GFX Advice!

Joined: Dec 17, 2006 Posts: 201 Location: Scunthorpe UK

Hi All,
Well I blew my gfx card last weekend(6600gt), so I need some help choosing a new one that will run BF2 on my system.
My specs=
Intel P4 3Ghz HT, Intel D915GAG mobo, 1Ghz DDR400 ram PC3200, On board HD sound, 80gig Sata drive, 20gig IDE drive, DVD Drive.And at the moment On Board Intel Express GFX!
Anywayz Im proper scint at the moment and been having a quik look on Ebay at around the £50 mark and seen a few like, 7100gs, 7300gs, 7300le, X550, and X1300pro! But Im not sure if any of these are any good or would run BF.
Perhaps if I could stretch a bit deeper into my pocket, I could afford a 6800gt, 7600gt, X800 or a X1600. I think some of these were around £80 or £90 mark!
Oh yeah , its pci express.
Any Advice or help is appretiated, Thanx Gaz!

Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 3:53 pm

I can run BF2 ok on a 6800GT.

Been a good card for me really, slightly over clocked at the moment though.

Community Founder Joined: Jun 30, 2005 Posts: 2423

Quote:

I can run BF2 ok on a 6800GT.

Yes I agree GGorce 6800GT + will do the job just fine
Cheers
|2es-mrix

Joined: Dec 17, 2006 Posts: 201 Location: Scunthorpe UK

Hi,
Thanx for the replys, Ive been juggeling between the 6800gt and the 7600gt and edging more towards the 76, and seen this- http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=4DJZ&CategorySelectedId=11137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,366360000,379790000,12&InMerch=1 Which is a few quid cheaper than others that Ive seen, but was wondering is there any difference in performance in a 'value' card compared to a named one such as Gainwood or Xfx Question

All help is appretiated. Thanx Gaz!

Joined: Nov 21, 2006 Posts: 40

I have a 7600gt in my pc at the moment it does the job vary well it will run bf2 on high no probs

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:00 pm

ScunnyUK wrote:

Hi,
Thanx for the replys, Ive been juggeling between the 6800gt and the 7600gt and edging more towards the 76, and seen this- http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=4DJZ&CategorySelectedId=11137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,366360000,379790000,12&InMerch=1 Which is a few quid cheaper than others that Ive seen, but was wondering is there any difference in performance in a 'value' card compared to a named one such as Gainwood or Xfx Question

All help is appretiated. Thanx Gaz!

BNot sure if some Named companies slightly over clock them and add the own cooling fan?

My 6800GT runs BT 2 best on Medium, but that could be my Processor been Sh1t.

End of the day soon enough you will have to get a DX10 Card, so It maigh be best to save now (buy a cheap card) until you have to Get a Dx10 card.

Joined: Dec 17, 2006 Posts: 201 Location: Scunthorpe UK

Hi All,
Well I ended up buying a PNY 7600gt, but now I need abit more help!
Now I can play BF again but dont feel Im getting the performance that I should be getting, so I ran 3Dmark06 , baring in mind that with my old gfx card (6600gt) using tweaked drivers at clocks of 501 + 1002, I got a score of 1259 and checking out other scores of simular spec pc's, I was expecting a score of at least 2000marks!... I ended up with a pretty dissamal score of 1096!!!
Whilst checking through the resultshttp://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u307/ScunnyUK/3DMark1.jpg Notice at the top it says the agp at only 1x, which Im persuming means the pci ex and further down it shows no fsb on my cpu!
So is this what could be causing performance issues? and if so how can I fix it??
Ive looked in bios but cant find any settings that I can change!
As always Any help is greatly appretiated, Thanx Gaz!

Joined: Sep 12, 2006 Posts: 104

A Few things to try:

When your other card died did you run from onboard gfx?
Try to update your Bios.
Have you installed nvidia Control Panel ?
Could also be that the PSU is not powerful enough?

Joined: Sep 12, 2006 Posts: 104

Just looked @ your Mobo... are you sure you have placed the GFX Card in the correct Pcie slot, as you have 1 -1x PCI Express slot & 1-16x PCI Express slot.
Check it's in the correct slot and power connector is on properly - and onboard gfx are disabled.... Smile

Joined: Dec 17, 2006 Posts: 201 Location: Scunthorpe UK

Hi T-Bone, Thanx for the reply.
Well firstly I was using the onboard graphics until I got the new card, in my bios there is no option for dissabeling it, the options are to use the pci ex or pci or choose auto, so when there isnt a gfx card fitted it automatically chooses the onboard! I have uninstalled the intel express ,display addapter in the Devices Options,the 7600 shows as the display addapter as it should.
I tried to update the bios quite recently but as far as I can tell Intel hasnt released an update for quite a while,but I will check again now.
As for the PSU, Ive been wondering that aswell! Although the
requerments for the 7600gt say a 300watt is enough. Im planning on upgrading to a 550watt but I can only afford the cheap makes Sad

(the one Im getting is a £25 ColorIt make)
As for the slots on the board, their are 4 slots, the 2 pci slots the larger pci ex 16x and the smaller one, this I have never been shaw about but the specs says it has 4 slots ,The 3 mensioned above and a 1x pci ex, so logic says thats what the smallest is? But I have never been certain of 1x being that or a setting like in bios where you mannually change between 16x and 1x pci ex?? Confused

Finally the gfx card doesnt have its own power connection (if you ment the power connection to the card??)
Anything else I could try???
Thanx Again Gaz!

Joined: Sep 12, 2006 Posts: 104

I would have thought that there would be an option to disable onboard gfx somewhere ?
Try the other Pci-e slot see if that makes a difference.
Regarding the PSU, although your psu may say it is powerful enough, cheap psu's have a tendancy to not deliver what they claim to deliver, and don't always have a stable current...

Joined: Dec 17, 2006 Posts: 201 Location: Scunthorpe UK

Hi again,
Well Ive mannaged to get the card running at 16x pci ex
Changed a few settings around in the bios and also dloaded NvHardPage and set some things on there! I ran 3DMark again and got a score of 2748 Smile

It told me thatit was 16x, but still no front side bus,. So I did anouther search on google and come across a forum saying resetting to the optimised settings in bios had sorted it for them, which I tried then ran 3DMark again and got a better score of 2972 Very Happy

but still no fsb Confused

Has Anyone Got Any Ideas How To Set FSB Question

Also how can I check the fsb without running 3DMark all the time Question

Thanx Gaz!

Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 14

you set the front side bus in the cpu options in your bios.

to check your fsb download an app called cpuz.

hope it helps

Joined: Dec 17, 2006 Posts: 201 Location: Scunthorpe UK

Hi,

hey-hey-bf wrote:

to check your fsb download an app called cpuz.

Funnily enough I dloaded this last night, It shows the fsb as 800mhz

Exclamation

But 3DMark still shows 0mhz fsb Confused

Also in the bios their is a part that mensions fsb but is greyed out so I cant change anything!
And now I dont know if its cos Ive played about with settings and the such, but yesterday I tried a total of 5 times to play bf2 and every time I got as far as the map loaded but as soon as I clicked the join button- The sound had like a half second loop screaming in my earphones, the pc seemed to frash,all fans started blowing at max for a few seconds then it reset/rebooted itself Question

( wot next) Any ideas (other than throwing out of the window) what I can try to sort this out? Thanx Gaz!

Joined: Dec 17, 2006 Posts: 201 Location: Scunthorpe UK

Hi Ppl,
Just a bit of an update, I thought maybe the reason I was getting disconnected could be heat as me cpu runs hot at the best of times, so I took the heatsink and fan off the cpu, cleaned, reapplied thermal grease and seated again. I also changed the psu for one of the same make and power because that also seemed to be running hot! Now in bios it shows the temp as 50c and slowly climbs up to 59c, and now using Mbm5 whilst typing this it shows cpu temp as 50c and case temp at 36c.
Earlier tonight I managed to get into the server and play but on two occasions Mbm5's alarms set off (they are set to go if cpu temp reaches 70c) then my pc disconected.
I already have side pannel off and extra fans connected blowing in, perhaps I arnt applying the thermal grease properly? I've tried a couple of different ways from different ppls addvice, single line down the centre, one bit the size of a grain of rice in the middle ect!
I just dont know what more I can try to get this thing running smoothely again? Sad

Any ideas anyone Question

Thanx Gaz!!!