Which Graphics Card Do You Use?

yes, Firecat is our Graphic Card Specialist, I could smell that from faaaar away.

I have a P4 550 with Mushkins 2*512mb (2-3-2) from the ch5 familiy (winbond ch5 for the experts) and my mobo is the ASUS P5GDC-V DELUXE. The best board I ever had (everything can be voltmodded, edited,...) I have no possibility to overclock on the fly (except for bios but that isn't on the fly)...my x800xl can be oc'ed on the fly but I wish to do that to my cpu too.

When I had my msi board I could do this with CoreCenter software but only managed to get 3845Mhz (cause I couldn't set another voltage level).

but my mem wasn't the one I have now the mushkins are famous overclock memory modules like bh5...

If someone could point me to an overclock software for oc'ing for pentiums (like clockgen for amd) I would be greatful.

Thanx

 

Thanks

If you got 200 dollars, I recommend you look for the XFX or Leadtek GeForce 6600GT - It is noticeably better than the vanilla 6600 and costs under USD 200.

The vanilla 6600 can only be called as good as a GeForce FX 5900/5950 Ultra in general.

 

Hi I use the ASUS AI Booster, ive had it to just over 3.6ghz running well on a cooler night.

My case (Thermaltake Tsunami dream) has 2 x 120mm fans 1 x 90mm side fan
2 x 90mm PSU fans and standard Intel P4 CPU fan & heatsink. It runs very well, standard temp is 36c CPU 32c Ram, under load around 47c & 39c.

I can adjust the fan speed accordingly or let it run on auto, the case is a little wider than normal, the extra airflo really seems to make a difference.

 

Tsunami cases are very good for keeping it cool

I have the ai booster too but I cannot get to overclock right...are you doing it from your bios? how do you lets say overclock your cpu without choosing which program needs it? I want general overclock for all my programs, not only one program. I hope you know what I mean...I tried NOS, but that is not what I want...Can you post some screenies please on where you do it exactly? I would appreciate it, cause this eve I am about to use clockgen but I rather stick with the tools asus made available for this .

Thanx

 

This is gonna be interesting....and this is the longest thread I've ever made!!!

 

infinity i would not use the ai for overclocking it does an ok job but also causes some issues as well. things such as core voltage and the likes are also adjusted by this ai and asus is known for voltage fluctuations that drastically affect a good oc. setting these manually you can always adjust a much better oc. all you really need to do is go in the bios od asus. adjust from there. any oc done in the bios will oc your cpu which is for all programs!!! all the time.
now a lot of decisions come into play here. what cpu? what ram? ram speed? what gpu? what model motherboard?? how large your power supply even affects a good oc. in the bios you should see jumper configuration. and in there it should say standard or manual. pick manual and then adjust away. at least with asus if you screw up and cause a problem it will revert back to default upon the next reboot. i could give you more if i knew your exact setup.

i went back and read you above thread again sorry. why would you want an on the fly oc? softeware oc's are very unraliable and usually can not achieve what you can in the bios. if you have an asus board and use the manual setting as i mentioned and want to change it back reboot and set it to standard. it will remeber your setting if you want to put it back to manual

 

I tried the asus tool and the clockgen tool both didn't satisfied at all. I am using my bios now 3645Mhz and will leave it for a while

It took me half an hour to get to this clockspeed without loosing any memory timings which are 2-3-2-6 (mushkins 2*512mb PC3200 from the bh5 winbond chips )

the card is x800xl iceqII and psu is 480W with 26A on the 12V.

the card is good for 12000 3dmarks03 oc'ed with the built in overclock software on the card.

so I thank you for sticking with me on this overclock issue, I will see in the direct future for destressing the memtimings and overclock further.

 

if i can be of any help let me know

 

Thanks Firecat..............sounds good, but my system has only 350 watts and 300 minimum is required............seems like i would be pushing it..............what do you think

 

dont mean to but in here. i have extensive hardware backround i actually used to make microchips from raw silicon at ibm in east fishkill, ny. i was then a photolithography tech for quite a long time for ibm. ive worked on chips for ti , nokia, dell, intel, etc....
anyway the newer nvidia are power hogs!!! i would recc at least a 450watt power supply for these cards. you can run them with less but there will be anomolies. you may not see them very well but they will be there. also the ram on these cards is very power hungry in the way it is laid out on the card.
i would also recc a veru good quality power supply. i.e. not a 29$ 500watt psu. these are junk!!!
some of the lower wattage ones will work well but keep in mind these are the expensive ones, if anyone questions me just pick up a good psu and them pick up a cheap one. feel the wieght difference?? people think otherwise but this does make a huge difference. the rails are much more massive in your better ones as are the quantity of components.
i only got involved here in this conversation because the results could be very very bad. some may not have a problem right away. but if you overdrive the rails in the psu you stand a chance with a cheap one of taking a lot of your components with it. ive seen motherboards hard drives etc all destructed by cheap psu's.

again sorry for butting in here but the ati cards use far less resources. i know they are more $$. i currently use the x800xt on one system and on the other a radeon 9800 pro (sapphire) flashed to an xt card. put ramsinks on it and can still oc it slightly and can play anything out there. yes things run a little smoother on my newer card but only minimal.

long story short if you want to play with the newer cards i recc a really good psu, 450 or more. ati will use less. ever since i found out that nvidia cheated on thier 3dmark scores a while back by purposly designing thier card to score really high in this area with specific drivers i have since refused to use thier cards.

 

so umm, i guess my antec 350 wont be sufficient for the second geforce 6600gt i want? im planning to upgrade my computer by the end of the year, but i was hoping my PSU would serve my needs and therefore wouldnt need to be replaced.

 

antec's are okay not the best but far from the worst. you could use it like i said but definatly monitor your rail voltage with your mother boards software or by using probes on the lines out of the psu. you may end up with anomolies or white dots in certain scenes. you may not notice them some people dont unless they know what they are looking at. i have set people up with 350 but usually you cant take full advantage of the cards potential for a long time because as the draw on the card rises so does the power requirements. just be cautious. i personally use the thermaltake psu's not to expensive but solid as a rock. i have a 550 watt that was around 79$ but the 450 can be had for 40-49 usually from new egg. i think nvidia's 300 rating should be at least 400 or better 450.
i tested my rails with the new geforce cards and the amp draw was quite heavy from these compared to my ati this has been a long time issue with nvidia for a while now

 

between the following which would u recommend: CoolerMaster eXtreme Power ATX 430W Power Supply, Model "RS-430PMSR/P" -RETAIL or Thermaltake TR2 430W power Supply, with 6-pin PCI Express connector, 24(20) pin main connector, Model "W0070" -RETAIL the thermaltake seems better as im using an SLI board but the cooler master saves me a few bucks that ill pay in s&h anyways. any ideas?

 

Well the GeForce cards do need an extra molex connector to feed all that power......

Rainwalker, I'd say you go for the Sapphire or PowerColor Radeon 9800 Pro - those should run fine on your PC

 

a 350W antec is better then a 350W psu from Qtec ...I worked quite some months with the 350W Antec psu and 6600gt but I heard stories from guys purchasing 450W psu's and just couldn't handle the 12V line...you have to got at least 20A on the 12V on the psu cause practically everything is connected to the 12V.

this is a very interesting thread. and this eve I'll post a screenshot from my benchmark standard and overclocked.

greetz

 

I'm running my 5900 on a 300W PSU....

 

you will not experience any probs Firecat cause you work on an older socket and you don't have any whistles and bells on your pc.

mainly highend systems need bigger psu's

cheers

 

How do you define 'Whistles and Bells' - for me that was always the newest features of a graphics card....

It does, however, also mean new features and technology...so please explain

 

Here's an interesting article about the Doom 3 technology (a speech by Mr.Carmack at QuakeCon):

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=266373

Please tell me how much you understood of it. I didnt fully get it.

 

, ok whistles and bells: extra harddrives, maybe in a raid config (you'll need extra amperes for every hdd you have), maybe some fan controller or extra fans (again you'll need extra amperes on the 12V line, maybe on the 5V line for the quite computing), some neon lights or sli config...

if someone has one of those on his rig, then I suggest having a quality psu and not an ordinary 20$ psu cause if something goes wrong: then you'll have to buy everything!!again cause a bad psu will damage everything connected to mobo and psu

I always saved some money on the psu and took the money I gained for a better gpu or cpu, but not anymore: a good psu is from the same importance then a good graphic card...and most importantly with the new sockets (especially intel socket ) I suggest good psu (antec, enermax, tagan, zalman, ocz)
If I would purchase one now: it would be tagan or ocz

take care

 

OK Then I dont have bells and whistles except for multiple harddisks

 

Eh...well... I use a Matrox Millennium G550 on this far too old machine

What is the winning number of the lottery?

 

Which lottery?

 

LOL, doesn't matter as long as I have the winning one for a new PC

 

Any news on the overclock projects, Sweetie/Infinity/zfactor?

Hey, do you suppose I can overclock my Asus V9950 FX 5900?