x1900xt Questions

[scoobyx13x]

Just got one of those $240 x1900xt's from Newegg. Installed it with the new 6.9 drivers from ATI and a Zalman vf700cu I had.

What are the 'other' utilities that I can use to see the temperature and overclock the card?

Also, I have 2 power supplies to choose from with running this card:

500 Watt Antec SmartPower

or

480 Watt Antec TruePower

Which would be a better choice?

 

[Captante]

ATI Tool & ATI Tray-tool are two utilities that will allow you a great deal of manual control of your new card, including fan & clockspeeds, I suggest you install the newest version 1.2.6.930 of Tray tools (I've had some strange issues with the new ATI tool) but only use it to check out settings & get familar with the defaults before you start playing around too much.

As for those two power supplies, either should be able to run your GPU depending on the other components in your system, I think the 480 watt True-Power is actually the slightly better bet because its got a bit stronger +12v rail, however if you have any serious stability problems your power supply is the first palce to look.

Edit: I'm assuming you have version 1.0 of both the psu's you mentioned ... if you have version 2.0 of either model, then it will be the stronger performer & if BOTH are version 2.0, the 480 True-power has even more of an advantage.

 

[scoobyx13x]

Sorry, I should have included that info =) Both are the version 2.0 models.

 

[hmorphone]

You'll want to keep an eye on your card temps. While a Zalman vf900 may work well on an XT, that vf700 may not be able to cool the card as well as you'd like.

 

[scoobyx13x]

Hmm, I didn't think that would be a concern... What would be considered an acceptable temp, both idle and under load?

Or do you think I should just shell out the $36 and get a vf900?

 

[hmorphone]

It seems to depend who you ask as to what acceptable temps are. I start to get nervous around 80C. There was a post not too long ago from someone who used a vf700 on an XT and it wasn't able to keep the card cool enough. The X1900GTs and XTs are harder to cool than many other cards, for example a 7900GT. If the stock cooler was unacceptable I would either go ahead and get the vf900 (or an Accelero X2.)