A Brand New Toy...
Friday, 29. May 2009, 21:20:25
Today I have bought myself a new toy: the replacement for my old 8800 GTS 512 - a shiny red GTX 275 from Gainward. So... once kid has fallen asleep I started nightly tests 
The installation took just a minute and went without any problems - with the exception - I got confused when I saw 2 6-pin power connectors on the card. I knew card is a power hog (can take more than 200W) but I didn't expect 2 extra power cords will be needed . As 8800 used only one and I had no time to look where I put more power cables from my PSU I tried it with one 
It worked...
As most of good stuff today card takes two slots. My choice of Gainward was dictated by non-reference cooling system it has. The toy has 2 fans that can run with lower speed (read: noise) than reference boards while still keeping GPU relatively cold. I'm running it at 45% fan speed (40% is default) and so far didn't see temperature going above 71 C (44 C when idle) which is good (and comparable to my old 8800).
After installing latest nv drivers (185.sth) I started testing few titles my old GPU had trouble with when on max settings. I tried Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, STALKER: Clear Sky, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 and Tom Clancy's HAWX - all with maxed settings and maximum aniso/FSAA.
Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 and Tom Clancy HAWX were running so smooth it almost felt bad That's good... With STALKER: Clear Sky, where I had bigger concerns, I got similar results - I couldn't get below 40 fps so easily, with average around 60 for DX9 path - with enhanced dynamic lightning 1680x1050, max aniso, FSAAx4... That's an improvement as I couldn't get more than 15-20 previously...
Riddick is another story. With maxed settings it's smooth but... if you pan screen too quickly (i.e. quickly turn around) you can see small lag and motion blur resembling effect. It's not really eyes friendly (at least for me)...
I need to check if there are no patches for the game and really hope it's bug not 'a feature'... Btw - with max settings melee fight with three opponents and DoF looks and feels really, really cool...
After playing few hours I can say - upgrade was worth it... On average I got double FPS in every game and now I can play games maxed out with FSAA freely...
The installation took just a minute and went without any problems - with the exception - I got confused when I saw 2 6-pin power connectors on the card. I knew card is a power hog (can take more than 200W
) but I didn't expect 2 extra power cords will be needed . As 8800 used only one and I had no time to look where I put more power cables from my PSU I tried it with one It worked... As most of good stuff today card takes two slots. My choice of Gainward was dictated by non-reference cooling system it has. The toy has 2 fans that can run with lower speed (read: noise) than reference boards while still keeping GPU relatively cold. I'm running it at 45% fan speed (40% is default) and so far didn't see temperature going above 71 C (44 C when idle) which is good (and comparable to my old 8800).
After installing latest nv drivers (185.sth) I started testing few titles my old GPU had trouble with when on max settings. I tried Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, STALKER: Clear Sky, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 and Tom Clancy's HAWX - all with maxed settings and maximum aniso/FSAA.
Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 and Tom Clancy HAWX were running so smooth it almost felt bad
That's good... With STALKER: Clear Sky, where I had bigger concerns, I got similar results - I couldn't get below 40 fps so easily, with average around 60 for DX9 path - with enhanced dynamic lightning 1680x1050, max aniso, FSAAx4... That's an improvement as I couldn't get more than 15-20 previously...Riddick is another story. With maxed settings it's smooth but... if you pan screen too quickly (i.e. quickly turn around) you can see small lag and motion blur resembling effect. It's not really eyes friendly (at least for me)...
I need to check if there are no patches for the game and really hope it's bug not 'a feature'... Btw - with max settings melee fight with three opponents and DoF looks and feels really, really cool...After playing few hours I can say - upgrade was worth it... On average I got double FPS in every game and now I can play games maxed out with FSAA freely...
WIDGETIZE