Asus 128mb 6800, worth a look?

Post by **mik0rs** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:08 pm

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=98265

In the reviews you might notice there's a mention of a softmod but I can't be certain that they really are talking about this card or another 6800, I tried searching and only came out with German language sites.

So, is it worth a go as an interim card? I need it to be siginificantly better than a non-pro 9700 but I'm not looking to break the bank as in a year or so I'll probably plump for a new mobo, CPU and a PCI-E card (this one's AGP).

And is it definitely this one that can be softmodded? If so can you give me a link?

TIA

Post by **mik0rs** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:03 pm

Or this one?

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductI ... tID=274560

I'm not looking above this price range because like I said it's only an interim thing.

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:38 pm

could i have the link for softmodding?

Post by **mik0rs** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:39 am

I'm running a 128mb card right now and it runs HL very nicely. It's not ideal but if I go upto 256 I'm looking at blowing my budget sadly.

Post by **mik0rs** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:41 am

AmIdYfReAk wrote:could i have the link for softmodding?

I don't have a direct link to the softmodding, I've just looked around and found that Rivatuner is what has to be used, this is the link to the page where someone's talking (probably massively exagerating) about how much of a performance boost the softmod gave him:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=98265

Dunno if that link works but he says:

i bought this from overclockers before ebuyer had them
i have a barton 2500+ cpu and 1 gig of ram
and on 3dmark03 free version i got
7589
with a softmod it jumped to 8797
then i overclocked it and my score went over 10000 with no artifacts at all.
on the box it says you also get a 3 year warranty and you get a orange cd holder almost full with stuff (medi@show se,games power demo disc,battle engine aquila,gunmetal,asusdvd which is powerdvd and deus ex invisible war

Post by **mik0rs** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 9:57 pm

Yarrrr.

Post by **-Replicant-** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:01 am

softmodding opens up the pipelines, thus essentially making it a 6800GT with less ram and a slightly slower clock speed. helps quite a bit from what i've read. there's a guide for doing it over on the hardocp page somewhere, if i remember correctly. and yes, the 6800 is a good card to go with

Post by **mik0rs** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:31 am

Yeah it goes from 12 to open 16 pipelines the clock speed is 25MHz lower ( I think, 325 compared with 350) and like you said the RAMs a bit lower. If it offers good gains in Q4 over a 9700 non-pro then I'm in.

I'll give the HardOCP thing a look tomorrow methinks :icon14:

Post by **SoM** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:44 am

riddla wrote:stay away from 128MB vid cards if you want to play Q4 or anything else fairly recent.

what!

my unlocked 128mb 6800OC runs it very smooth with everything cranked

Post by **mik0rs** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:16 pm

What's the specific card?

Post by **Azer** » Sun Oct 30, 2005 11:18 pm

I bought that exact same card a few days ago. It runs Quake 4 just fine, I haven't unlocked the 4 extra pipelines yet and haven't overclocked it yet either.

Post by **mik0rs** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 2:25 am

Sweet, what processor are you running though? Ill need all the extra oomph I can get from softmodding it if you're running a nice Sempron to my 2800 Barton.

Post by **mik0rs** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 2:52 pm

Think I'm going for it anyhow. Will likely order it in the next week or so.

Edit: More like in the next few days because they're fucking selling out!

Post by **Azer** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 3:47 pm

I'm running a AMD64 2800+

Post by **mik0rs** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:51 pm

Dunno what the speed difference is but I don't thinkf that's LOADS and loads faster, cheers :icon14:

Post by **mik0rs** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:12 pm

Ordered

I had to rush, it went from 25 in stock this afternoon to 6 tonight, and then down to 5 when I went to the toilet

Post by **mik0rs** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 11:33 am

It arrived on time!

Can't wait to try it later, I'm anticipating mild disappointment with the performance so hopefully I won't get too annoyed if there's no massive improvement.

It came with a bunch of games though which is great, including Colin McRae 3 and Deus Ex 2 which I wouldn't have bought following the demo but I might well give it a go since I got it for free

Post by **Azer** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 12:42 pm

riddla wrote:stay away from 128MB vid cards if you want to play Q4 or anything else fairly recent.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/qua ... /page6.asp

Post by **Tormentius** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 3:58 pm

Azer wrote:
riddla wrote:stay away from 128MB vid cards if you want to play Q4 or anything else fairly recent.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/qua ... /page6.asp

Thats much less of a difference than I expected. Thanks for the link Azer :icon14:

Post by **Psyche911** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:03 pm

Keep in mind that is at medium settings.
High or Ultra would probably be a much better test. Who's gonna run medium on a 256MB card?

Post by **mik0rs** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 11:54 pm

It kicks the arse of my 9700 (not too surprising), it's still a bit jerky in parts but I'm pretty satisfied, I softmodded it and that got rid of the stutters a bit, I'm not likely to go and up the GPU clock though, not until I've got the money for a full mobo/CPU/card upgrade

Post by **SoM** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:28 am

dude, the 6800 even pisses all over the 9800 series

Post by **blowsy** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 12:14 pm

I've just ordered a GeForce 6600 GT 128MB, not really bothered about Q4 as the rest of my system isn't up to it - just wanted something to replace my current card for Q3 as it keeps crashing.

Anyone got any thoughts on this card?

Post by **Tormentius** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 5:23 pm

blowsy wrote:I've just ordered a GeForce 6600 GT 128MB, not really bothered about Q4 as the rest of my system isn't up to it - just wanted something to replace my current card for Q3 as it keeps crashing.

Anyone got any thoughts on this card?

Yeah I recently picked up the BFG OC version of that card and it has been great so far. It runs Q4 @ 1280x1024 and high detail just fine.

The other specs are an AMD64 3200 and 1GB OCZ RAM.

Post by **mik0rs** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:25 pm

LOL

13700 on 3dMark 2001... I thinkits fair to say I should be expecting more when my non-pro 9700 scored 13400.

I might just have to format this damn thing.