5900 Ultra now or wait for R360?

[dwb122]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: dwb122
What kind of cooling would be necessary to OC a 9800 to Pro speed?

Stock cooling should do fine.

Okay, so if it "doesn't work", could it potentially damage my card, or do I just lower it and I'll be fine?

 

[Lonyo]

Wait until the actualy games are out before buying based on them!!!!

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: dwb122

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: dwb122
What kind of cooling would be necessary to OC a 9800 to Pro speed?

Stock cooling should do fine.

Okay, so if it "doesn't work", could it potentially damage my card, or do I just lower it and I'll be fine?

You won't damage your card as long as you're careful. For example if you o/c the core to 380'ish and you notice artifacting then that will be a sign that you've hit an overclocking wall and should back down a bit. What I recommend is you increment your core by 10 mhz and your memory by 5 mhz and test for artifacts in various games. Once you feel there are no artifacts, clock it higher until you do get some. Once you have determined the max core/mem speed, then I'd suggest backing off by about 5 mhz or so. That's generally what I do and it's worked fine for me over the years.

 

[screw3d]

It would be stupid for the developers to release games that would only run on top-tier hardware...

How many of the general PC gamer population actually own anything more than gf4 ti4600 or radeon 9500pro?

Therefore.. get the R9700pro or above.. it should run almost anything for the coming year with reasonable level of eye-candy turned on..

 

[dwb122]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: dwb122

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: dwb122
What kind of cooling would be necessary to OC a 9800 to Pro speed?

Stock cooling should do fine.

Okay, so if it "doesn't work", could it potentially damage my card, or do I just lower it and I'll be fine?

You won't damage your card as long as you're careful. For example if you o/c the core to 380'ish and you notice artifacting then that will be a sign that you've hit an overclocking wall and should back down a bit. What I recommend is you increment your core by 10 mhz and your memory by 5 mhz and test for artifacts in various games. Once you feel there are no artifacts, clock it higher until you do get some. Once you have determined the max core/mem speed, then I'd suggest backing off by about 5 mhz or so. That's generally what I do and it's worked fine for me over the years.

I've read that on videocards it's the speed of the memory that acts as the biggest bottleneck. Is that true, and wouldn't that mean you should just increase your mem speed first?

 

[dwb122]

Originally posted by: marvie
It would be stupid for the developers to release games that would only run on top-tier hardware...

How many of the general PC gamer population actually own anything more than gf4 ti4600 or radeon 9500pro?

Therefore.. get the R9700pro or above.. it should run almost anything for the coming year with reasonable level of eye-candy turned on..

Yeah I know, but I want good framerates at high detail, and like I said, I'm willing to pay for it.

 

[dwb122]

Another thing, how is the 9800 Pro in terms of OCing? The same?

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: dwb122
Another thing, how is the 9800 Pro in terms of OCing? The same?

That's hard to answer because it's a luck of the draw. If the 9800 np comes with good memory modules, you'll hit nearly the same o/c as a 9800 pro. If not, you'll get less headroom out of it. Typically 9800 pro from what I've seen gets around 420 max on core for stock cooling and ~370-400 on memory. Core overclock always helps with AF performance at high resolutions so the more the better. It also helps achieve a higher fillrate score.

 

[dwb122]

Well I just got back from Best Buy with the ATI 9800 card. Thanks for the advice.

Are there any good/essential utilities and stuff that I should be using to OC the 9800?

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: dwb122
Well I just got back from Best Buy with the ATI 9800 card. Thanks for the advice.

Are there any good/essential utilities and stuff that I should be using to OC the 9800?

Congrats, I'd suggest R3D Tweak, that's what I use and it has a built in overclocker: http://www.rage3d.com/r3dtweak/ Also be sure to take a look at this thread: http://rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33689381 since it talks about overclocking the 9800np and flashing it to a 9800 pro.