Geforce 6800 vs GT and Ultra ????? HELP

[waytoosmall]

I am building a new comp and have two msi geforce 6800 on the way to run in SLI mode on an asus A8N-SLI deluxe. I am now wandering wether I should have just bought 2 GT or Ultras instead of the regular 6800. I plan on overclocking them so would the price jump, and the wait, for 2 GT versions be worth it or will these 2 cards running in SLI mode be great already. Right now I am using a radeon 9800 pro, athlon 2400 xp, 512 mb of pc 2100. I will have athlon 64 3500, 2 -512 corsair pc 3200 modules, wd raptor instead of my regular IDE. I am trying to decide whether I should just return the 2 cards and wait till I can get some EVGA 6800 GT cards once they become available. Thanks for the advice.

 

[neosteve]

First of all what are you going to do with SLI play games or do benchmarks. If you going to play games with it the 2 6800 will do but if you plan to do benchmarks i suggest you get 2 6800GT's then flash them to ultras for better results. Also make sure the 2 6800 are capable of SLI and if you want 2 6800 Ultras instead of GT's you going to have to wait till they release the PCI-E versions of the card out in stores.

Neosteve

 

[Cappy]

stick with the ultras

 

[waytoosmall]

I do plan on just gamming. So I could just stick with the 6800's? When you say "flash them to ultra's" in reference to the GT's, what do you mean. Is this an update I could do to the 6800's. In other words could I overclock them to the speed of GT's? Thank you agian for the input.

 

[neosteve]

Ok well if its just for gaming the two 2 6800 Will play any game you throw at it all with high settings for a long time to come. What I mean by flash them to ultra's is you can make a 6800GT to an 6800 Ultra by changing the bios of the GT card this is called Flashing. As for the 6800's to make them GT's I donÂ’t think its possible because the 6800 is based on a different architecture to the 6800GT and Ultra which are the same so it wont really work. in the end.

Neosteve

 

[waytoosmall]

Thank you for the advice. It is possilbe to overclock the 6800's with coolbits though isn't it? I am so obsessive because I am plunking down 680 bucks for 2 of these cards and I really would upgrade to GT's if ANYBODY has any in stock. In gaming, will I really see any huge difference though? I keep seeing comparison charts with GTs and Ultras running in SLI mode, but not plain 6800s. I guess I could always use them for a month, send them back, pay my restocking fee, and get some GT's or Ultras . Any ideas on where I can see comparisons between the three. And I guess I must ask, would 1 6800 ultra beat my two 6800 running in SLI mode in a test such as 3D mark?????

 

[millerhighlife_]

eVGA 6800 GT's are IN STOCK at zipzoomfly.com because I just ordered mine 2 days ago. don't waste money on the ultra's b/c GT's can be OC'ed to ultra speeds easy. about flashing them to ultras, all it will do to the card is read it as a ultra on your computer. there are no difference really from OC'ing them to ultra speeds vs. flashing to the ultra bios. either way will work but OC'ing is safer in my opinion. but with 2 normal 6800's you will be able to play anyhting on max settings for awhile.

Edit: Opps !! You need PCI-E cards not AGP and the PCI-E are back ordered. Sorry.

 

[neosteve]

Thank you for the advice. It is possilbe to overclock the 6800's with coolbits though isn't it? I am so obsessive because I am plunking down 680 bucks for 2 of these cards and I really would upgrade to GT's if ANYBODY has any in stock. In gaming, will I really see any huge difference though? I keep seeing comparison charts with GTs and Ultras running in SLI mode, but not plain 6800s. I guess I could always use them for a month, send them back, pay my restocking fee, and get some GT's or Ultras . Any ideas on where I can see comparisons between the three. And I guess I must ask, would 1 6800 ultra beat my two 6800 running in SLI mode in a test such as 3D mark?????

I have no idea if itÂ’s possible to overclock 6800's with coolbits, my advice search on Google if you can do this. If you do get 2 6800GT's you wont really see a big difference in most games because most games today donÂ’t take advantage of SLI because its still new and most people can afford SLI. Only in the new game you might see a difference im not really sure how much but I think it will be quite a bit maybe. As for charts comparing the 3 I donÂ’t think any exists because the 6800 first werenÂ’t meant to have SLI but I guess maybe some manufacturer thought different and went ahead and maybe one with SLI capability and I still donÂ’t know truly if there is a 6800 with SLI so if you get your could you please clear that for me.
Im very sure that two 6800 in SLI will beat a single 6800 Ultra.

Steve

 

[Nubius]

Yes you can OC with coolbits. Infact I believe Nvidia now actually has coolbits installed in their drivers now so you don't have to go out and seperately download the reg key and install it....

You should just install the latest 66.93 drivers and see if the frequency options are in there because I think they may be.

Also Riva Tuner is a really good GPU OC'ing program.

Nice graphs and GPU Temp monitoring...can't go wrong.

BTW it's mainly the eVGA though that you want for OC'ing because they put the same heatsink on all the cards.

That means you get a heatsink that's meant for the Ultra on a card that's less powerful...almost like getting a free aftermarket heatsink on it.

You don't have to flash the vid card BIOS to make it an Ultra...only for your computer to recognize it as an ultra, so if you're anal about seeing 6800 ULTRA! there you'd need to flash the vidcards BIOS...

Otherwise you simply need to just OC it up to Ultra speeds, but obviously it'll still say 6800GT on it

 

[waytoosmall]

Screw it, I am sending back the 6800's and have ordered the GT's. Makes sense to pay the extra for the benefits. I'll just have to wait for them to get in stock to get the system running. Thanks for all the help.