Noise levels on 6800GTs

[Asriel]

Hi all,

I'm after some real world advice on the relative noise levels of the GF6800 GTs. I'm currently using a first generation MSI GF4-TI600, and with figure its time for an update. My primary problem with the card has been the noise levels - certainly audible all the time, over and above the CPU/case fans.

I'm looking at the 256meg PNY 6800GT, and figured if any people had real world experience with both this card and the older card, they'd be here. How do they compare noise wise? Is it likely to be as loud or have a more annoying sound than my current card? Also, if there’s a better GT in terms of noise level, please let me know!

Cheers,

Asriel

[Nomadd]

I'll get back to you in 24 hours! I noticed the posts on here over the weekend about the availability of the PNY card, so I ordered one (6800GT). I've just checked my email from the pwccomponent centre and it says my order is 'released for delivery', so with overnight postage option I chose I'm hoping the card will be here first thing in the morning.

I too am currently running a Geforce4 Ti4600, a PNY. I have to say, I don't find it noisey at all, quite the opposite, in fact. I am expecting some increase in noise with the GT6800, but not that much above the reasonbly quiet 4 case fans in my system. I think your MSI must either have a very noisey fan, or you must have a very quiet PC (in which case the 6800GT might be too much for you, but I guess you could always add an aftermarket 'silent' cooler to it - more expense, though!).

I'll hopefully post tomorrow with my thoughts on the noise. Fingers crossed the card turns up!

Nomadd

[$h@d0w]

I just got mine today, it's louder the following cards I have owned: Reference GF4 Ti4400, ATI 9800 Pro, ATI 9800 SE AIW and the ATI Arctic Cooler.

By far the loudest graphics card I have owned I'm afraid. Looking to get an Arctic cooler for it ASAP.

[Asriel]

Thanks all for the responses so far. Good info!

Regarding replacing the cooler with a 3rd party - is this hard to do? I had a Google for the Arctic Cooler, and found a VGA cooler by that name. I'm assuming that it will either work with the 6800, or they'll be releasing a new one in the next couple of months that will. Fitting it doesn’t look too difficult, so this might be the solution I'm after.

How does replacing the stock cooler affect warranties? Are companies like PNY reasonably tolerant of replacing broken boards with 3rd party coolers if you take them off and replace the stock HS/Fan before you send it in (assuming you didn't break it by adding the new cooler!)?

Thanks,

Asriel

[Nomadd]

The cooler shouldn't be too difficult to replace, as long as you are careful. You'll also want to stick a bit of AS5 on there as well, unless the cooler comes with some thermal paste (even so, you still might want to use some better stuff). The biggest problem sometimes can be getting the old cooler off, rather than the new cooler on. That's where the care comes in. I'd say if you are nervous about busting a £300 graphics card, you shouldn't really be trying this sort of thing, as it will blow your warranty (or at least you should be working on that assumption should you try to RMA it - in other words, you might get away with it, or you might not.)

Me, I pull apart hardware all the time; overclock, short tracks with conductive paint, solder in new bits, etc., etc. I always accept that once I start to tinker I may have to face buying a new bit of kit!

I believe the Arctic cooler is a new release (V4?) for the 6800. I don't think it's out yet. Best thing to do is scan a few newsboards for the next few weeks and get some real-world feedback from people who've actually done it. That's what I'm going to do, as well as look at the new waterblocks also. I'm on a very quiet Zalman 7000 CPU fan at the moment, but might consider going over to water if someone does a decent kit that also includes the 6800 GPU. Again, time will tell how good these new systems are once they start to ship.

Nomadd

[$h@d0w]

The new arctic cooler for 6800 actually looks smaller than the rev 1-3 out now, but I think they have packed the fins in tighter and also given it a copper base to improve performance. No word on how they perform yet, they should be around within 4 weeks I believe.

[Nomadd]

Well, PNY 6800GT turned up today. Well done PCW! :-)

To the original poster who was asking about noise levels, all I can say is that the card was a little bit loud when I installed it. However, once I had the drivers installed and kicked into windows, the fan shut-up and now it's fine: i.e. I can't hear it above the 4 80mm case fans in my coolermaster case. My PC isn't loud, but then it isn't silent either. All I can suggest - especially if you have a very quiet PC and want to keep it that way - is buy the card from a supplier that will let you exchange/refund if you don't like it. Me, I'm very happy with my purchase - especially as it came with FarCry, which I was just about to buy! It also came with Splinter Cell (original game, not P.T.), so I'll probably play through that again for old-times sake.

Autoclock (one you've enabled coolbits) suggested 429 GPU and 1.15 memory. I found that repeated testing in 3DMark03 would finally show a little texture shimmer with these settings (on Mother Nature), so I've backed things off to 400/1.1 for now (i.e. base Ultra speeds) and it all seems fine.

3DMark03 scores for comparison from the same rig before/after the card swap: ti4600 scored just 1860, 6800GT scores 12300, so quite a leap (over 6.5 times faster!).

EDIT(2): Grabbed the WHQL 61.72's off Nvidia's site. Just released today. Should've also mentioned my machine spec. is a P4 @3.5 with 1GB RAM. Hope that helps.

Now I'm off to play FarCry (been playing UT2004 all day so far!)

Cheers,

Nomadd

[R.B.]

Me, I'm very happy with my purchase - especially as it came with FarCry, which I was just about to buy! It also came with Splinter Cell (original game, not P.T.), so I'll probably play through that again for old-times sake.

Is that right?! I didn't think it came with any games, are you sure it's not the demo? I just ordered the PNY 6800GT and was about to order Far Cry as well... But this could be a nice little saver on top of the great card price...

[Nomadd]

Yep, both games are FULL versions. Says so on the front of the box. And I've been playing FarCry for 4 hours now, so I can confirm it's not the demo version. It's worth mentioning that I also downloaded the 1.1 fixpack for it. Should be even better with the 1.2 patch, which should be out shortly, if Crytek manage to pull their collective fingers out! :-)

Nomadd

[Asriel]

Thanks for the update Nomadd. Based on all the feedback, I'm pretty tempted by the PNY, and will probably wack a Zalman/Arctic VGA cooler on it when they update them.

Thanks kindly for everyones input!

Asriel

[Asriel]

Well, here I am reporting in on my results.

Ordered a PNY 6800 GT from PCWCC, and a XP3200+ @ 333 froim Ebuyer. The wrong processor turned up, but the 6800 came on time, and in good condition.

Installed the 6800, and began to burnin. Lockup. Voltage maybe? Upped AGP to 1.6 - lockup. After a bit of fiddling, turned out my "well cooled" case wasn't as well cooled as I thought. Reworked everything, and finally seem to have it stable - it just ran 1hr of UT2k4 in spectator mode without a problem.

Now, to the crux of the matter - noise. Initially, there was a vibration problem with the entire case. I solved this by tightly screwing in everything, then weighting down a loose panel on the side. Now, after startup, I cannot tell a differnce between it and my old MSI GF4-Ti600!

I still plan to replace the HS/fan combo with a Zalman/Arctic to make it even quieter, and deal with the heat problem. But overall, I'm pretty happy (even though its hardly showing its stuff running on an XP2100).

Again, thanks all for the advice.

Asriel

[Nomadd]

Asriel - Welcome to the 6800GT Owner's Club. :-)

Suprised to hear about the 'lockups' you experienced: was this after you'd overclocked the card, or is this just at default clocks? Did you monitor the temps of the card, just to confirm this was the case? You don't mention what PSU you have, as the card will drain quite a bit, especially if you have it overclocked. Still, glad to see you have your problems under control.

Spent another good day playing FarCry today. Really looks sweet on the 6800GT, and nice as it was a freebie with the card.

Roll on Doom3!!!! :-)

Nomadd

[Asriel]

Nope, default clock settings, Antec 450W PSU. Whilst I was organising the cooling, I stripped down and cleaned the die and heatsink, so I guess it *could* have been CPU related. I had swaped it in and out a few times to see if I could get the CPU they sent me working (it was a better model than I ordered!), but no dice.

If I start getting the lockups again, I'll report in. I've requested an RMA just incase for a quick turnaround, but I'm off on holiday for 2 weeks now. By fortunate coincidence, I'm back on the Doom 3 release date!

And aye, FC looks sweet . I'm looking forward to DX9.0c final (I can't run the beta, as I do often development work that requires the final) so I can get some millage out of the PS3 codepaths.

Cheers,

Asriel

[Nomadd]

Re: "I'm looking forward to DX9.0c final (I can't run the beta, as I do often development work that requires the final) so I can get some millage out of the PS3 codepaths."

I installed the Beta DX9.0c the other day. I put the FarCry 1.2 patch on and then did the Nvidia driver tweaks to enable SM3 support. To be honest, FarCry wasn't that different. One thing I did notice was a few flickering texture bugs in the Research level. If I disabled SM3, the bugs went away.

From the reviews I'd read, it seems that the 1.2 patch and the 61.72 drivers bring the largest benefits, even when you leave the SM3 codepath disabled. That's how I continued to play the game all the way to the end, as I'd heard stories about save games getting broken. My old saves seemed to load OK (all but one of them), and once I'd continued, I never had any problems with Save/Load again (even including heavy use of the 'Quick Save/Load' options.)

Probably best to wait until you get back from your holidays, as Nvidia should have some updated drivers (which add SM3 by default) by then, and MS might have got XP SP2 out the door (unlikely, knowing MS! :-))

Nomadd