my situation, plan A then plan B

[motherboard1]

Hi, I dont know where to begin, so Ill just start rambling on

I got a 19" LCD Sceptre x9g komodo V from tiger direct

and although the pixel pitch (wich I didnt understand the importance of) has kind of got me down, if I had it to do again Id just go 17 inch for better pixel pitch so games like Rome wouldnt look ugly

but heres the situation, my games now have to be played at 1280 by 1024 but my old Gforce 5500 just cant handle it, I only average 25 fps on Americas army, so Id like to keep it that way, but uping the resolution ripps another big chunck out of my fps

and also with the increased pixel pitch, anti aliasing, especially in rome total war is now something Id like to use

so, Iv been on another forum asking for help picking out a good Card that will help me play my games at 1280 by 1024 res with a touch of anti aliasing

9600 pro seems to be pretty popular suggestion, but then I have to think about what OEM, cuz there is pro, sapphire, XT etc etc, and I dont know wich one is best, but a store in my area has an XT, so if that one were best, it would be convenient

then I have to consider that I am now useing an LCD, so any card with features, or software that could soften the pain of scaleing, or work with my LCD in any way , I would like to know about
does anybody know if any such software or features exist?

ok, so thats direction number one, get a new card, but that has actually become my plan B, so now Ill talk about why I went googleing for an Overclockers forum

Iv never overclocked anything before, and I know the Gforce 5500 is said to have heat issues so its probably a bad place to start, but it just dawned on me tonight while doing more video card research, that if I get a new card now, then my current 5500 is going to go to waste anyway, so why not just overclock the hell out of it and make it work for me, because if it burns out, **** it, Ill just move on to plan B, I was going to have to anyway right?

(I read the sticky thread and it said **s are ok so )

now, for a little more info on where I stand, I installed coolbits, and the factory frequencies are

270 mhz core , 286 mhz mem

ok, so while doing a little stick pokeing here, I hit the Detect optimal frequencies button, and this is what it comes up with

333 mhz core , 417 mhz mem

seems a little high to me, but what do I know, it also for some reason takes the liberty of dropping my monitors refresh rate to 60 down from its recommended 75 when I do this

so, Im not really worried about risking the the life of the card in exchange for increased ability to play games at my monitors native resolution, because as I said, the card is going to have to go if it cant cut it anyway

but what I want to know, what kind of risk is there that OCing the card could damage other system components, as I dont want the card to take my motherboard with it when it dies

and also, I have to wonder if my intended method of cooling this thing is a stupid idea, right now the cards heatsink has no fan because it died and I removed the fan, but I rigged an 80mm fan to blow directly on the heat sink from about 5mm away, seems to keep it cool, that is to say the heatsink never seems to get warm to the touch

do you think an 80mm fan does a better job than one of those little fans? probably but I figured this is where the experience is so I might as well ask

the rest of the project will consist of me going out and buying like 3 ice packs wich I will alternate out of the freezer and some how rig up to the end of a tube, wich will lead to the intake side of the 80mm fan, to keep the fan takeing in cool air instead of shooting warm air back onto the heat sink again


-----------------------------
so, I guess I should sum it up now

do you think the ice packs/tube leading to fan will have any effect at all at cooling the air, enough to make it worth useing them, or do you have better ideas that dont involve me buying a cooling device that costs as much as a new card

wich 9600 model would be the best choice, and Im gonna want to go with a 256mb of ram not 128, as I read somewhere that more vid ram is better for higher resolutions, dont know if its true or not

do the frequencies 333 mhz core, 417 mhz mem for this card sound sain to you guys, or am I just as well to take it out and stomp on it as to set those frequencies

will Over OCing my card risk the life of my motherboard

does anybody know if any such software or video card features exist that improve images that will be displayed on my LCD, such as anything that eases the pain of LCD scaleing, or improves DVD/MPGs viewing

are you still awake

 

[darksparkz]

9600XT > 9600Pro > 9800

Sapphire is the name of a brand that makes ATi cards. Probably the original ATi Radeons would be the best brand, but Sapphire would be second in line, then VisionTek.

So it looks like you'll be using a AGP card, the 9600XT goes up to as much as $150. You might want to consider the AGP verison of the nvidia 6800GS, it should do what you want it to do.

And yes, I'd say if you really do have that 80mm fan 5mm away from your heatsink, it should do better then the small built on fans on the heatsink.

I don't think having a ice pack would improve your OCing for your 5500. Try using this program called rivatuner, find it from www.majorgeeks.com. It shows temps and it might OC better then coolbits. You shouldn't use Detect Optimal Frequencies to find your highest OC. You need to push up clocks by a little bit then use benchmarks to test stability:
1) Download rivatuner and 3dMarks05, or probably 3dMarks03 for your older card.
2) Open rivatuner and open the temp monitoring graphs, make sure your temps do not go over 70C.
3) Use rivatuner and move up your core clock speed by 5mhz
4) Test using 3dMarks03 and record score
5) Keep moving it up by 5mhz and test 3dMarks03 and record score until you start noticing a score decrease, artifcating (white snow or dots on the screen), and/or temps going over 70C.
6) Once any of the above mentioned happens, turn it off for a few minutes to let it cool down, then turn it back on and start off at your last safe setting you recorded, then bump up 1mhz until artificating/score decrease happens.
7) After all that, you'd find the highest core clock speed
8) Repeat the above procedue, but put core clock speed at stock speeds and only move up memory clock speed.
9) Then combine both your highest core clock speed and highest memory clock speed and test it, if it fails, push it down by 1mhz and keep testing.
10) Source: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=398013

OCing can risk the life of your motherboard, but only on rare occasions. If you have a weak PSU, it can risk the life of a buncha components.

I recommend you post your computer specs on your signature so we know what your working with.

 

[motherboard1]

Thanks for the help

just added my sig, testing it now

by the way, what do you think would be the better heat sink, I have 2 I could use, one is the origional Gforce5500 heatsink minus the working fan, or another is a Gforce 2 heatsink without fan

do you think the Gforce 2 heatsink would be better, because it didnt have a fan you could reason the heatsink must have had to be better, plus there is no hole in the middle for a fan, but I still dont know

I could use that temperature monitoring utility you recommended and test both heatsinks, but if one is likely to be better than the other, Im not gonna bother testing both, Im just gonna use that one and not look back

or I could even try and rig up a CPU heatsink/fan to it, but be a little more of a chor though

either way something is getting cut up for ram sinks

oh, and one more thing, above you said 9600XT > 9600pro > 9800

just want to make sure your useing the " > " mathimatically, so your saying that 9600XT is better than 9600 is better than 9800

or are you useing them as arrows to point forward, where forward is better ?

 

[chevro1et]

The XT is the top model, then pro, and -no extension- the weakest. This is for each card series... 9800 series better than 9600 series.
What kinda temps do you get with your ghetto cooling (the 80mm rig)? It may work just as well/ better than the other optins you presented.

Cheers.

 

[motherboard1]

dont know, Iv been broweing the net most the night, didnt test the temps yet, just checked back into this thread now one last time before I get some shut eye

I couldnt get any thermal glue today, and tommorow is sunday, I was gonna wait till I could get the Ram sinks glued on there before OCing it, Ill have to report progress tommorow or monday

 

[motherboard1]

what do you guys think about a 9600XT Powercolor, I could get that now, or I could wait a week for a Sapphire (they got em on back order)

guy at the store said a regular 9600XT would probably out perform it, but why?

 

[motherboard1]

Ok, its been a while, I couldnt get my hands on any thermal glue anywhere around here, and the store near me did not have the 9600 XT as advertized on the web site (they seriouly need to update it )

they told me they would order one in for me, I waited over a week and then called em back, they said that they werent available, they dont think ATI is makeing them anymore, but that they had a few 9600 pro's comeing in a few days

but, another store has a powercolor 9600 XT that I could go buy today

I looked at the stats of the powercolor XT, and it seems to have the same core and mem clock as the other 9600 XTs but before I buy it, I want to give someone a chance to stop me and tell me that there is a reason I shouldnt, or that the saphire/regular 9600 XT is better than the power color 9600 XT

-----

ouch ! never mind , this particular stores price for the powercolor 9600 XT is outrageous, they want 259$ for it, I guess they are liveing in the past, Ill just have wait a few more days for the 9600 pro's to come in for 108$ Cdn, or go shopping online

 

[motherboard1]

I have some oppoxy out in the barn, I could apply thermal grease wich I do have, then clamp the Ramtsinks onto the ram, and put some oppoxy around the edges of the Ram/Ramsinks

this is what I decided I want to do, rather than waiting for a little tube of thermal adhesive to arrive

but I have to know, is oppoxy normally conductive? I dont want to ruin my Card to find out.............. but I will

you have 14 hours to answer, or the card gets it

 

[motherboard1]

Ok, finally getting around to some overclocking

I dont have a heat monitoring plugin so rivatuner doesnt show my heat

Iv since overclocked the core from 270/300

problem is, my 3Dmark03 scores are all over the place, well sort of, but they mostly just say within 10 or so points

Ill get 1020, then 1014 then 1018 then 1022 then 1018, all the while increaseing by 5hz

the diffrent sub results also differ, some will go up by a couple of decimal points, while others will go up and down

CPU makes the biggest changes, 336, 326, 327, 332 but that no difference I guess

oh well, Ill oppoxy the heat sinks on tommorow and try OCing the memory

by the way, it doesnt give me the option of low power 3D overclocking, only performance 3D and 2D, I guess that doesnt matter?

============

didnt want to go to bed just yet, so I bumped the memory from 286/295

this gave me a score of 1056

then I bumped it up to 300, this gave me a score of 1050

so out of curiosity, I ran the test again right away without changing anything

it came up 1069

and this 19 point increase is not due to the CPU because the cpu score only changed by 1 point between these 2 tests in wich nothing had been changed

this is going to be a hard go, trying to find the best settings when the results fluctuate so much between 2 tests when nothing has even been changed

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

about the 9600xt at the local store, how much do they want for it? have you looked to see what the same $$ would get you online, like from newegg or similar?

*edit* just read more closely, are you limiting yourself to $100cdn? if so, i'm not sure you will get MUCH of an upgrade. a 9600xt is a faster card than what you have now, but it will by no means impress you, especially not in newer games at 1280x1024.

i would look for maybe a 9800pro or 9800xt maybe off of ebay, a 9700pro is also a lot better than a 9600xt, but may be harder to find. if i were you, i would bite the bullet and try to find a cheap x800pro or like someone said one of the cheaper 6800's (sorry, don't know much about those, someone else can give you a good one).

 

[motherboard1]

no Im not limiting myself to 100 Cdn, and the 9600XT was 137, the pro is 108, but they were out of stack on both when I want, but they said they have some more pro version should be in tommorow actually

and I wasnt looking to be impressed , comeing from my current card wich runs stalk 270 core and 286 mem, I would consider 500 core and 600 mem (the XTs) a pretty big improvement

I just want the games to be playable, they dont have to be beautifull

anyway, I dont really want to spend much more money on this machine, it would end up just being a waste if I get a socket 939 system in the future and have to buy a PCI express card

so this is why I dont want to spend much on an AGP card right now

I mostly just need the games Iv been playing all along, to be playable at my new monitors Native Res

=----------

can anyone tell me if it would be entirely unsafe to use a couple dabs of oppoxy to glue the Ramsinks to the Ram?

I would have thermal grease on the surface faces of course, but then I would apply a tiny bit of oppoxy around the outside edges on the sides where there is no circuitry

 

[b1029384756]

This'd be what you're looking for:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1182887&CatId=0

If you don't mind spending a bit more ($169CDN), you'll get more than double the performance of the 9600XT. It's worth it, and you can always find someone looking to buy them when you're done with it. For Ramsinks, just buy some thermal epoxy.

 

[motherboard1]

ya I tried everywhere around here for thermal adhesive, nobody has any, I would have to buy it online, and I dont want to wait

but thanks for the link

128mb memory though? I see that its DDR3, but I have to ask what games or applications will be hindered by 128mb ?

since my ancient card has 256mb of memory, I have to wonder am I sacrificeing to much RAM to get this card/price

by the time it gets here, Ill have paid 240$, and I cant get the 20$ Rebate because I recently bought my LCD from that site, and used a Rebate, and its one a year per household from tigerdirect I think

so Id be paying twice as much as I would for the pro, but getting more than twice the performance, hmm

how does this card play the newest games, and is there such thing as a PCI-E > VGA adaptor? Id have no problem buying that card if I knew it would be good for a while, because hopeing that one of my friends will buy it from me when I go Socket939 is kind of a gamble

 

[Papier]

To be perfectly honest, having more than 128mb of video ram for these types of cards is a waste. The reason why is because they're just not fast enough to process that much ram. The latest cards can handle 256mb and even 512mb quite well because they're fast enough to need them.

 

[motherboard1]

that makes sence I suppose, I guess when I bought the 256mb version of this Geforce 5500 fx a couple years back, I was just buying up Nvidias old RAM

that and big numbers impress small minds , guess they got me

another opotion is a 128mb/128 bit 9800 pro for about 170 CDN,, and thats over here so I dont have to worry about shipping, how does it measure up along side that 6600 GT and 9600 XT

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

if all you are trying to do is limp this system along untill you do a real upgrade down the line, then ya, a 9600pro would be fine. it should play older games no sweat, and newer games, you can sacrafice a bit on the IQ and run them at lower resolutions than your monitors native res. i wouldn't get the xt over the pro, chances are they will both oc the same anyhow.

if you could swing the 6600, it would be much better, but $240 after tax and shipping seems like a bit much to me.

i would still keep my eyes peeled for a nice used 9800pro off of ebay. find a reliable seller and you are set. they are selling for around $125cdn, here's a link:
http://search.ebay.ca/search/search.dll?ht=1&from=R4&saatc=2&satitle=9800pro&sacat=58058&catref=C6

*edit* just wanted to add, most of those 9800's are new^^. a 9800pro smokes any 9600, no matter how much its oc'd, and it is slower than a 6600gt, but not by a HUGE amount. someone with first hand experience would be able to give you a better idea.

 

[motherboard1]

right on, youve all been a great help thanks, most the blanks are filled in, now its just up to me to weigh things out in my mind

one more question though, what did you mean when you said "most" 9800s are new? I would have assumed a 9800 is a 9800

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

sorry i meant new as in not used. it is ebay after all. lots of the cards with the "buy it now" option are just online retailers that use ebay. those cards would still be covered by ati for the standard warranty.

*edit* also wanted to say, your idea about the thermalgrease/epoxy/superglue for the ramsinks is good. lots of ppl do it that way. just use the glue sparingly, and dont think you are ever taking them off

 

[b1029384756]

A 9800 Pro is faster than a 9600XT, but the 128-bit memory bus cripples it and won't make it all that much faster. The 6600GT has the same 128-bit memory bus, but the newer generation core as well as much faster clock speeds allows it to overcome this limitation. As far as the about of onboard RAM, 128MB is fine for you. 256MB is useful, but mostly at much higher resolutions that you'd be able to run on your LCD anyway. If you'd be paying $240CDN for a 6600GT, you're getting ripped off. You should be able to find it for well under $200CDN. I don't know where to find the best deals in Canada, so you'll need to look around to find that, but that's the route I'd take.

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

9800pro's have 256bit memory, so does a 9700pro.

some 9800's do have a 128bit bus, i think thed 9800se, but pro's are 256.