eVGA Geforce 6800 128MB help

[Andriy]

Alright, I'm building a computer soon, and I might go with 6800 non -GT ($199 w/ rebates) instead of 6600GT.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130202

Here is the card.

Ok, what do you guys suggest, 6600GT vs 6800 NON GT?
Oh, and I have one question, how come the 6600GT is clocked higher (core and memory) than the 6800 non-gt?


I'd like to know if it is safe to overclock 6800 NON-GT and "unlock" the pipelines and shaders.
How come you have to "Unlock* the shaders? Does it not include all the shader model 3.0 and stuff like that like the 6600GT and 6800GT?

How safe is it to overclock and then unlock 16 pipelines (I'd like to learn how to do that)

 

[Andriy]

Come on guys, I could really use some help...

 

[DooLocsta]

That is a good price on the 6800, If I were you I would get that over the 6600GT just becuase it is going to be a faster card. If you can unlock the pipes you are that much better off. As far as the vertex shaders I just think it will be faster with them unlocked but all the features are there of the 6800 gpu.

 

[Skrying]

Alright, I'm building a computer soon, and I might go with 6800 non -GT ($199 w/ rebates) instead of 6600GT.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130202

Here is the card.

Ok, what do you guys suggest, 6600GT vs 6800 NON GT?
Oh, and I have one question, how come the 6600GT is clocked higher (core and memory) than the 6800 non-gt?


I'd like to know if it is safe to overclock 6800 NON-GT and "unlock" the pipelines and shaders.
How come you have to "Unlock* the shaders? Does it not include all the shader model 3.0 and stuff like that like the 6600GT and 6800GT?

How safe is it to overclock and then unlock 16 pipelines (I'd like to learn how to do that)

First the 6800 is faster than the 6600GT at default.

The reason for the lower speeds is because the 6800 has 12 pipelines and also a 256bit memory bus. Both of those things equal up to a card that's faster than the 6600GT even though its clocks are not as high.

The reason you have to "unlock" the vertex shaders and the other pipelines is because the 6800 is because they are disabled by default. This has nothing at all to deal with SM3.0 or any shader effects. The 6800 supports everything single effect the 6800GT and 6600GT support.

By unlocking the vertex shaders and pipelines on the 6800 you get extra performance. But sometimes this doesnt work. If you're going with PCIe its simply because they are not there, the cores were not built with these, unlike the AGP version. But on the AGP a lot of 6800 are simply 6800GTs that couldnt hit as high of clocks that are needed for the 6800GT or for some reason the disabled pipelines and vertex shaders are damaged, so they disabled and they had a perfectly working card.

I'd highly suggest you read a bit more. But if I was you I'd go with the 6800 over the 6600GT every single time.

 

[tranCendenZ]

Ok, what do you guys suggest, 6600GT vs 6800 NON GT?
Oh, and I have one question, how come the 6600GT is clocked higher (core and memory) than the 6800 non-gt?

The 6800 has 12 pipelines and a 256-bit memory bus
The 6600GT has 8 pipelines and a 128-bit memory bus

So, although the 6600GT has a higher core clockrate and higher memory clockrate, its fillrate is actually about the same due to having less pipelines while its memory bandwidth actually is worse as it has half the width memory bus. In other words, though the 6800 is clocked slower, it is still faster than the 6600GT.

I'd like to know if it is safe to overclock 6800 NON-GT and "unlock" the pipelines and shaders.

It is never "safe" to overclock or softmod a card as you describe. It voids the warranty and may damage the card. Then again, many people do it anyway

How come you have to "Unlock* the shaders? Does it not include all the shader model 3.0 and stuff like that like the 6600GT and 6800GT?

When people say unlock the shaders, they are talking about the vertex shader units. The 6800 has less vertex shader units enabled than the 6800GT but more than the 6600GT. Some try to unlock all of the VS units to bring it up to 6800GT spec.

How safe is it to overclock and then unlock 16 pipelines (I'd like to learn how to do that)

Odds are you won't damage your card over a short period of time, but it may shorten the lifespan of the card or if the pipes are make it difficult for you to switch it back to stock. It also voids the warranty so if you do this to the 6800 and it breaks for some reason, you are out of luck. That being said, even without being unlocked the 6800 is faster than the 6600GT.

 

[PikachuMan]

I'd like to know if it is safe to overclock 6800 NON-GT and "unlock" the pipelines and shaders.
How come you have to "Unlock* the shaders? Does it not include all the shader model 3.0 and stuff like that like the 6600GT and 6800GT?

Shader Model 3.0 is a feature set, not actual hardware. All the 6-Series cards have this feature set.

The "unlocking" refers to Pixel or vertex shader units. The more of these, the more pixels can be rendered per clock cycle, so if you have more pixel pipelines (like a 6800 vs a 6600GT), the more work can be done, even with a lower clock speed.

 

[Andriy]

I think I'll go with the 6800 non-GT and maybe when it actually lacks in a year and a half I'll overclock and unlock the pipelines, thanks for the help guys.