New NVIDIA drivers...

[TGHI]

I just received my new 5900XT in the mail yesterday and whacked it in my rig. The drivers that I had running prviously did not work with the new car so I downloaded the new ones from NVIDIA's site (Forceware 61.76). Upon getting the card ti function normally, I then began to - like anyother OC freak - overclock it using coolbits. Something very interesting then happened - when going into the 'clock frequencies' tab it popped up a disclaimer about the evils of overclocking and made me scroll down to the bottom of the page in order to proceed. So then I began to do my overclocking dirty work.

2 things happened that made me very queasy:


1. Upon setting a 'modest' 420/760 OC (up from 390/700) I hit the 'test' button and upon the completeion of the seemingly non-descript progess bar it told me that the 'test' failed and to try lowering clock settings. "WTF", I said - as the previous drivers could OC my GF4 MX440 into oblivion and crash my whole system with it - but the 'test' would never say that anything is wrong. I think that's bollock.

2. Reaching for a lower clockspeed (420/753) I ran Aquamark3 flawlessly and acheived a higher score than at stock....BUT....when I went back to the Clock Frequencies dialogue to further tweak, the clock speeds were back down to stock levels!


Has this ever happened to anyone else? It looks to me like NVIDIA is attaempting to thwart overclocking of it's cards - and if so, I am pissed.

 

[Soulkeeper]

yeah it just looks like the memory isn't letting you get too high
what brand did you get ?
and what kinda cooling does it have ?

those overclocks seem just a little under the average of what most report on newegg
maybe it is just the cooling solution
either way these cards aren't overclocking monsters like some cards out there

 

[vshah]

i think there are two versions of coolbits out now, and the newer one has this bug where the speeds return to default. its still working for me though

-Vivan

 

[estew33]

can you use coolbits to oc a radeon.
Thanks
Ed
if so where can I dl it at

 

[TGHI]

^ No...coolbits is a Res-hack for NVIDIA cards.

I also heard that this card is a monster (articles on HardOCP). I have the exact card that they tested, the MSI 5900XT 128MB DVI/TVOUT.
It has hynix chips on it...that could be the problem ....

 

[TGHI]

Goddammit! I just realized that the one that HardOCP reviewed had Samsung chips in it. Those bastards.

 

[TGHI]

Whoa...nevermind about the benchmarks... I just decided to play some games instead to actually SEE how it performed in real-life...and wow, I just made a mess of my pants! So THIS is what Call of should Duty look like! What a HUGE difference over an MX440!