New 8800Ultra cooler, new oc's, new benchmarks

[FastRedPonyCar]

I got the Arctic cooling Accelero 8800 today. Took my MSI Ultra OC up to 705mhz core and 1225 memory (probably can still go higher) but I hit a performance ceiling in the crysis benchmarks.

Here's my final benchmark results.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/Games/crysis.jpg

For the longest time now, I've been running the game with the very high cvar list and the following values which are a slightly modified version of HP's mod. This with no AA and 1680X1050 resolution

; |---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
; |Helder [HP] Pinto - Very High Quality Costum Config 1.3 FINAL |
; |This config has been tweaked to run Crysis withtin it's maximum beauty, |
; |while still getting minimaly smooth/playable FPS! |
; |Minimum System recomended is a Nvidia 8800, 2GB RAM and a fairly good dual core CPU. |
; |C&C: http://crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=13790 |
; |---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

; User Options commands
con_restricted = 0
r_displayinfo = 0
r_VSync=0
d3d9_TripleBuffering=0
e_screenshot_width = 4096
e_screenshot_height = 3072
e_screenshot_quality = 100
e_screenshot_file_format = jpg


; Post Processing
r_ColorGrading = 1
r_DepthOfField = 2
r_MotionBlur = 1


; Shaders and Lighting
r_EyeAdaptationBase=0.25
r_SSAO=1
r_ssao_amount=0.4
r_SSAO_darkening=1.25
r_SSAO_quality=2
r_SSAO_radius=2
r_SSAO_blur 4
r_SSAO_blurriness 1
r_HDRlevel=0.75
r_Usepom = 1
r_sunshafts = 1
r_Beams=3
r_BeamsDistFactor = 0.1
r_BeamsMaxSlices=250



; Shadows
e_shadows = 1
r_ShadowsMaskResolution=0
e_shadows_on_alpha_blended=1
e_shadows_from_terrain_in_all_lods = 0
e_shadows_cast_view_dist_ratio = 0.6
r_ShadowBlur=3.0
e_shadows_max_texture_size=1024
r_ShadowJittering=1.5


; Object Detail
e_obj_quality=4
ca_useDecals=1
e_decals_allow_game_decals=1
e_decals_life_time_scale=2
i_rejecteffects=1
sys_flash_curve_tess_error=2
e_view_dist_ratio=60
e_max_view_dst_spec_lerp=1
es_DebrisLifetimeScale=1
e_cbuffer_resolution=256
e_dissolve=1
ca_DrawFaceAttachments=1
ca_AttachmentCullingRation=60
e_terrain_occlusion_culling = 1
e_terrain_occlusion_culling_max_dist=200


; Vegetation
e_foliage_wind_activation_dist = 30
es_DebrisLifetimeScale = 1
r_DetailNumLayers = 2
r_VegetationSpritesTexRes = 128
r_DynTexAtlasSpritesMaxSize = 32
r_TexAtlasSize = 2048
e_vegetation_bending = 2
e_vegetation_min_size=0
e_proc_vegetation=1
e_vegetation_use_terrain_color=1



; Particles
e_particles_quality=4
e_water_ocean_soft_particles= 1
e_particles_max_emitter_draw_screen = 16
e_particles_object_collisions=1
r_UseSoftParticles = 1
e_particles_thread=1


; Water
r_WaterReflectionsQuality = 3
r_WaterUpdateDistance = 0.2
r_WaterCaustics=1
r_WaterRefractions=1
r_WaterReflections=1
r_WaterGodRays = 1
e_water_ocean_fft=1
e_water_tesselation_amount = 10
e_water_tesselation_swath_width=10
q_ShaderWater=3
e_phys_ocean_cell = 0.3



; Misc
e_max_entity_lights = 16
g_battleDust_enable = 1
g_breakage_particles_limit = 250
g_ragdollDistance = 35
g_ragdollMinTime = 15
e_terrain_ao=1
e_terrain_normal_map=1


; LODs
e_vegetation_sprites_distance_custom_ratio_min = 1
e_vegetation_sprites_distance_ratio=1.5
e_cull_veg_activation = 60
e_view_dist_ratio_vegetation = 50
e_particles_lod=0.6
es_MaxPhysDist=60
es_MaxPhysDistInvisible=25
e_terrain_lod_ratio=0.8
e_view_dist_ratio_detail=30
e_lod_ratio=6
e_lod_min=0
e_lods=1
e_detail_materials_view_dist_xy=4096
e_detail_materials_view_dist_z=256
r_DetailDistance=12


; FPS Gain commands
r_UseEdgeAA=2
r_TerrainAO_FadeDist=1
r_GeomInstancing=1
e_vegetation_static_instancing=0
e_gsm_lods_num = 5
e_gsm_range = 3
e_gsm_cache = 0
e_ram_maps = 1
e_dissolve = 1


r_TexturesStreaming=0

; Successfully loaded - Helder [HP] Pinto - Ultra High Quality Custom Config


I ran 4 separate tests (each test of 4 benchmark runs) and the last 2 runs were at 690 core and then 705 core and it only gained a tenth of a fps avg so I didn't bother raising it higher. Ram on those 2 tests went from 1150 to 1250 and no changes from that either. <_<


Oh and the Accelero is totally rad btw I HIGHLY recommend it :afro: My card would lock up with the stock cooler at 670 core WITH the side panel of my case off and with the 120mm fan blowing full blast on it. :o Now the side panel is on, the 120mm blow hole fan is at minimum rpm.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/Computer/IMG_9234.jpg

[SH64]

Hmm hate to see all that power & O/Cs not brining the desired performance. Crysis is in a real need of a next-gen GPU :|

[FastRedPonyCar]

yup. I mean... when a pair of the 9800 GX2's really can't do that much better.... there's a problem. And I'm pointing in Nvidia's general direction when I say that. They need an archtechtural improvement.. something akin to jumping from a pentium 4 to a core 2 CPU.


A CPU/MOBO upgrade will happen near the end of the year. I've had my current core system since february of last year so I'm definately getting a good life out of it so far. I definately can't complain really..

[Soetdjuret]

Are this cooler too thick to fit on an SLI system with the 80gtx's?

My system locks up at 650/1100 grrr...

[grey_1]

I've seen heater cores smaller than that thing!

Are you going to post a review of it?

[FastRedPonyCar]

Well, there's realy not a whole lot to review.

Install was very straight forward and simple, instructions could have been better but it was all fairly self explanitory. Remove all screws, clean gpu, ram chips and the other little things where thermal padding is used. I used a paper towel and rubbing alchol for the bulk of it and then went back with a qtip dipped in rubbing alcohol to get the rest.

Stick on little heatsinks to the voltage regulators, stick the thermal pads to the ram chips and whatever the other small nvidia chip on the card is. Then just flip the cooler on it's back so the metal plate is facing you and then lower the card down so the screw holes in the card line up with the holes in the cooler, screw in the screws, make sure they're tight, plug in the fan power plug and overclock to oblivion.

As I mentioned, my ultra is clocked from MSI to 660 core and 1150 ram.

The stock 8800 cooler is just totally inadequate to cool a card running that hot. I mean.. the card and it's heatsink would be HOT to the touch just at idle and during the summer when my room's ambient temp is in the high 70's, it just can't deal with that much heat and the core will be easily in the mid to high 80*C range and the high 60's at idle.

I ended up having to install a 120mm blow hole at the top, removing my soundcard to allow the fan's air to blow straight onto the card and pull the side panel off. This was to allow the card to run at STOCK speeds.

Even then, I would occasionally have it overheat and lock up. :(

I have been eyeing the Zalman setup for quite a while but honestly, never got around to it. I lost enthusiasm with gaming due to the card's unstable nature and got more into my music recording so better cooling for the card dropped off my radar.

I was visiting a hardware review site and saw an ad for the the accelero and checked it out. I had a little $$ on hand so I read more reviews and decided to jump on it and see what happens.

Long story short, the blow hole fan is unplugged, the side panel is back on and the card is ripping along at 705mhz core and 1225 memory.

It's only around a 7% increase in core speed but my 3d mark score went up around 1500 points. Doesn't mean much as far as "real world" performance goes but my crysis FPS went up an average of 3fps. I played for about an hour last night and it's consistantly in the low 30's the majority of the time. The harbor assault mission still delivers a beatdown on the frame rate but in that hour of playing, not once did it drop below 22 fps. That was only in the most heated and busy scenes (such as the scene where jester or whatever his name is is sniping guys from the harbor loading crane while I make my way into that ship).

It's also totally inaudible. I know it's hard to believe but compared to the stock cooler's fan running at an "always on" 100% via riva tuner, this thing is quiet as a mouse...and that's with the same 100% speed all the time setting.

It did get a hair cramped there at the very back end of the cooler where the SATA sockets were but I didn't have to dremel any of the plastic shroud away to get it to sit snugly.

It also appears that there's still enough room for two PCI cards if needed so you guys running pci sound cards shouldn't have anything to worry about as far as running out of room. The top of the cooler lines up with the second PCIE slot so although it won't allow me to do SLI though the triple pci-e boards should allow a pair of them to be used.

Anyways, overclocking wise, I beleive I'm at the card's threshold. There are a few guys running H2o cooling that are right around that 700 core speed and are hitting the card's limit rather than a thermal barrier. The core/ram are still all quite cool but I belive volt or bios modding would be required to get more speed from teh card and even then, I've heard they're diminishing returns. A few 8800 gurus basically have told me that 700 is where the card just hits a brick wall so just leave it as it is.

So I guess in summary, $50 for a quick and easy way to basically get the card running safely at it's performance limits while being totally silent and stable is about all I could ask for. Totally worth it.