6800 GT - The Flagship?

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 05:38:42 GMT, Damaeus
<no-> wrote:

>In news:alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia, Folk <> posted on
>Sun, 06 Feb 2005 13:38:01 -0500:
>
>> That's $75 for virtually nothing, since every 6800 GT I've ever heard
>> of easily does Ultra speeds.
>
>How overclockable is the GeForce 5600XT (Chaintech)? I figure I might as
>well overclock it a little while prepare to purchase upon a 6800 Ultra.
>Nearly doubling my CPU speed and increasing my bus speed from 266 to 400
>MHz didn't help framerates at all, it seems.
>
>Damaeus

I don't have a clue, sorry.

On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 21:43:01 GMT, "Iain Dingsdale"
<> wrote:

>
>"Folk" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>> On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 07:20:15 GMT, Damaeus
>> <no-> wrote:
>>
>>>In news:alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia, "Tom Dauphin"
>>><> posted on Sun, 06 Feb 2005 02:05:34 GMT:
>>>
>>>> Have to agree that the EVGA 6800GT is a great card - In fact, any EVGA
>>>> card
>>>> is tops in my book. Have it OC'd to 6800 Ultra specs and a bit more with
>>>> not
>>>> so much as a hiccup!!!
>>>
>>>$388 for this card at newegg.com doesn't sound bad at all. But then the
>>>true 6800 Ultra is only $464. :-)
>>
>> That's $75 for virtually nothing, since every 6800 GT I've ever heard
>> of easily does Ultra speeds.
>
>but what sort of speeds will the ultra do?

It's a crapshoot. It's kind of like processors. If Intel announces a
range of speed grades based on the same core, like 2.8, 3.0 and 3.2
Ghz respectively, then most 2.8's will do 3.0, quite a few 3.0's will
do 3.2, but there will be quite a few 3.2's that will go no higher
than 3.2. So there's no guarantee of a good O/C on the Ultra.

Damaeus wrote:

>>That's $75 for virtually nothing, since every 6800 GT I've ever heard
>>of easily does Ultra speeds.
>
> How overclockable is the GeForce 5600XT (Chaintech)? I figure I might as
> well overclock it a little while prepare to purchase upon a 6800 Ultra.
> Nearly doubling my CPU speed and increasing my bus speed from 266 to 400
> MHz didn't help framerates at all, it seems.

Raising the clock on the 5600XT will get you maybe 1 or 2 fps more. The
6800GT is A LOT faster. I bought a Leadtek 6800GT, which has 350/1000 as
standard speeds. Using the auto-overclock util that came bundled with
the card, it defaults to 410/1100, which is higher than the standard
Ultra speeds. Did I mention the 6800GT is waaaayyyy faster than your
5600? Don't prepare a purchase of an Ultra, get a GT. Even if it doesn't
quite reach Ultra speeds, it's still a sound investment.
Then your bottleneck will be the CPU again

In news:alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia, RJT <>
posted on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:42:27 +0100:

> Raising the clock on the 5600XT will get you maybe 1 or 2 fps more. The
> 6800GT is A LOT faster. I bought a Leadtek 6800GT, which has 350/1000 as
> standard speeds. Using the auto-overclock util that came bundled with
> the card, it defaults to 410/1100, which is higher than the standard
> Ultra speeds. Did I mention the 6800GT is waaaayyyy faster than your
> 5600? Don't prepare a purchase of an Ultra, get a GT. Even if it doesn't
> quite reach Ultra speeds, it's still a sound investment.
> Then your bottleneck will be the CPU again

Jeezus, when does it end? :-)

I think I remember when the GeForce 2 Ultra and the ATI equivalent were
out... the guys on TechTV, IIRC, were saying that they thought graphics
cards had gotten to be about as good as they needed to be and that there
really wasn't much more to improve on. How wrong they were. Of course, I
might have misheard or something, but...

Anyway, I don't think GPU development is anywhere close to being top notch.
When we can see characters so realistic that they're indistinguishable from
the real thing, played in real time where the controls of our keyboard
cause the character to move, and move in a realistic way -- not this
rotating animation we have now of a running character, and when we can zoom
in and zoom out without loss of resolution (zoom in to see pores on the
skin, and even further to see skin cells, etc...) then GPU's will be pretty
much a complete project. But that kind of realism may be 30 years away.
:-)

Damaeus