A little advice OC'ing XFX 6800XT

[xilix]

Me and my girlfriend bought this card so we could play the latest games, and it's been great so far.

When I set the control panel to "find optimal", it sent the core/mem 453/1362 :eek: . Stock is 350/1000. Pretty impressive jump. At stock speeds, depending on the game, the core sits at about 77-78˚c. At 453/1362, it holds steady at only 79-80˚c.

That translates into a 29.5% increase in GPU, 36.2% mem, and it only cost me 2˚c! This is with stock cooling as well.

Should I keep going? Or is 80c pretty much where I should stop? I've seen different opinions on whether or not these GPU's can take 100+c temps, but I just want to be sure that I'm not killing the card. Does anyone know for sure if higher than 80c is safe? I don't plan on replacing this card for at least a year, it's in my girlfriends rig, and when I build mine, this will be more than enough for her.

The card does rock though. I'm so happy with it. I went from an OC'd 9800 Pro to this, and it couldn't be more of a night vs. day difference. HDR, SM3, 256MB GDDR3, 256-bit interface: $130. Nvidia just earned themselves a customer.

[BossBorot]

download riva tuner and try to unlock the masked hardware units. You only have 8 pipes now if you sucessfully unlock the core you will get 16. Also your temps are rather high, even when stock, you could buy an after market cooler to push it even further.

[Deadman93723]

Even with better cooling I doubt your going to get much higher clocks than what you are getting. But as said before get Rivatuner and see if you can unlock some pipes, that will give a big increase in performance. I would still get aftermarket cooling for it, if I were you.

[xilix]

I already unlocked it to 12/5. That's as far as it'll go. I'm pretty sure I could push it more, I'm just wondering what the real temp limits are on these. I've heard 90c, 100c, 120c... then I see people saying they'd never let it go above 70. Are there any specs out there for max temps? I know 80C is kind of high, but if I could push it to 85c and be safe, then I'll definately do it.

If I can't go any hotter then I'll just stay where I am until I can afford better cooling.

[Deadman93723]

Those temps are on the high side, it's best to keep it under 75c load, otherwise you are cooking your GPU, and I'm sure you want to keep your card for awhile.

[xilix]

The funny this is, I actually repasted this with Arctic Silver before I even installed it, and it ran upper 70's immediately. It originally had that terrible gummy looking stuff on it, which is a crime if you ask me. That stuff is for DX2-66's, not new hardware.

Anyway, I have an old copper heatsink that use to go on my 2600+ that I might be able to fab to the card. I think that would increase cooling greatly, and most importantly, it'd be free.

[blkdiamond]

Those temps do seem a bit high. I have two of those XFX 6800XT's running in SLI @ 450/1150, and they idle around 50˚ c and at load only get up to around 62˚ c.

[xilix]

Dang, I re-seated the heatsink just to make sure it was seated OK. I also slightly lapped the heatsink to get rid of the machined grain, and the temps shot up 5c. Man, I'm really losing my touch these days, I used to be really good at trimming a couple C off.

Looks like I'll have to dig up some cash for an aftermarket cooler. Anyone have anything they recommend?

[Deadman93723]

I would suggest the Arctic Cooling Silencer NV5 rev.3, or the Zalman VF700-CU. I'm pretty sure those will both fit it.

[Nevrsumr22]

You will have to trim the end of the AC silencer but man did it quite down my xfx 6800xt. Can't hear it at all.

[xilix]

Wow the NV5 is nice and cheap. Only $20!

Good news though, I re-seated the heatsink yet again, but this time added a tiny bit more Arctic Silver paste and also didn't tighten the screws down so tight (as to not squeeze all the paste out), and now it never goes above 76c while playing COD2, FEAR Combat, GTR2 ect... ATI tool's fuzzy 3D cube sends it to 82c, but so far not one game I have will send it that high. So I'm good for now.

Hopefully when I get the NV5 in, I can go a little higher. I can't wait until I build my next rig. I'm waiting for those damn middle-range DX10 cards to hit before I start building.

[Deadman93723]

Wow the NV5 is nice and cheap. Only $20!

Good news though, I re-seated the heatsink yet again, but this time added a tiny bit more Arctic Silver paste and also didn't tighten the screws down so tight (as to not squeeze all the paste out), and now it never goes above 76c while playing COD2, FEAR Combat, GTR2 ect... ATI tool's fuzzy 3D cube sends it to 82c, but so far not one game I have will send it that high. So I'm good for now.

Hopefully when I get the NV5 in, I can go a little higher. I can't wait until I build my next rig. I'm waiting for those damn middle-range DX10 cards to hit before I start building.


Good idea, I too am going to wait until the market rebounds from the whole Vista thing before I build my new rig.

[xilix]

Good idea, I too am going to wait until the market rebounds from the whole Vista thing before I build my new rig.

You gotta wonder what's taking them so long to come out with middle range DX10 cards. The 8800 has been out for a while now. Maybe they're waiting for ATI to answer first before they release them. All I Know is that I wanna play all the good games. UT, Crysis, Alan Wake.. they just look insanely fun to play. I can't help but drool.

If my paitence doesn't hold out for the middle range DX10 cards, I'll just get another 6800XT like this one, or maybe a 7600GS. Should hold me over untill all the Vista madness is over with. I plan on going with an Asus P5B and one of those new Allendales that's coming soon. This is my girlfriends rig, and she's sick of me hogging it all the time. Heh. So I might have to build sooner than later, but I'm trying to wait as long as I can.

[Deadman93723]

I think we will actually see the 8900's before the mid-range cards come out, because ATI is going to come out with a better card than the 8800's, so then nVidia will lay the smack down on ATI with the 8900, then we will see other nVidia cards.

Also, in 4-6 months the price of an 8800 will go down dramatically.

[xilix]

Well, they need to hurry up. Only a small portion of the population can afford $500+ cards. I have a rule that I never spend more than around $250 for a graphics card. Anything more and the bang for buck ratio starts to get pathetic.

[BossBorot]

I think we will actually see the 8900's before the mid-range cards come out, because ATI is going to come out with a better card than the 8800's, so then nVidia will lay the smack down on ATI with the 8900, then we will see other nVidia cards.

Also, in 4-6 months the price of an 8800 will go down dramatically.

actually ATi had to do another respin so we might see the 80nm nVidia refresh first. As for when either ATi or nVidia will launch their midranges :shrug: :shrug: