Redesigned 8800GT - Gigabyte GV-NX88T512HP

HydroBudz said:
Are your temps while gaming getting out of hand? Regardless, grab a $10 set of low profile BGA ramsinks. That'll rule out overheated memory. And make sure the HSF is clean and free from dust bunnies trapping heat. What cooler is on the card? VF700 or 830?
Click to expand...

While playing WoW, according to nvidia's temp monitor program, the temps never get above 55c. The cooler is the original one before the revision, so i would guess the VF700. I have a 120mm fan in the side panel that points directly at the card, but its on a fan controller usually set to low. I will try cranking that up to high and see if that helps as well.
 
I have this card (the "rev1" version, with the copper heatpipes) for 2 months almost now and it seems fine so far. I did get the "blank" screen and entering "power saving" mode when I enabled "top performance" in my BIOS settings (usually minutes after I start Gothic2). If I disable it I dont get it anymore, sounds like something that might stress the system too much (anyways, my RAM were never stable with "top performance" enabled so I leave it disabled). Maybe it helps someone.

I have yet to play constantly very graphics intensive games, I finished BioShock once (full settings) without any glitch, I finished Crysis SP Demo on "High" and CoD4 on high settings. Besides these intensive although short playing times (BioShock was the only one I played for many hours) I am playing for the last weeks the Gothic series of games with everything at high. Obviously the old Gothic1 (and currently Gothic2) do not stress it too much, maybe I will have something new to add when I get to Gothic3.
 
TheBlackAngel said:
While playing WoW, according to nvidia's temp monitor program, the temps never get above 55c. The cooler is the original one before the revision, so i would guess the VF700. I have a 120mm fan in the side panel that points directly at the card, but its on a fan controller usually set to low. I will try cranking that up to high and see if that helps as well.
Click to expand...

Best thing you can do it yank the card out, check the memory's brand (Qimonda or Samsung) and go from there. If it's the Qimonda memory I'd RMA the card. Hopefully you bought it through Newegg so you can RMA it with them. Also, the VF830 cooler will say it on the top fin, no need to remove the card to see that.
 
HydroBudz said:
Best thing you can do it yank the card out, check the memory's brand (Qimonda or Samsung) and go from there. If it's the Qimonda memory I'd RMA the card. Hopefully you bought it through Newegg so you can RMA it with them. Also, the VF830 cooler will say it on the top fin, no need to remove the card to see that.
Click to expand...

I looked last night while i was in my case and it is the Qimonda RAM. I really don't want to RMA it though because i don't have a replacement card i can use in the meantime :( i was hoping that if it was just a heat issue i would leave the fan pointed to it on high and downclock the RAM a little. Losing 20Mhz on the RAM isn't going to show much difference in the games i play anyway, so if that works i may just live with it like that.

Edit: and i did buy it through newegg, but will they still RMA since its been close to 4 months?
 
For those with the Type B, Rev 1 board, Samsung memory, VF830 cooler, is anyone bothering to add ram heatsinks to it?. If so, did you have to source 'low profile' ones to fit under the Zalman? Did you just use thermal tape?

A few people are saying that they wouldn't touch this card becuase there are no ramsinks on it. It is worth the effort?
 
BlackAngel: Newegg should RMA the card up to a year. At least they did for my Asus x1950pro that I had for 10 months before it died. Worth a shot. Their RMA process only takes a couple weeks compared to Gigabyte that takes forever.

Technophobe: I did install ramsinks w/ thermal tape. These: http://www.svc.com/cl-c0025.html ... but they were a little close for my comfort so I honed them down a bit with a bench grinder. Anything is better than nothing. FWIW, I know two other people with this card and they didn't put ramsinks on and have yet to have a problem.

The card w/ the VF830 and Samsung memory is definatly worth it. That Zalman cools great!
 
HydroBudz said:
FWIW, I know two other people with this card and they didn't put ramsinks on and have yet to have a problem.

The card w/ the VF830 and Samsung memory is definatly worth it. That Zalman cools great!
Click to expand...
Count me in on this, too. I purchased this newer version of the card in mid-February and haven't had any problems whatsoever without ramsinks, but have considered them. I give this version of the card a thumbs-up.
 
Well, it looks like it is a heat issue. I played a ton over the weekend and had absolutely no problems. So now the big decision, live with it or RMA it!?!??!!??! :)
 
I bought this card and it is running very sweet for me. Nvidia 8800GT on a Gigabyte card PCIe card.
I installed an additional fan to blow against the card just in case, based on reviews here, but my frame rates are just great. I have been playing the new UT3 which is even better looking on high than COD4, but very graphic intensive. The card through Gigabyte is shorter than from Nvidia and this helped me easily move air around and fit in in my Gateway.

My temperature indicates that I operate at about 50-52c durring heavy game play, and 48c just in standard use. My frame rate with the default for UT3 is around 75 fps, and with everything set high I drop to 60-65 fps in most of the supplied duel or death match maps. In huge open maps I drop down to 40 fps, I could lower the settings a bit but I is just to pretty to miss and I don't really notice the frame loss too much. It also came with the ability to easily overclock with the gigabyte software.

I installed this on a Gateway, nothing special, PCIe slot, Phenom quad core, 3 gigs ram. I have been running the card for 3 weeks without a single hitch, gaming on it almost every night. Ut2004, UT3, COD4

For the money, I believe that it cant be beat. $200.00 If you search for some real reviews, the experts agree as well. :)
 
ah i love it when stuff breaks >( does anyone have any tricks they know of that i can use to have newegg help me? i contacted them through the live chat and they gave the canned responses of "the item is past the RMA date and since we don't carry the EXACT same item anymore we can't exchange it" and to contact the manufacturer. So i will be calling gigabyte but if anyone knows how i can make this work through newegg let me know because i would much rather go through them.
 
TheBlackAngel said:
ah i love it when stuff breaks >( does anyone have any tricks they know of that i can use to have newegg help me? i contacted them through the live chat and they gave the canned responses of "the item is past the RMA date and since we don't carry the EXACT same item anymore we can't exchange it" and to contact the manufacturer. So i will be calling gigabyte but if anyone knows how i can make this work through newegg let me know because i would much rather go through them.
Click to expand...

How long have you owned the card? I had no problem getting them to swap an x1950Pro after 10 months. Since they didn't have that card anymore they sent me an 8800GS that I picked out.

If I'm not mistaken vid cards are RMA'able for 1 year through Newegg. I'd call them up and talk to someone. That livechat thing is a load of crap half the time.
 
i have only had the card about 4 months. i'll try calling them instead. just didn't know if anyone knew of any "magic" words i could say for them to go "oh yeah, we'll take care of that for you right away" :)
 
well i went ahead and sucked it up and called gigabyte tech support. when the tech picked up i gave him the model of the video card and told him the problem, he asked for my motherboard chipset/model so i gave him that and he said one moment while i connect you to someone. the next person that answered the phone was the RMA dept. they directed me to the website to fill out the info and i now have an RMA number to send it back in. so i'm hopeful that since they didn't try and do any troubleshooting they know its a problem and that i will send my card in and the new revision will be coming back to me. /crosses fingers
 
OK, well i sent mine off to RMA, and after having it for a week this is the response i received.....

We have done some engineering change to help resolve the lock up problem you are having by removing some resistor on the video card. Please make sure you test your video card once you get it back from us. Your RMA will be returned back to you shortly. Thank you.
Click to expand...

I talked to an RMA person initially and they stated that the engineers did not find a problem but they "made some adjustments to the card". So i asked to find out what exactly that meant and this is what they came back with.

So i have no idea what that means but it looks like i have no choice at this point then to get the same card back and test it to see if it still locks up :mad:
 
I am very interested in the "engineering" fix they implemented!
Please post pictures!

I don't think that Gigabyte's tech support has given the same answer twice to anyone from this forum that have contacted them.

Here's the last dialog I had with them:

Me: I am having random crashes while playing games, between 5 and 20 minutes after beginning play.
How do I begin the process of returning this card for a replacement?

Gigabyte Technical Support: What kind of troubleshooting did you tried to confirm the card is the issue?
Please note that to run this card you will need to use an 480 watts or higher PSU
Next check for any possible overheating within your processor or videocard



As you see, rather than answer my question about returning it, they called into question my methodology in troubleshooting.

I have been using my 8800GT (first available version, no longer for sale anywhere) since February, and have had little trouble. I actually did experience some crashing, but I added a supplemental PSU to my rig and that seemed to clear things up. IMO, this card may be sensitive to unclean power, or voltage spikes/drops.

Additionally, I have shared my opinion about DDR3 in this thread before, and I stand by it. Some products survive packaging and shipping better than others. I also got mine from NewEgg, and they've always done well with packing things well for transport.


Anyway, good luck with the returned card!
 
Guys, for what it's worth, I have one of the Gigabyte 8800GTs with the crappy RAM. When I first got it a couple of months ago, I tried it in my AMD 3500+ / Lanparty UT mobo / Antec 480w & got in-game black screens every 5 minutes. My PC was due an upgrade anyway, so I replaced everything except the graphics card...mobo (IP35 pro), psu (650w pc power & cooling), Q6600 etc & it's stable as a rock now. I dunno what that proves, other than maybe I had a psu issue, but thought I'd share anyway ;).
 
OK, got the video card in late last night. Haven't had much of a chance to test it yet to see if the problem is still there, will be doing that today. Anyway, here are pictures of it....

http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1888.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1889.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1890.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1891.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1892.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1893.JPG

So if anyone can take a look at them and compare them to your own card and see if we can figure out what "removed resistors" means that would be great :D
 
Hi Guys,

So I did a bunch of research on 8800gt's and this one looked like the obvious choice. I was under the impression that the type B cards as seen here were going to be Samsung memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125088

That is the card I just received from Newegg yesterday....it has HYNIX memory modules. I was hoping to get the Samsung version as all of the tech sites that I trusted when making this purchase, were based on the type B Samsung version. I have yet to see anyone saying they have the HYNIX version. The chips (according to Hynix) are rated at 1000mhz, and Gigabyte underclocks them to 920mhz. Yesterday I did some tests with 3dMark06 and the Crysis benchmark and ATI tool. At stock settings this card was perfect, but once I OC'd the memory a tad, 940mhz, I got all sorts of artifacts and the like in Crysis and ATI tool.

I have a couple of weeks still left to RMA to Newegg if needed, I'll have to wait a little while and see what the HYNIX memory is all about. I might uninstall gamerHUD and reinstall rivatuner to OC it. I sure hope that Gigabyte has "upgraded" the memory?? The sites that reviewed the Samsung model, all had pretty good success OCing the memory at least to specs...1000mhz and usually beyond.

Just a heads up to people making this purchase from Newegg...The card might have HYNIX memory! Don't know if thats good or bad yet :)

Peace
 
Hoggles said:
Hi Guys,

So I did a bunch of research on 8800gt's and this one looked like the obvious choice. I was under the impression that the type B cards as seen here were going to be Samsung memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125088

That is the card I just received from Newegg yesterday....it has HYNIX memory modules. I was hoping to get the Samsung version as all of the tech sites that I trusted when making this purchase, were based on the type B Samsung version. I have yet to see anyone saying they have the HYNIX version. The chips (according to Hynix) are rated at 1000mhz, and Gigabyte underclocks them to 920mhz. Yesterday I did some tests with 3dMark06 and the Crysis benchmark and ATI tool. At stock settings this card was perfect, but once I OC'd the memory a tad, 940mhz, I got all sorts of artifacts and the like in Crysis and ATI tool.

I have a couple of weeks still left to RMA to Newegg if needed, I'll have to wait a little while and see what the HYNIX memory is all about. I might uninstall gamerHUD and reinstall rivatuner to OC it. I sure hope that Gigabyte has "upgraded" the memory?? The sites that reviewed the Samsung model, all had pretty good success OCing the memory at least to specs...1000mhz and usually beyond.

Just a heads up to people making this purchase from Newegg...The card might have HYNIX memory! Don't know if thats good or bad yet :)

Peace
Click to expand...

I got the same card yesterday and it comes with Samsung chips. I have not tested it yet as I am still waiting for other parts to arrive. Its all about luck :D
 
Hoggles said:
but once I OC'd the memory a tad, 940mhz, I got all sorts of artifacts and the like in Crysis and ATI tool.

I have a couple of weeks still left to RMA to Newegg if needed, I'll have to wait a little while and see what the HYNIX memory is all about. I might uninstall gamerHUD and reinstall rivatuner to OC it. I sure hope that Gigabyte has "upgraded" the memory?? The sites that reviewed the Samsung model, all had pretty good success OCing the memory at least to specs...1000mhz and usually beyond.
Click to expand...


OK... you just bought a card that is "TurboForce" from Gigabyte, and you are overclocking it????

People are having some stability problems with this card, possibly related to the memory, and THAT is what you up the clock on?????

This card is ALREADY OC'd from the factory to well above the NVidia reference. Overclocking an already overclocked card... you're not going to get very much more out of it.

Good luck!
 
TheBlackAngel said:
OK, got the video card in late last night. Haven't had much of a chance to test it yet to see if the problem is still there, will be doing that today. Anyway, here are pictures of it....

http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1888.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1889.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1890.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1891.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1892.JPG
http://theblackangel74.shackspace.com/Video_Card/IMG_1893.JPG

So if anyone can take a look at them and compare them to your own card and see if we can figure out what "removed resistors" means that would be great :D
Click to expand...

Right, so at a glance, I see 2 areas that jump out at me, and I'll open my machine up tomorrow and look myself (after I print those pics!).

Picture 1892- lower left, R961, R960 are obvious omissions. (I am guessing that components labeled with an 'R' are resistiors)

Picture 1893- upper right, R1040, also appears to be void.

Anyone with easy access to their card want to take a quick peek and confirm the discrepancy?

The rest of the pics are a bit fuzzy, and I go a little cross-eyed trying to peer through the fog.


Well, I'm off to enjoy a nice stack of bubble-gum and chocolate waffles!
 
OK... you just bought a card that is "TurboForce" from Gigabyte, and you are overclocking it????

People are having some stability problems with this card, possibly related to the memory, and THAT is what you up the clock on?????

This card is ALREADY OC'd from the factory to well above the NVidia reference. Overclocking an already overclocked card... you're not going to get very much more out of it.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Hi zleuth,

Yes, I absolutely love to OC hardware...:p even if it comes overclocked from the factory.

The link I provided in my original post (that I purchased), is the "type B" card. Unlike the "type A" card that TheBlackAngel has, with the Qimonda memory.

Gigabyte as do several other companies, use overclocking capabilities as a strong selling point for purchashing their cards, even if it already comes OC'd. Gigabyte has their GamerHUD utility, to do just that. What is also cool about Gigabyte is that they allow you to overvolt the card, through that utility... and a non reference on board chip. I would guess that you know this, but you seemed shocked that people would try to OC an OC'd card more. Plus the whole issue is the RAM. The "type A" cards had Qimonda memory and they were known to have problems. The Samsung memory that came with the "type B" card was great at overclocking. What I was speaking of in my last post was the HYNIX memory that came with my recently purchased 8800GT V1 "type B" model. I was wishing for the Samsung memory.

So yes I am bummed that this HYNIX memory (HY5Rs123235B FP-1) won't even goto it's rated 1000mhz specs...at 930mhz it artifacts :(. The Samsung memory on the "type B" cards (that are rated at 1000mhz), in all the tech site reviews, easily went past 1000mhz.

I have this card fully stable right now at 780(core)/1900(shader)/920(memory).

It's just hit or miss which memory type you'll get from various dealers...for this reason I might just RMA and hope the next one has Samsung memory.

Peace :D
 
I have to say that i had gigabytes nx88t512hp rev 1.0 with zalman copper and samsung memory and i was getting (B)lackSOD after playing games about 5-30 mins.
i checked every part in my comp that they weren't reason for black screen and after that i just put my old 8800gts 320mb back and haven't had any crashes with games so far.
I just returned it to store so i have to wait a while to get new one since they didn't have spare ones in the shelf but i checked the week when it was manufactured and it said 7th week 2008.
 
My saga continues...
Originally had the Type A card with Zalman VF700 AlCu fan and Qimonda memory. It frequently crashed with PSOD (pink screen of death) or sometimes just black screen. I had it replaced with a Type B Rev 1.0 (Zalman VF830 and Samsung memory) and thought all my problems were solved.

But just this weekend (after about a month of good use), it died twice with the PSOD. The card was clocked at 700 core, 920 memory and 1700 shader originally. I've decreased the memory speed to 900 and will see how that goes.

Is the general experience that the memory speed is the culprit and not the core or shader speeds?
 
I've heard of lots of "TurboForce" cards dying because of memory problems. This is probably also the reason why Gigabyte chose to only overclock the memory a tiny bit by default (20 MHz overclock, vs 100 MHz for the core and like 200 MHz for the shader).
 
Just to give an update on my card I've been enjoying. The replacement Gigabyte gave me (Heatpipe cooler/Samsung memory) is doing great! Absolutely no problems and with the better late than never upgrade to a X2 5000 BE and 2 gigs of ram, my system is running everything I throw at it. Not bothering with Crysis, that will wait for the next system, probably an octicore by the time I can afford one... Finally playing Stalker, anyone try the "Float32" shader mod for it? Gonna try it this weekend. http://www.thefloatingpoint.org/main/news.php

I'll have to try bumping the mem up from 920 to 950 like my first edition P.O.S. was factory set at, but couldn't even run at 900 without craping out.

Sorry about the Hynix you got, Gigabyte probably gets it cheaper than the Samsung, the greedy bastards. Maybe its getting too hot? What about memsinks?
 
What do you think of the noise level? I think the card is way too noisy in 2D mode because the fan doesn't slow down at all compared to 3D mode. I actually had to get a Fanmate2 and now I have to deal with manually adjusting the fan depending on whether I'm gaming or just browsing the net.
 
JimmiG said:
What do you think of the noise level? I think the card is way too noisy in 2D mode because the fan doesn't slow down at all compared to 3D mode. I actually had to get a Fanmate2 and now I have to deal with manually adjusting the fan depending on whether I'm gaming or just browsing the net.
Click to expand...

I agree, it's quite noisy, which is stupid in 2D mode.

I've tried running the fan @ 5V but the card overheats. I also have a fanmate but I don't want to fiddle with it :p so I'm keeping the fan at full speed
 
zleuth said:
Right, so at a glance, I see 2 areas that jump out at me, and I'll open my machine up tomorrow and look myself (after I print those pics!).

Picture 1892- lower left, R961, R960 are obvious omissions. (I am guessing that components labeled with an 'R' are resistiors)

Picture 1893- upper right, R1040, also appears to be void.

Anyone with easy access to their card want to take a quick peek and confirm the discrepancy?

The rest of the pics are a bit fuzzy, and I go a little cross-eyed trying to peer through the fog.


Well, I'm off to enjoy a nice stack of bubble-gum and chocolate waffles!
Click to expand...

well assuming those were in fact there before i sent it in then removing those seems to have done the trick. i have played it heavily for over a week on a variety of different games for hours on end and have had zero problems so far. *knocks on wood* :D
 
I gave mine a 7 volt mod when I first got it, much quieter and still stays cool. I think 5 volts is to low.
 
For those interested in controlling the fan speed but uncomfortable (like me) with splicing/jamming wires I found a fairly easy way to do it. The third wire for 3 pin mobo cables just monitors the fan speed (it doesn't control it) so there shouldn't be a problem adding a resistor to a 2 pin cable in theory.

I used:
Scythe Mini Kaze 40mm fan 2 pin with 3 pin adapter (I bought for the adapter)
3 pin male to 2 pin female adapter (with type D connector)
Sunbeam PCI Slot Fan Controller (choose any 3 pin fan controler you like)
Cost me about $18 total incl shipping.

The rest is fairly obvious. Disconnect the 2 pin fan cable from the video card and attach the adapters to both ends. Then just hook up to the 3 pin fan controller of your choice. You could also skip the 3 pin male to 2 pin female adapter and just plug that end into any free 3 pin fan connector on the motherboard. I would recommend starting the fan controller at full speed/power and gradually adjusting until the noise level is quiet enough for you. Mine was virtually silent after adjustment. Tested with ATI Tool stress test for about 10 minutes & no artifacts. Core temp maxed out at 55C. Fair warning I have really good airflow (Antec 900 with 6 case fans) and I cant tell you what the memory temps were. Nice thing about having the controller is you can always boost the speed as necessary.

I bought everything here:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=123&products_id=20870
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=289&products_id=3597
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=48&products_id=22108

or buy the same stuff from here:
http://www.pctoys.com/840556069027.html
http://www.pctoys.com/32pa.html (select type D)
http://www.pctoys.com/840556083009.html
 
I didn't even need an adapter, only a 3-pin extension cable. The 2-pin GPU fan connector fit perfectly onto the first two pins on the extension cable, which I plugged into the fanmate, then into the mobo case_fan header.

I do have another problem, though. The GPU gets too hot running games at my prefered fan setting (my case doesn't have as good airflow, only two 80mm exhaust fans @ 1500 RPM and one 2500 RPM 80mm intake). So I have to remember to turn the fanmate up every time I run a game, then I can safely back it off again when I'm @ the windows desktop.
If the 48x0 series weren't so close to release, I would have replaced the Gigabyte card with another 8800GT with automatic fan control. It's too much hassle to manually adjust it. I think I'll go for a dual-slot solution that actually exhaust the hot air from the case next time, maybe the 4870 if it isn't too expensive.
 
Maybe, but I don't think 50 Mhz would make that much of a difference especially since it would be running at the same voltage.

I'll just deal with the fanmate for another month and then replace the card..The design is flawed..having a GPU fan without dynamic speed control was OK in the TNT2 days when the fan was mostly there for show.. But who in their right mind would release a card with a big fan locked @ 3700 RPM and call it "quiet and powerful"? Powerful maybe, but in 2D mode, the fan makes more noise than a stock 8800GT cooler.
 
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