HIS X1900GT IceQ3----Anyone here got one ?

[JPB]

I ordered mentioned card and it will be here on Monday. Was wondering if anyone here has one and what the temps are ? I have the X1800XL now and wondering how they will compare. Also, how good is the HIS cooler for overclocking ? Thanks in advance

 

[acegazda]

Why did you upgrade to the x1900gt from the x1800xl, the latter is a very good card unless you have a big monitor, and the x1900gt is no better with larger resolutions. I would have gotten the x1900xt or the x1950pro when it comes out. HIS coolers are historically 1-3c better I believe? Noticably less noisy however.

 

[JPB]

Well, biggest reason of upgrading is because I wanted a Crossfire motherboard. So I chose the A8R32. So...since my dad's card went bad ( 9800Pro ) and I no longer needed my Abit AN8, id just give them to him. The X1800XL is a very good card, but in benches Ive saw, the GT does do quite better in alot of games ( probably due to shaders ) than the XL or the NV equivalent the 7800GT. Also, I wanted the support of not needing a master card. The noise isnt a concern of mine, just wondering about overclocking on the HIS mostly.

Edit: Im also about to get a 19-21 in CRT monitor. I know LCD's are better in some respect, but I like my colors and knowing ill never have ghosting. Once CRT's are prehistoric, ill go with LCD.

 

[Zenoth]

That'd be a minor, negligible upgrade.

The X1800XL is a great card at stock speeds, and since the first generation X1800XL's (hard to find by now though) are prototype X1800XT's, the Memory will over-clock to a tremendous amount, and the Core to an acceptable speed. That's because the Memory on the XL's is the exact same than that of the XT's (with only some differences in the circuits I believe, which makes the XL's Memory very similar to the XT, but needs more voltages, at least according to my experiences).

Mine has a 40 Mhz OC on the Core, and 130 Mhz OC on the Memory, and I pushed it at 175 Mhz OC once with more voltages, but it was running a bit hot for my own tastes (was 100% stable though). The X1800XL, once OC'ed like that performs very well, and my latest 3DMark05 score with it is around 8100'ish (7200'ish at stock). I really like it. And the 2nd generation XL's over-clock just as well on the Memory, and even better on the Core since they revised it for that generation and is stable over 550 Mhz Core (the first-gen XL's aren't).

The X1900GT is ok, of course. It's far from a bad card mate. But that card as an upgrade over a X1800XL isn't worth it at all. I'd rather save more money and go with X1900XT/X or X1950 Pro, or even more, just wait for the first-gen DX10 cards and see how they perform. Then once the DX10 cards are out, the current-gen GPUs' prices will go down and will be an even better deal to go with one of em'.

 

[PianoMan]

I think the IceQ will give you 1-3deg C. benefit (as acegazda said), but it's noticeably cooler. The stock cooler has very good cooling power, it just turns into a turbine when you turn the heat up. I purchased a IceQ mainly for the silence.

I've reached up to 690MHz on my XT (625MHz stock), so it does give you some headroom. I'm currently running at 650MHz - the heat this thing gave off compared to the performance gain I got with that extra 40MHz was enough for me to back off the clock.

It's a good cooler, I'm sure you'll like it.

PM

 

[JPB]

The X1800XL I have now, Ive only overclocked it once. I got the core to 580 and the mem to 1200. It has the 1.4ns chips. I didnt try to go any further than that. Because it was on air cooling.

I was thinking about another GT to try them in Crossfire, but im unsure. Once the X1950 Pro is released, im going to look at it and see how much a performance boost it is over the X1900GT if any.

And what is this whole software Crossfire thing ? Ive read some on it, but it seems it doesnt require the dongle which makes me think of lesser performance. I looked at the 7900GT originally, and just had to stick with ATI.

Ill admit, im a ATI fanboy, but in no way talk trash about NV especially when I know nothing about them. On Doom 3 MP, my user name is even fan-ATI-c....LOLOL....but I chose the X1900GT because as the saying goes, if its not broken, don't fix it.

And ive never owned anything other than ATI for almost 10 years, and still havent had one issue.

 

[hmorphone]

Originally posted by: PianoMan
I think the IceQ will give you 1-3deg C. benefit (as acegazda said), but it's noticeably cooler. The stock cooler has very good cooling power, it just turns into a turbine when you turn the heat up. I purchased a IceQ mainly for the silence.

PM

Everyone seems to be comparing the IceQ3 cooler to the 1800XT/1900XT two slot stock cooler. The 1900GT stock cooler is normally a single wide cooler (not much changed from the 1800XL stock cooler.) It's smaller and quieter, but doesn't cool as well. I think the OP will get a bigger improvement with the IceQ3 cooler than the guys with the XT coolers did. My BBA 1900GT ran hotter that I was comfortable with using it's stock cooler, so I switched to an Accelero X2. The OP made a great choice as he'll get great cooling without having to go to an aftermarket cooler, and it'll also exhaust the hot air outside of the case.

 

[acegazda]

Originally posted by: PianoMan
I think the IceQ will give you 1-3deg C. benefit (as acegazda said), but it's noticeably cooler. The stock cooler has very good cooling power, it just turns into a turbine when you turn the heat up. I purchased a IceQ mainly for the silence.

I've reached up to 690MHz on my XT (625MHz stock), so it does give you some headroom. I'm currently running at 650MHz - the heat this thing gave off compared to the performance gain I got with that extra 40MHz was enough for me to back off the clock.

It's a good cooler, I'm sure you'll like it.

PM

A restatement of what I said, you should have just quoted me and added your bit. IMO you should have gotten a saphire or something and added a vf900 or a systrin vf1 plus and it would have been the same price or less. Both are superior coolers to the iceQ.

 

[JPB]

If the X1950 Pro is 12 pipes like the X1900GT is....then which do you predict to be better in Crossfire ? Within a few weeks, ill have my second card, and need to know which performs better. Also, can a X1950 Pro work in Crossfire with a X1900 GT ?

 

[PianoMan]

Originally posted by: acegazda
A restatement of what I said, you should have just quoted me and added your bit. IMO you should have gotten a saphire or something and added a vf900 or a systrin vf1 plus and it would have been the same price or less. Both are superior coolers to the iceQ.

Yes I should have, but I had already chosen "Reply" vs. "Quote" and was too lazy to switch back.

Friend has a VF900, but I've got no experience w/the Systrin. But from what I've read, I can agree both are better coolers, but the IceQ's got rear exhaust - a definitely plus with these furnaces of video cards. My case is extra tiny, so venting the exhaust back into the case would have probably melted something *sarcasm*.

Originally posted by: hmorphone
Everyone seems to be comparing the IceQ3 cooler to the 1800XT/1900XT two slot stock cooler. The 1900GT stock cooler is normally a single wide cooler (not much changed from the 1800XL stock cooler.) It's smaller and quieter, but doesn't cool as well. I think the OP will get a bigger improvement with the IceQ3 cooler than the guys with the XT coolers did. My BBA 1900GT ran hotter that I was comfortable with using it's stock cooler, so I switched to an Accelero X2. The OP made a great choice as he'll get great cooling without having to go to an aftermarket cooler, and it'll also exhaust the hot air outside of the case.

Forgot about that - definitely upgrade the cooler in that case. Do the GT's run as hot as the XT's? (I guess not).

As for the Crossfire question, can't answer them - I need to migrate back to a bigger case.

PM

 

[hmorphone]

Originally posted by: x80064
If the X1950 Pro is 12 pipes like the X1900GT is....then which do you predict to be better in Crossfire ? Within a few weeks, ill have my second card, and need to know which performs better. Also, can a X1950 Pro work in Crossfire with a X1900 GT ?

If it does indeed have the same amount of pipes/shaders/excetera, I guess it would all come down to the clocks. I can hit around XT speeds with my GT so the core shrink would have to allow for better overclocks than that to see much difference. I think that it's supposed to have a little higher stock clocks though, so those that don't OC may still see a difference, even if the overclockers don't. If single cards perform alike, then I would assume Crossfire would produce about the same results. I doubt the two different cards will Crossfire together, unless someone creates a hack, as ATI and Nvidia don't seem to ever support any cards with different cores running together at this point. The X1950pro, even though the pipe/shader counts are supposed to be the same, are going to be a different core. X1950pro - 570 core and 80nm, X1900GT - 580 core and 90nm.