A bum BFG 6800GT???

[UWestSider]

Hi, all! I'm fairly new to PC building and overclocking. In fact, I just built my first from the ground up. Here's what I have:

AMD Athlon64 3500+ 90nm
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
2x512mb PQI Turbo Platinum PC3200 Dual Channel
BFG GeForce 6800GT OC
Swiftech MCX6400-V w/ TT Smart Fan 2
Thermaltake Silent PurePower 480w

I've been able to get the CPU up close to 2.8gHz by upping Vcore and loosening the memory timings. And I installed Coolbits2.0 to try and bump up the 6800GT overclock a bit. I managed one time to get it up to Ultra levels at about 402/1050. That started showing artifacts in 3DMArk03, though. Since then I've been unable to get it past 398/1000. I've seen several posts from other 6800GT owners and also compared 3DMark03 scores -- and I regularly see these cards OCing to 420-430/1100 and up.

So, what am I doing wrong? I'd be happy with 410/1000 or so stable. Is it a heat issue? Voltage? Do I need to flash the bios? Bad PSU? Any other suggestions?

Or should I just call BFG and make up a story about weird fuzzy stuff on my screen or fan noise and try to RMA it?

Thanks!
UWS

 

[flenser]

It isn't broken so I don't think you should RMA it. It's just not the best overclocker for some reason. You could try a different heatsink/fan and all that if you think your temperatures are higher than they should be, but otherwise you have a perfectly good 6800GT that doesn't overclock super well.

To be perfectly honest, you're losing less than 5% so you're not really missing anything. Athis point you're mostly losing bragging rights. Do yourself a favor and instead of worrying about getting 10 more mhz out of your vid card, take your girl out on a date or if you don't have a girlfriend, go get one. The payoff will be better and you still won't notice that missing 10 mhz except in synthetic benchmarks.

Now if it flat-out dies like mine did, then go ahead and RMA it, but it doesn't sound like your card is actually defective.

IMHO

 

[Lee Enfield]

Yeah some people got bad overclocking card. It is all the luck of the draw. Don't worry about it. If you are that upset about it get one of these.

 

[OPUS1]

could be poor paste job!
Take the thing apart and get ye some AS5 on dem dare hot spots!

To find out if you have a heat issue open the case and put a fan blowin on the said V card!
That puppy should do 410 / 1.1 with no problem

 

[breadman]

Does the card do as it is advertised? YES! You got what you paid for. Enjoy it and don't worry about the 1% more you'll get out of real life games.

You didn't pay any amount of money for it be an overclocker nor do you maintain a warranty if you decide to overclock it.

Or should I just call BFG and make up a story about weird fuzzy stuff on my screen or fan noise and try to RMA it?

Thanks!
UWS

I hope the BFG Tech that posts on here gets around to reading this.....

 

[UWestSider]

Well, I get 11999 in 3DMark03 right now without hardly OCing the CPU at all, so I think I'll live.

So, thanks to everyone who replied. I may get that NVSilencer and I may just put a fan in a PCI slot and see if I can cool it some more. I think I have pretty decent air cooling, but the card says it's at 59C idle, so maybe temps are a problem.

Oh, and I have a beautiful wife that I will take out to a movie this weekend. Thanks for that tip.

And as far as a BFG tech reading this -- "hi!". Yeah, I'm a little envious of some guys who got a better card than me. Guess I'll live, though.