My new best-friend

[SteveL]

Please say hello to my new best mate :

http://www.stuff4u.myby.co.uk/pc/


Early indications are that this will be a VERY happy relationship this card is simply stunning. Haven't even started to play with clock speeds yet :)

Upgraded from a Geforce4 Ti4400 which was getting a little tired

/me off to play more games

[digitalwanderer]

Congratulations! Glad to hear your new friend is living up to your expectations. :D

(BTW-Gratuitous plug for you to go download Animusic Pipe Dreams from ATi's site for another quick-n-happy brainpop. ;) )

[Unit01]

holy craps the 256MB edition! :):)
Nice one;)

[SteveL]

Originally posted by digitalwanderer
Congratulations! Glad to hear your new friend is living up to your expectations. :D

(BTW-Gratuitous plug for you to go download Animusic Pipe Dreams from ATi's site for another quick-n-happy brainpop. ;) )


Thank you sir :) i had (temporarily) forgotten about the tech demos.

All I can say is. oh....my....god......

Nice to see some demos actually run 'smoothly' on the hardware they were intended for, hehe

[B&R]

good for u..

Now OC it.:D

[saturnotaku]

New best friend? Give me a break.

Enjoy your new toy, but try to avoid asking it out for drinks.

[Dazz]

Have you thought about tidying up the inside of your case? Moving cables out the way. doesn't look like you will get a good airflow at the current rate :o Use some elastic bands or better yet electrician’s tape.

[Headbust]

wow that case is a friggin mess...clean it up guy, your probably running 5-10c higher than you should be because of that

[-=Gib-McFragger=-]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
New best friend? Give me a break.

Enjoy your new toy, but try to avoid asking it out for drinks.

I bet you don't HAVE any friends. :p :D

[LiquidX]

Originally posted by -=Gib-McFragger=-
I bet you don't HAVE any friends. :p :D

I would get rid of the few I have for that. :D

[5150 Joker]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
New best friend? Give me a break.

Enjoy your new toy, but try to avoid asking it out for drinks.

Come on now, no need to be so bitter.

[SteveL]

Originally posted by Headbust
wow that case is a friggin mess...clean it up guy, your probably running 5-10c higher than you should be because of that

Yes, I know ;)

Finally got round to sorting the cabling out today, it's a bit better now, with the extra fans by the Radeon it's now running 15-20 degrees cooler, so very hopeful for overclocking potential.

Also the CPU and System temp are now, 34 and 30 respectively, compared to 44 and 42 before I did the cabling.

So very happy with the result :D

Updated the bottom 2 pics to reflect this

http://www.stuff4u.myby.co.uk/pc

[Headbust]

holy crap that looks much better, ill have to do it to mine now,

(mine isnt as bad as your was but pretty close and here i am ripping you about it..lol)

Right now with 6 case fans im at 34cpu and hover around 30 for the other 2 zones, when gaming cpu never goes more than 45

[surfhurleydude]

Damn, with all those fans in there you're running at temps that high? Crap, I've got a 2.4C at 3.0 GHz with 2 120 MM case fans using the zalman speed controller running as SLOW AS THEY WILL GO and I'm using a Zalman CPU cooler as slow as it will go, and I get 36 degrees idle on my CPU! You easily have me beat with fans as well! Perhaps you don't have the correct exhaust/intake balance?

[SteveL]

Originally posted by LiquidX
I would get rid of the few I have for that. :D

LMAO :lol:

Thankfully it didn't come to that :D

[SteveL]

Originally posted by surfhurleydude
Damn, with all those fans in there you're running at temps that high? Crap, I've got a 2.4C at 3.0 GHz with 2 120 MM case fans using the zalman speed controller running as SLOW AS THEY WILL GO and I'm using a Zalman CPU cooler as slow as it will go, and I get 36 degrees idle on my CPU! You easily have me beat with fans as well! Perhaps you don't have the correct exhaust/intake balance?

DOH !! (me) :rw:

Those temps were posted 3 mins after approx. 90 mins playing RTCW with everything on MAXIMUM.

After 20 mins or so to cool down the temps are now :

CPU : 31
System : 26
Radeon : 33 (:) )

I am currently sat in an air conditioned room at about 20 degrees

Might get even cooler if I leave it a bit longer :D

[surfhurleydude]

Oh, well in that case, kick ass :)

How did you measure the temperature of your radeon?

[SteveL]

Originally posted by surfhurleydude
Oh, well in that case, kick ass :)

How did you measure the temperature of your radeon?

The temperature probe from the fan controller in the case is attached to the GPU heatsink as close to the middle without fouling the fan. I know it won't be 100% what the core is running at but it gives me a base-line to work from :)

Also, this case has an LCD display on the front which shows the temp in real-time which will be handy when overclocking ;)

[Hellbinder]

So Steve... Sounds like you have now seen with your own eyes what 6x Gamma Corrected FSAA + 16x AF can do for you ;)

Especially at the speeds that the 9800pro 256 can deliver it at :)

Do tell, Do Tell..

[Headbust]

its about 80f in the room the PC so that probably has a lot to do with it

[Headbust]

looking at your CPU fan that kinda explains it to meh..lol, mines a pretty crappy stock one, its really small

[SteveL]

Originally posted by Hellbinder
So Steve... Sounds like you have now seen with your own eyes what 6x Gamma Corrected FSAA + 16x AF can do for you ;)
Especially at the speeds that the 9800pro 256 can deliver it at :)
Do tell, Do Tell..

So far the experience has been quite incredible. I haven't got the biggest collection of games in the world but all the ones I do, have run flawlessy on the Radeon.

The image quality with everything maxed out is simply breathtaking. On my 'old' Ti4400 as soon as i turned anything up AA or AF everything would slow down horribly and look like a slide show.

Now, hehe, it's a different matter, with absolutely EVERYTHING maxed out, not one of my games plays at less than 90fps and considering my TFT can display 62.50 (16ms 1280x1024) images per second theres quite a bit of overhead there so it's all silky smooth :)

As far as the synthetic benchmarks go, with the whole system at stock clock speeds, the first run in 3DMark2001 was 19012 and in 3DMark03 it was 5969. These numbers aren't that important to me but it seems this card has more power than I ever imagined. I knew that from reading reviews I was going to like this card, it's only now that I'm starting to realise how much of an understatement that was.

ALL of the demos/screensavers on ATi's site are very impressive but the chimp and the pipe dreams demo are easliy the most impressive graphics i have EVER seen, also the Matrox reef demo works properly on this card and is also quite amazing.

The games I have played so far, all with max settings, are RTCW, Quake3 (looks stunning), C&C Generals, MotoGP, Colin Mcrae 3, GTA Vice City, GTA III and Unreal Tournament 2003 (again, absolutely stunning)

So, yes, all in all, considering this is the first graphics i have ever bought from ATi, to say I'm impressed is a gross understatement.

After the calamity with the 5800Ultra and the flickery screen probs of the 5900, I know I've made the right purchase for me and I will be buying ATi products again in the future.

That's for SURE :)

[Sotos]

Yea very nice

But still my Dogs Geforce fx 5900 ultra is FASTER (just kidding ):p

I see you spended a lot of money for all your NEW hardware...I guess you have lot of "GREEN" right????

Now serious according to what i hear these GIGABYTE card has some problems with latest Catalysts... I hope i am wrong but i heard it in a site (I think was GURU3d.com) in a preview that they had made about the latest Gigabite cards....
But they said it it had the ability to CRASH many FX 5900 models but with not margin according to their tests!!!!!!

By the way do you have enough money for upgrading again to a ATI radeon 9900 card that they will be released next month.???? (according what i heard)....Just asking???
Why do you hurry so much to upgrade??? FASTER HARDWARE ARE COMING REALLY SOON

Anyway have fun...for NOW :D

[SteveL]

Originally posted by Sotos
I see you spended a lot of money for all your NEW hardware...I guess you have lot of "GREEN" right????

By the way do you have enough money for upgrading again to a ATI radeon 9900 card that they will be released next month.???? (according what i heard)....Just asking???
Why do you hurry so much to upgrade??? FASTER HARDWARE ARE COMING REALLY SOON

Anyway have fun...for NOW :D


Yes, I do have a lot of green, but not as much as I had a couple of weeks ago ;)

Isn't faster hardware always coming soon ?? Whatever you buy will always be superceded by something better within a few months, sometimes weeks. But, yes, I will buy a Radeon 9900 if it seems a worthwhile upgrade from a 9800 pro. Somehow I don't think it will be enough of a step forward to justify the cost again.

If I wanted to I could go out now and buy another 20 of the cards I just bought, so 'green' isn't a problem, but I don't need to have the VERY latest hardware to be happy with my rig :)

[The Baron]

Nine fans.

NINE FANS.

I just noticed this.

Are you mad? Deaf? Want to air condition your house? :p

Anyway... I'd say wait for games that actually take advantage of that card. Only a month and a half away (unless Viviendi really is the Antichrist of Corporations).