by 40, to 365, with which I was quite disappointed, and I feel it could go higher. However, at these settings, the 6800 achieved 9657 3d marks. Which is a bloody lot. I think that at the correct settings 10k isn't an impossibility.

All in all, it is a fantastic upgrade no matter what card you come from, as it can be had for £176 from www.overclockers.co.uk

[3v1l |\/|1NiOn]

Sapphire Atlantis 9800 pro

This one is the 128MB with the 256bit architecture

I got 5119 3dMarks (2003), and average of 70fps on the counterstrike:source stress test with high model, high textures, reflect all on water, high shadows, 4x AF, and no AA.

Its defaults at 378/338, but i pushed it to 410/355 with stock cooling.
I currently have an arctic cooler on its way, so hopefully i can push it to around 435/370

I know for a fact my cpu is bottlenecking it, i have an athlon xp2800+ with a barton core, which is cloked at 2150MHz, so I also have a jet7 cooler on the way, so I may be able to get it to 2400/2500MHz.


I'll post the new 3dmark score and the new clock rate once I get the coolers (Mon/Tue)


[edit] The new 3dmark score is 5650, with the graphics card clocked to 427/353 and the processor clocked to 2.4GHz

[strawberry jam]

Leadtek WinFast PX7800GTX TDH MyVIVO·Extreme

Chip: nVidia GeForce 7800GTX
Graphics Bus: PCI Express
Memory: 256bit 256MB
Chip clocked at: 490MHz
RAMDACs: 400MHz
Memory clocked at: 1250MHz

So far, I've had no negative experiences with this card. It uses up two slots with a complex heatpipe/fan design which cools the chip down to 39°C when playing BF2 on the highest settings (1280x1024, 76Hz). Although it is quite loud, the Graphics Card comes with software to configure the fan speed.

Games: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Awards: "I am hardcore by hardcoreware.net" and an Editor's Choice on AMDZone.com

Click (http://www.leadtek.com/3d_graphic/winfast_px7800gtx_tdhvivoe_1.html)