PNY 6800GT or BFG 6800GT

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: JackBurton
The BFG and PNY both have the same cooler. The only difference is the sticker on the cooler.....and the warranty.

actually they don't. BFG went with their own design on the rev.2 gt's. it's similar to their 5900 cooler from last gen, with the chrome and blue dual led fans, but now adds a "heatpipe" design.

while it's definatley nice looking, it's arguable as to whether it's as good as the nv reference. personally, i think while not as cool looking, the ref design does a better job of keeping the card cool.

I didn't know they actually changed from their original 6800 GT design. I bought a BFG 6800 GT before my PNY and noticed that they both looked exactly the same (with the exception of the company logo). I didn't know they came out with a different version of the same card. Seems kind of like a waste of time to me. The standard heatsink/fan works great.

i'm sure they just want to differentiate their card from every other gt on the market.. isv's generally do that - sell reference designs to get the cards to market, then later add their own specific "touch".. besides, neon is "in". while it may seem like a waste of time for you, it's certainly talked about alot, which is likely what's behind their doing so in the first place 😉

 

[JBT]

The Newer BFG cooler sucks at cooling from what I have heard from MANY people.

Newer PNY cards have 3 year warrenties. If yop don't register on their site you only get 1 year though.

I would say tough call. If you want DIII then grab the PNY if you want BFG's excellent support go with them. My PNY 6800 GT has been great so far and would recomend them to anyone.

 

[ColdBrew]

What temps are the old style BFG getting while gaming? I'll compare them.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: ColdBrew
What temps are the old style BFG getting while gaming? I'll compare them.

means nothing unless you compare then under the exact same conditions, otherwise you'd simply be comparing your pc/case environment with someone else's.

 

[ColdBrew]

Well, I think I can agree that the cooler (solid copper) on this BFG is a POS. I don't know the quality of the first cooler for the BFG's.

I used star wars galaxies to check the temp because it runs well in windowed mode so I could watch the temp gauge. At first I thought it was high but not that bad. I ran around "playing" and it seem to hold at 90-91. Yes higher than most I've seen but not alarming. Then I noticed that when I didn't move (in the game) it seemed to put more pressure on the card. I'm not sure why but it slowly climbed to 100 C before I decided to shut down SWG. It might have went even hotter, but I was affraid to see. I don't see any reason to think 100 was the hottest was going to go. This was at 400/1100 clock settings. I noticed artifacts somewhere around 98 C.

I lowered the settings back to factory 370/1000 and the temp seems to max at 96 C. Not enough to cause artifacts but hot none the less.

My case I would consider a good cooling case but it is full of stuff. It is an all aluminum server size case. It has an extended ATX dual Opteron motherboard, 5 raptor SATA, SATA raid card, SCSI card, sound card, DAT drive, zip drive, floppy drive, CDRW drive, DVDRW drive, 2 fans in the front that blow over the hard drives, one large fan on the back, and a 560 watt powersupply with two fans (one internal and one external) in it.

I'm really really really disappointed with these results. Even though it seems to "play" fine with no artifacts and no lock ups, that temp scares me. I think I will be leaving it at default clock rate.

 

[CaiNaM]

i use rhtbl - daoc (an mmorg, like your star wars) simply does not work the card like fps' do. at any rate, w/ rhtbl, my card also max'd @ 100c. for comparison, my 800p max'd at 70c. i contacted BFG about this, and they stated this was not normal.. the email is on my desktop, i'll post the contents later.

 

[stnicralisk]

BFG go for the warranty.

 

[stnicralisk]

Originally posted by: Rollo
PNY.

The 20MHz OC on the BFG is irrelevant because it won't produce noticeable fps differences, and can be easily reproduced if you're into that sort of thing.

Lifetime warranties are irrelevant because when's the last time you had a video card more than a year? The only way it's going to die after a year is if you've been OCing, and you can't warranty return that anyway unless you're a POS thief scum, in which case you could just as honorably go to the store and steal another.

Doom3 on the other hand, is really worth having. Especially with this card.

Ive kept plenty of cards over a year Rollo... they go into the woman's machine. 🙂

 

[ColdBrew]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM
i use rhtbl - daoc (an mmorg, like your star wars) simply does not work the card like fps' do. at any rate, w/ rhtbl, my card also max'd @ 100c. for comparison, my 800p max'd at 70c. i contacted BFG about this, and they stated this was not normal.. the email is on my desktop, i'll post the contents later.

I'm not sure I agree with you on the MMOG since 50 to 100 people on the screen seems to kill the frame rate just fine, but it doesn't really matter since it got the card plenty hot. Although point me to what you used and I'll try that too.

At what rate did you have your card when you hit a 100C?

I would love to see that email, maybe I need to contact them too.

 

[Marsumane]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
BFG

------------------------------------------------------
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred B DLT3C 1700+ @ 2.3GHZ (1.775v) 400FSB = 3200+
Abit NF7-S V.2 (nForce2-U400)
Corsair TwinX XMS 3200LL 512MB @ 2-3-2-6 (2.6v)
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Platinum Edition 128MB (380/600)
Antec TrueBlue 480W
Thermalright SLK-947U with 92mm Vantec Tornado @2800RPM
Antec PlusView 1000AMG
Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks THX 550 5.1

Agreed, BFG

 

[Goi]

Why do so many people recommend BFGs when their custom cooling solution seems to be much worse than the nvidia reference HSF? Other than the warranty I can't find another reason.

 

[lament]

Originally posted by: Goi
Why do so many people recommend BFGs when their custom cooling solution seems to be much worse than the nvidia reference HSF? Other than the warranty I can't find another reason.

i'm overclocking my BFG (with the dual fans/heat pipe) up to 411/1.11 with no problems. I'll probably take it up more. i haven't really pushed it yet.

 

[ColdBrew]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM
i use rhtbl - daoc (an mmorg, like your star wars) simply does not work the card like fps' do. at any rate, w/ rhtbl, my card also max'd @ 100c. for comparison, my 800p max'd at 70c. i contacted BFG about this, and they stated this was not normal.. the email is on my desktop, i'll post the contents later.

What did you do about the overheating?

 

[EvilComputer92]

I got a BFG 6800 GT OC and have already started to OC it to 380 mhz.

I have one o' em rev 2 GT's with the chrome and LED fans. I'm pretty sure the duel fans let you overclock
a little bit more. Personally, I would go for the 6800 GT(not sure if their still selling the rev 2 GTs), but if you really been wanting Doom 3, I guess the PNY would be an good deal.

 

[CP5670]

Has anyone tried comparing the nvidia cooler and the BFG one with the same card and conditions? I have the BFG GT model and am seeing pretty disparate opinions on its cooler.

 

[EvilComputer92]

I've seen both the standard BFG one and the "Doom 3 Edition" chrome one. Seems as if though the Doom 3 one can cool a little bit better allowing for higher OCing. Other than that, the blue led fans look cool

 

[xylem]

I have the PNY 6800GT. On the box, it says that the card has a 1 year warranty, which will be extended to 3 years if you register the product. I registered online (oddly, they didn't ask me for the serial number, just my address), and spoke with a PNY CSR, who confirmed that the 3 year warranty is valid. If this verbiage is still on the PNY boxes, and you consider a solid 3 year warranty to be acceptable (where the indefinite "life of the product" warranty is not), maybe you should consider taking the free copy of Doom 3.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: ColdBrew

Originally posted by: CaiNaM
i use rhtbl - daoc (an mmorg, like your star wars) simply does not work the card like fps' do. at any rate, w/ rhtbl, my card also max'd @ 100c. for comparison, my 800p max'd at 70c. i contacted BFG about this, and they stated this was not normal.. the email is on my desktop, i'll post the contents later.

I'm not sure I agree with you on the MMOG since 50 to 100 people on the screen seems to kill the frame rate just fine, but it doesn't really matter since it got the card plenty hot. Although point me to what you used and I'll try that too.

At what rate did you have your card when you hit a 100C?

I would love to see that email, maybe I need to contact them too.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=411451&postcount=14

 

[ColdBrew]

Well I can't reply there since my email is banned from there. Not sure what is up with that but probably the hotmail address.

What do you plan to do? I'm thinking waiting until BB gets some more in stock and try another one.

 

[FleAMan]

MY 2ND PNY CARD AFTER THE 4400 OCED PAST 4600 IN OTHER BACK UP BOX 27 MONTHS STILL GOING STRONG I WENT FOR THR 6800 AS OF LATE.
MY PNY 6800 GT RUNS AT 440/1150 55C-58C IDLE 66MAX COOLED BY PCI VIDEOCARD COOLER CALLED VANTEC SPECTRUM CARD. 2X70MM FANS 2400-4000 ADJUSTABLE WITH SLIDER BAR IN PC REAR AND ONLY 38DBA .
PNY HAD BEEN NOTHING BUT GOOD TO ME AND i GET ALMOST 12 K ON 3DMARK 2003