Finally Broke Down...

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madmattd
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Finally Broke Down...

Post by madmattd »

I finally had enough of my SLI'd 9800 GT's and the fail Nvidia drivers for them with regards to TF2. For those who don't know or don't remember, the 8000 and 9000 series apparently all had this issue where the driver would randomly crash for 10-15 seconds, leaving a blank screen, looping 1 second sound clip of the last sound, and then eventually a return to your program. This has been going on for at least 2 years, getting progressively worse.

This also happens with Youtube videos now too, though idk if I can really blame drivers on that when the problem started a couple months ago and I haven't updated drivers in 8 months. My friend with 8700s SLI'd also has the same issues (well he hasn't played TF2 in forever, but he did have the issue then).

Anyway, out with the still plenty powerful 9800s and in with a shiny new Gigabyte 560TI overclocked from 822 to 900 mHz core.
New SOC 560TI
New SOC 560TI
Before with 9800s
Before with 9800s
After, one 560TI
After, one 560TI
Well, it uses less power than the SLI, performs roughly twice as well as the SLI combo and peaks at about 60-65C under full graphics load. Versus the 70-90C under full load depending on which card (fanless ran cooler, lol).

Interestingly, my Vantage score went from a 12k overall (10K GPU, 32.2k CPU) to a whopping 21.6K (18.2K GPU, 48.6K CPU). WTF with the CPU score jumping like that? A friend of mine has the i7-2700K (not OC'd yet so at 3.4 with HT) that only scores a ~20K CPU with the 950 mHz version of this card (22K GPU).

Anyway, me likey. I might try and bump the core clock up to 950-1000 mHz, which many of these cards can pull off. Puts it over a GTX 570 and around a HD 6970 in performance at far less moneys. Should help me out should I decide to pick up Crysis and/or BF3.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product
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Newman
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Re: Finally Broke Down...

Post by Newman »

In before Stephen complains about cable management. lol

Grats on the card.
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madmattd
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Re: Finally Broke Down...

Post by madmattd »

Hey, cable management is improved...it's a lot of cables for the case size, most are being used...next PSU is gonna be a modular. Could I clean it up more? Yea, sure, but I'm lazy.
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Re: Finally Broke Down...

Post by madmattd »

Well I had crashes intermittently even before the SLI. It was a driver issue that everyone with 8800s and 9800s seemed to have....but it's a nice upgrade. Cooler, quiet, less power, smaller, and more powerful. Works for me. I shudder to envision 2 of these in SLI...around 35-40% more powerful than a 580 at a similar price point... (25% for stock clocks).
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Re: Finally Broke Down...

Post by Stephen »

that power supply looks sketchy to me
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Re: Finally Broke Down...

Post by madmattd »

Stephen wrote:that power supply looks sketchy to me
Yea? It's been running great for nearly 3 years, its an Antec 650W supply. Plenty for this card, and not a total crap brand. Yea, there are better. Next one I get when I need to change it will probably be a modular Corsair or similar.
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Re: Finally Broke Down...

Post by Mullet »

Looks nice Matt, Congratulations dude.
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Re: Finally Broke Down...

Post by Molimo »

Nice Upgrade, although I'm an ATI fan :P
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Re: Finally Broke Down...

Post by Lord Melchior »

I'm not sure what my problem is, but whenever I play TF2 it might crash, turn into a rave party, and then resume will all the textures in all the wrong places all messed up. D:

is sad.
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