BFG 6800GT OC [PCI-Express] -- Which drivers should I use?

[sofakng]

Two questions...

1) Which drivers should I use with my BFG 6800GT OC [PCI-Express] video card? Should I always upgrade to BFG drivers to can I/should I switch to Nvidia reference drivers?

2) If I switch to Nvidia reference drivers, does the card go back to default clock speed? (eg. will I lose the BFG overclocking?)

 

[XBoxLPU]

BFG doesn't have drivers

I would suggest the latest driver from nvidia's site

 

[sofakng]

I'm very confused then... How are the BFG cards overclocked? I thought it was done through software. (since you can overclock any Geforce card...) ...and if it IS done through software, I would think that installing default Nvidia drivers would set the card up for default clock speeds...

 

[302efi]

Card makers set the speeds of the card in the bios

 

[sofakng]

Ahhh, ok... but you can *override* the bios setting then? ...and that is how software over-clocking works?

 

[302efi]

Originally posted by: sofakng
Ahhh, ok... but you can *override* the bios setting then? ...and that is how software over-clocking works?

Well theres really 2 ways to overclock a Vid card:

Software---which is driver level

Hardware---which is bios level

To answer your question yes, you can overclock with CoolBits or Rivatuner ect via driver level (this pretty much the safe way to overclock)

OR

You could mod you cards bios or flash you cards bios with one that has gaster clock speeds (WARNING: this is for advanced users, you can kill a card in a sec with a bad bios flash***)

 

[Rookie]

I'm curious as to the recommended drivers for this card as well...

 

[MDE]

Just use Nvidia's drivers. If you try downloading them from BFG they'll just link you to Nvidia.

 

[Rookie]

but there are tons of driver releases... what's the most stable and full featured driver set?

 

[Solutions]

Originally posted by: Rookie
but there are tons of driver releases... what's the most stable and full featured driver set?

I think the best driver is going to come down to the particular components on your system. I don't think there is one "magic" driver that works the best for each and every video card revision.

You need to run some benchmarks (3DMark05, PCMark04, etc) while using different drivers and then compare your results. Whichever yielded the highest score would most likely be the best driver for you.

Check out http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=10 for some of the newest nVidia drivers (These work for ALL nVidia based video cards, regardless of who makes them). They are not certified by Microsoft but I haven't had ANY problems using them. 71.25 & 71.40 worked great on my PC and increased my 3DMark05 score significantly compared to the 66.93 Windows/nVidia certified drivers.

 

[Rookie]

Right now I am running the 71.25's as the 71.80 didn't support my 2005fpw (native resolution) properly. So far so good... no benchies yet though.

 

[McArra]

VXG 71.20b are probably the very best avaible. you can find them in guru3d