Asus 6800XT

Alright, so I just ordered my Asus 6800XT a few days ago and am expecting it Thursday or Friday. My question is, essentially, one of cooling.

The card has 300 on the core and 700 on the RAM, however the AGP version (which is the one I ordered) only has DDR-1. Obviously this will inhibit my overclockability on the RAM quite a bit, but I figured I'd at least try.

So... can anybody recommend a nice RAMsink solution? I think I'll only need four sinks, since the other four BGA modules seem to be placed under the main HSF

Also, I was planning to get one of those nifty PCI coolers, you know the ones that sit adjacent to your video card and blow air using a couple 80 or 92mm fans? Well I've only found the ghetto one-fan, or 60mm solutions. Alright, so I did find one 2x80mm one, but it was all oddly colored, translucent, and I think glowed. I'm not looking for ghetto here, so does anybody know where to find one of those... more "proper" plain-looking dual 80mm PCI coolers from? It doesn't seem NewEgg has any, and I've also tried Xioxide as well as FrozenCPU with no luck.

Third, if anybody knows of perhaps a third-party cooler I could use? Prefferably one that will block as few BGA modules as possible, and no I don't think I was to go with a VGA Silencer... let's just say I had a bad experience with one of them on a 9700 Pro.

Finally, if anybody has any advice in overclocking the 6 series, I'd appreciate it. Obviously the XT will be a slightly different animal, due to it's DDR-1 RAM, but the core is essentially still the same (just with 4 pipes locked), so I figured general GeForce 6 knowledge might help out.

Thanks in advance for any help you guys can provide... my 9000 Pro is, obviously, in a different league, haha, and I haven't had a taste of a real card since the aforementioned 9700 Pro.

Well one of the first things to do is unlock the pipes via rivatuner and see if they are good (remember you will need to unlock the 4 pixel pipes AND the 1 Vertex shader.)

As for cooling, see what it can do stock and if you get far then think about cooling because ramsinks help but... only over long durations of time (they really don't help alot getting the overclock as they do maintaining the life of the overclock.)

AS for cooling/ramsinks i'll look around (since you don't want the nvsilencer5)

Thanks, I'll try to post a pic of the PCI fans I was looking for, if I can find them again. I'll also try Directron, but finding specifics on there is a nightmare... who knows? =|

Here is the PCI cooler I was thinking of:

Well that looks good and should help your OC. Now all that's left is to crank it up

im (most likely) getting a 6800XT as well...

that rivatuner u speak of...thats a software MOD?

also, it has to be able do be done with PCIe...of course...right...?

bikinistud said:

Well that looks good and should help your OC. Now all that's left is to crank it up

Click to expand...

That isn't MY setup, that's the kind of dual-fan setup next to the video card I want. I think they sell solutions like that, but he might've made it... not sure.

And yeah, the PCIe version of the XT is actually more succesful in unlocking pipelines, as well as overclocking. The AGP version is essentially the *******-child, since it only uses DDR1 VRAM, and is natively AGP.

I am starting to get serious about Ebaying my X700 Pro and I was thinking of getting a 6600GT, but I am seeing the Asus 6800XT as well as an EVGA version as well for about the same price as a 6600GT.


Would you guys recomend the 6800XT over the 6600GT? This is AGP BTW. I figure the DDR1 ram can only set it back so much, and it has a 256bit memory bus also.

I saw that this is an 8 pipe card but it can be unlocked to 12 pipes? Is there a certain card I need to do this or will all 6800XT's pretty much unlock?


Also, damn nice timing, I was going to start a thread about this earlier when the search didn't turn up anything, I came back and whoops, here was this thread.

Well like I said in another post, it basically comes down to whether you want to use AA/AF or not. I'm not sure if the 6800XT is as likely or not to unlock as, say, a 6600GT. The majory difference (AGP) between the two is basically 200Mhz on the core in favor of the GT, and 100(200 effective)Mhz on the RAM, also in favor of the GT. However, the XT has a 256-bit memory bus, whereas the GT only has a 128-bit. Therefore, while both cards are essentially within 5% of each other performance-wise, the GT has more potential in that it isn't bottlenecked by it's memory bandwidth like the GT is.

With this being said, I'd imagine if the XT went to 400 on the core, and I do beleive it does, then it should be the priority choice. And while the XT's RAM is clocked lower, it's much more effective than the GT's due to it's double-sized memory bus. I do have concerns about the GT's overclockability, however, as DDR-1 VRAM seems to top out at about 700-800 as it is, and stock is 700Mhz. If you want to wait, I can let you know how my card does, it's expected Thursday or Friday (shipped today). The only problem with this idea is that, while I can acquire air cooling in general for the card, I'm not sure if I can get ahold of RAMsinks in time. However, as stated above, the core seems to be the bottleneck on the XT, and so that's what I'll focus on.

Ok... a 6800XT is VERY likely to unlock the pipes (my BFG OC 6800 unclocked the pipes/vetex shader but the pipes were broken... I think this is due to me buying the card the first week it was out and people have shown to have more luck lately due to higher yields/binning but of course there is no guarantee)

I CAN guarantee you will only get 8 pipes with the 6600gt... there physically are no more pipes in that chip (it's a totally different chip.)

@ @md0Cer: So if you have the choice of which card to get, get the 6800xt. You will have better performance with it in the long run due to more pipes and at least the POSIBILITY to unlock the extra 4 pipes (assuming that they are good.) And as for the memory... the 6600GT benefits from having GDDR3 but not as much as you would think. If you can OC the DDR1 on the XT at all (even if you don't) the XT will beat it in almost every situation and has more potential IMHO of going faster (IE overclocking, PIPES/Vertex shader) than the 6600GT (it is so heavily clocked now that there isn't much head room for improvement and you CANNOT unlock pipes/vertex)

@ MeatTheEB: How has overclocking gone for you?

I won't get the card until Thursday or Friday, thus the reason for the post, and asking about GeForce 6/PCI slot cooling. =)

Sweet, I am going to work on getting an ebay account up and running this weekend and try to sell the X700Pro, once it sells for what I want it to sell for, I am definitely going to get the 6800XT then. Thanks for all the info guys!

MeatTheEB, I sure hope yours overclocks well. If it does and the pipes do unlock, I think I will just buy the same version, the Asus is about the same price as the EVGA, so if your Asus works out ok, I might as well get the same card too.

Well, I have the card installed, she's so beautiful, but now Windows has decided to be retarded, so it might be a while before I can get to PLAYING.

Alright, so I have the card and she is installed. I will post some brief info, and then follow-up after a while with benchmarks.

Stock temperatures are decent, considering they are using the stock cooler.
The core is running at about 52c/125f idle.
The VRAM is running at about 46c/114f idle.
The ambient temps are maybe 15c... the window is open, which is making it colder, because otherwise my ambient temps are terribly high.

The core's stock speed is 300, and the VRAM stock speed is 350(700) on the AGP version of this card. As far as noise level goes, the Asus 6800XT is very quiet, and is in fact inaudible when compared to my CPU fan, either of my 120mm (quiet) system fans, or my PSU fan, making the cooler on this card is the quietest in my entire system.

The temps running at full load were suprisingly similar to those of idle.



The core is running at about 53c/127f full load.
The VRAM is running at about 48c/118f full load.
The ambient temps haven't really changed.

This is without any kind of cooling on the VRAM, by the way, as the stock cooler doesn't seem to touch any of the modules... certainly something we can fix.

I'd like to add that after running 3DMark01 a few times, I received awkward scores, and then remembered that my Windows installation is long past-due for a reformat, and my 2500+ Barton is holding my peformance back. Luckily, all is not lost, as my 3000+ Athlon64 is set to arrive next week. I'll focus on some overclocking for now, and run the gamut of 3DMarks then.

So far I've been able to hit 400/800, which is an increase of 100Mhz on the core and 50(100)Mhz on the VRAM. Not a bad increase, and honestly if I would've gotten 350/800 I would have been happy. At 400/800, there seems to be no sign of slowing down, and the temperatures are as a modest 53c/127f on the core, as well as 49c/120f on the VRAM, full load. Remember, this is with stock cooling... I have not yet applied Arctic Silver 5, RAMsinks, or a new HSF.

I plan to do some extensive, erhm.. "testing" (aka "gaming") this evening, to make sure no artifacts take place, and if all goes well (which I assume it will) then I'll try going above the 400/800 mark tommorrow.

So far I am very pleased with this card. At stock speeds, with the other four pipelines supposedly unlocked (but no discernable performance increase detected... will wait until I have a clean format and Athlon64 to test this more thoroughly) I have been able to bump up my World of Warcraft (shush) settings from the following:

1152x864
'Very Low'
0xAA, 0xAF

to

1152x864
'Very High'
2xAA, 8xAF (or 16x? not sure what WOW uses for it's topped-out AF)

With absolutely no signs of slowing down. This is a large increase for sure, and if you're wondering why the weird resolution, well that's the sweet spot for my monitor: 100hz refresh. <3

I'll post more tommorrow regarding any additional overclocking, and I'll probably crack the HSF off and change up the thermal grease for some temp increases.

I don't have official benchmarks to post yet (again, waiting on Athlon 64, should come Tuesday or Wednesday), but I will give an update on the pipeline unlocking situation.

I haven't tested it thoroughly enough to consider it working under my standards, but after brief testing it appears all 16 Pixel Pipelines are unlockable on this revision card. Also, one of the extra two Vertex Pipelines was able to be unlocked.

If you'll notice, I had trouble with the initial fifth Vertex Pipeline, and had to switch it out for the other one.




Again, 5 Vertex Pipelines and 12 Pixel Pipelines confirmed without artifacts, but I haven't tested all 16 Pixel Pipelines thoroughly enough to determine if they are indeed enabled.

Either way, this card has turned into a 6800NU at the very minimum, if not a 6800GT (without some of the VRAM clock, of course). Not bad for a $129 video card on stock cooling! Just wait until I get the nV Silencer Revision 3 next week.