advice on 8800 gts 640mb

[WelshBloke]

I am thinking of upgrading my graphics card, I've got an x1800xl at the mo.

I was thinking of getting an 8800 gts 640mb card from EVGA.

I've got a 24" dell monitor and run it at its native res most of the time( you can tell I'm not that sensitive to low FPS already cant you?).

I've pretty much always run ATI cards (with the odd 3DFX) and am a bit leery of the green teams drivers.

So basically are the 8800 drivers up to scratch.

Oh and I'm running vista.

Cheers


Update

Well the card came today and Ive got it installed.

I'm using the 158.24 drivers (god nV's driver naming scheme sucks) and they seem ok for now.

I also installed ntune 5.05.47 so I could monitor temps and whatnot but that seems a bit sucky so I got riva tuner which seems pretty good.

I havn't run a lot of thing yet but the card seems a bit of a beast!

It does run hot though seems to idle at 60c and its gone >75c under load!

The fan is quiet at 60% which it seems to run at all the time, but is really loud at 100% (more a woosh of air than fan noise really) but I wasnt expecting that after everyone has said how quiet it is.


So in short really pleased with the hardware (even looks the biz) not so happy with ntune (and a bit worried about the heat)

 

[MarcVenice]

Halo 2/Shadowrun ran fine on vista, but that makes sense no Also played medieval II: Total War and World in Conflict besides those 2 games, and they ran fine. Runnin x64 btw. Tomorrow I'm installing Lost Planet, I'll let you know how it runs, installed it on XP too, to compare it, in XP my 8800gts 320 ran it VERY very smooth with everything on high, including HDR, and with 4xaa, 16x fsaa.

Overall I haven't heard to much if any complaints as of late about the drivers in Vista. Your best bet is to google the games you regularly play with vista or 8800 drivers and see if you get a lot of 'recent' hits from people complaining about it.

 

[WelshBloke]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Halo 2/Shadowrun ran fine on vista, but that makes sense no Also played medieval II: Total War and World in Conflict besides those 2 games, and they ran fine. Runnin x64 btw. Tomorrow I'm installing Lost Planet, I'll let you know how it runs, installed it on XP too, to compare it, in XP my 8800gts 320 ran it VERY very smooth with everything on high, including HDR, and with 4xaa, 16x fsaa.

Overall I haven't heard to much if any complaints as of late about the drivers in Vista. Your best bet is to google the games you regularly play with vista or 8800 drivers and see if you get a lot of 'recent' hits from people complaining about it.

Thanks, sounds good. I'm not worried about a small performance hit for vista as that would be mitigated by it being a much better card than my present one.

I am mostly worried if they are stable yet, and it all sound promising so far.

Any more opinions people

 

[nitromullet]

Vista 32-bit and the 8800GTX has been pretty decent lately...

I've run the following on the rig in sig at 1920x1200 with no problems: WoW (BC), HL2:EP1, Lost Planet (DX10) demo, Overlord demo, Quake4 (Ultra quality kinda choppy for some reason), FarCry (w/ HDR+AA beta patch), URU Myst Online, UT2K4, FEAR, Infernal demo, and probably a few others I've forgotten about...

The only game I ever really have issues with is STALKER, and I'm don't think it's a video driver issue... It runs fine, except that when I hit F5 (or F6, I can't remember) to do a quick save it exits to the desktop.

 

[Extelleron]

Any of the problems I had (and they were minor to begin with) have been resolved by now. Running Vista 32-Bit, I have no problems with 8800GTS drivers. I just wish nVidia would do regular, monthly driver releases like AMD. nVidia releases beta drivers here and there, and hardly ever releases official drivers. The names are also confusing; ForceWare 163.11 is newer than 165.01, for example. The actual drivers themselves are pretty good, though.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Vista 32-bit and the 8800GTX has been pretty decent lately...

Quake4 (Ultra quality kinda choppy for some reason)

As a side note, I think that might have to do with your 2gb of RAM. I remember reading about someone who said Ultra quality for Q4 was choppy for him too; he then upgraded to 4gb RAM (actually 3gb) and he said it ran smoother.

 

[Noema]

No problems whatsoever for me on with my 8800GTS and Vista 64-bit. I normally play F.E.A.R., Oblivion and Company of Heroes.

 

[videopho]

Not perfect but I could use some more releases in order to get better.
My fav games (Fsx, Silent Hunter 4) still look like crap in Vista 64 as compared to XP's drivers.

 

[imported_Equinox]

I've been playing mostly old stuff lately - KOTORII:TSL, Sacred Underworld, and Dungeon Siege 2, but they all work great and look great. I did play the HL2 Cinematic Mod, too, and it looked fabulous all cranked at 1680x1050 with 16AF/8AA. Though I am totally and completely burned out on Oblivion, with all of the texture mods, etc. it looks exceptional. I have an 8800 GTS 640MB|AMD X2 5600+|2GB RAM|XP-SP2. I also have an 8600GTS/Vista box with a 4600+X2 and 2GB of RAM and it can acceptably play Lost Planet. It has had no trouble with Sacred, DS:2 or HL2, either, though those aren't exactly hard core

 

[imported_MadHatter]

I was a victim of the nvlddmkm blue screen errors with an 8600 GT in Vista 32bit. No one knows why some have FLAWLESS gaming machines and other get the error when playing ANY game.

It seems that it's a minority and mainly with nvidia 6 series MBs, but I have p965 chipset so go figure. Either way, be careful. 8800 is the cream of the crop, but be aware of the driver stop errors that the people here are having

Of course if you're running XP then go for it!

EDIT

Just realized that you're running vista

 

[postmortemIA]

I haven't had single problem with my 8800GTS in Vista, Xp, or Linux... but then I'm running Intel chipset on Intel mobo... it doesn't get more stable that that.

 

[BFG10K]

Current XP driver bugs.

 

[WelshBloke]

Originally posted by: Extelleron
Any of the problems I had (and they were minor to begin with) have been resolved by now. Running Vista 32-Bit, I have no problems with 8800GTS drivers. I just wish nVidia would do regular, monthly driver releases like AMD. nVidia releases beta drivers here and there, and hardly ever releases official drivers. The names are also confusing; ForceWare 163.11 is newer than 165.01, for example. The actual drivers themselves are pretty good, though.

That was something that worried me, but I guess I can just post here and ask you guys which driver is best


Anyway guess I'll get an 8800 gts

Wow first nV card in ,well, ever really :Q

 

[WelshBloke]

Well that was close, nearly ordered the hd 2900xt instead :shocked:

GTS should be here in a day or two :laugh:


sorry ATI :brokenheart:

 

[WelshBloke]

updated OP

 

[MarcVenice]

Yeah at 60% it isn't noticable, at 100% it is, but it never runs at 100% ... And mine idles at 60c too, mid 70's under load. Btw, how to monitor temps with rivatuner ?

 

[videopho]

Originally posted by: WelshBloke
I am thinking of upgrading my graphics card, I've got an x1800xl at the mo.

I was thinking of getting an 8800 gts 640mb card from EVGA.

I've got a 24" dell monitor and run it at its native res most of the time( you can tell I'm not that sensitive to low FPS already cant you?).

I've pretty much always run ATI cards (with the odd 3DFX) and am a bit leery of the green teams drivers.

So basically are the 8800 drivers up to scratch.

Oh and I'm running vista.

Cheers


Update

Well the card came today and Ive got it installed.

I'm using the 158.24 drivers (god nV's driver naming scheme sucks) and they seem ok for now.

I also installed ntune 5.05.47 so I could monitor temps and whatnot but that seems a bit sucky so I got riva tuner which seems pretty good.

I havn't run a lot of thing yet but the card seems a bit of a beast!

It does run hot though seems to idle at 60c and its gone >75c under load!

The fan is quiet at 60% which it seems to run at all the time, but is really loud at 100% (more a woosh of air than fan noise really) but I wasnt expecting that after everyone has said how quiet it is.


So in short really pleased with the hardware (even looks the biz) not so happy with ntune (and a bit worried about the heat)

First congrats on the new card.
Driver wise, it has yet much improved but Nvidiot has more work to do in order to get better.
Most of the games I play, FSx, Silent Hunter 4 etc. The Vista driver really shows its uglinesses. XP drivers are far better in these games as compared to Vista (64).
Your temps are just about normal for that card.
Mine is 50'ish c ide and border-line betwen 60c-70c load in games.
Rivatuner is by far the best 3rd party overclocker-ware, IMO.
Use it with caution as always with any overclock-ware.
Stay away from Ntune which is another POS from Nvidiot.
Do you plan to o/c the new card?
If so, fyi.. mine is now being o/c'ed at 615/1000 and stable, temps increase a degree or two from stock speed, otherwise there is nothing to worry about.
Enjoy your new card.

 

[WelshBloke]

Yeah at 60% it isn't noticable, at 100% it is, but it never runs at 100% ... And mine idles at 60c too, mid 70's under load. Btw, how to monitor temps with rivatuner ?

Good to know my temps are about average, thanks.

On the main rivatuner screen click the customize tab and click on hardware monitoring. It work well but isnt as intuitive as ATI tray tools (or I'm more used to ATT)

@videopho I'm not going to overclock just yet, its so far ahead of my old card I dont feel the need.

 

[chizow]

Glad you're enjoying the card.

You may want to check out the 162/163 Beta drivers @ nZone. I've been using the 163.11s for about a week and they've been great. Others have reported significant IQ and performance enhancements using them as well (I haven't bothered to bench them or anything).

Temps look pretty good, but for many those temps are what we see after OCing. Case cooling is the key to maintaining a healthy OC on a G80. You should really look into OC'ing it though since the GTS has ample headroom and really sees a tangible benefit when you crank up the core to @600.

 

[Noema]

You may want to check out the 162/163 Beta drivers @ nZone. I've been using the 163.11s for about a week and they've been great. Others have reported significant IQ and performance enhancements using them as well (I haven't bothered to bench them or anything).

I've been using 163.11 for about 3 days ( I was using 158.24) and fps in CoH got a nice 15% boost in DX10 in Vista 64-bit.

Game is still pretty much unplayable in DX10, though (it does look great), unless one owns a 8800GTX. I get 30fps average on my 8800GTS 640MB but the minimum frame rate is something like 4fps :Q.

Back to DX9 for me. I've pretty much given up all hope of playing DX10 games on my 8800GTS.

 

[WelshBloke]

Glad you're enjoying the card.

Sure am just about to install oblivion and crank the settings.

You may want to check out the 162/163 Beta drivers @ nZone. I've been using the 163.11s for about a week and they've been great. Others have reported significant IQ and performance enhancements using them as well (I haven't bothered to bench them or anything).

Thanks for that, the driver versions are confusing the hell out of me! I am not used to beta drivers coming from ATI.

Temps look pretty good, but for many those temps are what we see after OCing. Case cooling is the key to maintaining a healthy OC on a G80. You should really look into OC'ing it though since the GTS has ample headroom and really sees a tangible benefit when you crank up the core to @600.

I've a slot cooler I could install and most of my case fans are off at the moment. As I get more used to the card I'll start adjusting things.


Cheers all off to play now :laugh: