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View Full Version : EVGA 9800 GX2 Fun


jchunter
10-02-08, 10:47 AM
OK, you guys finally convinced me to fork over $$$ for a GX2. So far, I am impressed. This thing is a brick! :santa: It fit in the Antec 900 case with no real problems, after I moved a hard drive up to the top bay. My Thermaltake 850W PSU had a native 8-pin power lead and it powered right up.

I made the first few runs with the supplied 174.88 drivers, after running Driver Cleaner Pro to shovel out all the &^%* that Nvidia's uninstaller leaves behind.

I set up Rivatuner with new automatic fan speed profiles, 65%, 80%, and 100% and observed core temps of 54 deg idling. Version 2.10 displays GX2 Fan Speed incorrectly.

Ran 3DMark06 at stock settings and got 17732 score at at max quality setting (Nvidia ctl panel). Light overclocking yielded a score of 18474 with the GX2 at 691 / 1728 / 1100 (temp 69 deg) and the Q6600 at 3.5GHz. 1920x1200 got 17295 (7227, 7518, 5128) at 71deg. I noticed that pushing the clocks higher resulted in lower scores - almost as if the GX2 was throttling itself.:confused:

Crysis Benchmark
With my old 8800GTX, I used to run Crysis on Very High settings except for Shadows and Shaders, which were set at Medium. Crysis Benchmark scores were 33.5 Avg. fps and Min fps was 18.8.

In comparison, at the same settings, the GX2 was able to do 57.9 fps AVG and 30.5 fps Min.

I raised the Shadows and Shaders setting to High, the GX2 did 42 fps AVG and Min fps of 13.9.

Setting Shader quality to Very High resulted in Avg fps of 25.5 and Min fps of 10.9.

Warhead Benchmark (Beta .29)
I did a quick check with Shadows and Shaders at Very High (AKA Gamer settings) and noticed strange slowdowns. IMO, Warhead or the Benchmark has some software "issues" to fix.

Question:
Can one of the gurus on this forum tell me what is the best driver to use with the GX2? Nvidia supplied 174.88 on the CD but the website is saying 178.13 is correct. Which is it?

Caviman2201
10-02-08, 12:53 PM
I would run the 178.13 since it has PhysX support and some peformance increases over the older versions.

leftheaded
10-03-08, 09:47 AM
and you can warm your house with it! the rig in my sig keeps my room about 10-15F hotter than the rest of the house. good for winter, bad for summer. woohoo winter's coming!

jchunter
10-03-08, 04:39 PM
AOK on the 178-13 drivers. I installed them today and every performance measurement is a little better and more stable/repeatable. 3DMark06 is now 18000 at stock settings.

Crysis Benchmark is smoother. Warhead Benchmark works better, showing 42.8 fps with all settings on VERY HIGH, except Shadows and Shaders, which are set to HIGH. Max temperature was 71.

However, neither the Fan Speed nor the Fan duty cycle are displayed properly in RivaTuner 2.11. This makes it difficult to tell when RT is really controlling the GX2 fan speed according to core temperature. I experienced a couple of thermal "accidents" after I upgraded RT from 2.10 to 2.11. Somehow temperature control didn't work right until I uinstalled RT completely and manually deleted all the files that had never been deleted from past uninstalls. Things worked OK after I rebuilt all the thermostat settings from scratch.

Re the space heater effect, the GX2 doesn't seem hotter then the old 8800GTX.

Edit: The Kill A Watt meter reports the following power consumption of the 9800GX2 and Q6600 (OC: 3.5GHz) system as follows:
Idling Wall power 250W (200W net @ 80% eff)
Total Wall Power Crysis only: 375W (300W net)
Total Wall Power Crysis + Prime95: 460W (368W net)

dreamtfk
10-06-08, 12:22 PM
and you can warm your house with it! the rig in my sig keeps my room about 10-15F hotter than the rest of the house. good for winter, bad for summer. woohoo winter's coming!

It shouldn't give off as much heat when idle or just doing some internet surfing though should it? Unless your gaming 90% of the time lol