The GX2 is hard to ignore...

[TouGe]

Well, I finally took my GX2 apart today to clean off their thermal paste and apply some MX-2. What a pain in the ass! You have to unscrew approximately 25 screws just to get it apart. My temps are lower though, 48 idle so far. If you plan on doing this make sure you set aside at least an hour to get evenything done. As an aside, it will be interesting to see how thermalright implements a cooling solution for this card.

[Talonman]

Thanks for the tip on taking the GX2 apart...

I might give mine the MX-2 treatment too. The GX2 and MX2 togeather, just sound like a good match to me?

I do usually order from the egg too. On the 1st however, my SSC was only listed on the EVGA site. Joe is a man of his word, and did get my GX2 out the door today!

It now has wheels under it, and is rolling toward my house right now!!
I do feel better.

I also would love to see what Thermalright might make for the GX2...
Tough assignment.

FYI - Here is a new cooling option for the GX2.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7598.html

It's kind of hard on the eyes.
I still would like to see a review with numbers...

I think I would rather get the EK block myself, but none the less, there it is!

I think I am going to go slow on ordering a waterblock until I decide if my GX2 is really going to be my 1 time step up card.
If not, and I keep it for a year or so, EK will probably win.

[TouGe]

Thanks for the tip on taking the GX2 apart...

I might give mine the MX-2 treatment too. The GX2 and MX2 togeather, just sound like a good match to me?

I do usually order from the egg too. On the 1st however, my SSC was only listed on the EVGA site. Joe is a man of his word, and did get my GX2 out the door today!

It now has wheels under it, and is rolling toward my house right now!!
I do feel better.

I also would love to see what Thermalright might make for the GX2...
Tough assignment.

FYI - Here is a new cooling option for the GX2.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7598.html

It's kind of hard on the eyes.
I still would like to see a review with numbers...

I think I would rather get the EK block myself, but none the less, there it is!

I think I am going to go slow on ordering a waterblock until I decide if my GX2 is really going to be my 1 time step up card.
If not, and I keep it for a year or so, EK will probably win.

Glad to hear that they pushed it out the door for you. EVGA usually isn't too slow with shipping products. I was pretty happy w/ their service during my whole 680i fiasco.

Yeah, I don't know if I'll ever get around to water cooling my graphic card. If the next generation cards are a larger leap forward then maybe I would consider doing so but for now I'm just planning on water cooling my CPU/NB sometime around the fall of this year.

As far as taking apart the GX2 it is fairly easy in retrospec and it will probably only take 30min max to do everything.

1.You'll need to remove the visible screws on the one side of the case and at the ass end where the fan is located.
2. Gently pull the case apart like a clam shell. The opposite end is latched together and will come apart with a little wiggling.
3. Remove the screws from the second half including the two that are holding the face plate to the card (one on each end). Then unscrew the 4 screws that are on either side of the DVI connectors, remove plate.
Then all you have left is to remove each card from the fan assembly. The easiest way to do this is just remove one card at a time but becareful not to separate the SLI connectors. After cleaning and re-applying thermalpaste just re-attach it to the HS/fan and flip it over to do the next card.

I made the mistake of removing both cards at once which made the whole process more awkward then needed and I was moving kind of slow since I didn't want to have one of those "uh-oh" moments.

[Talonman]

Thanks again buddy!!

[zodiac]

You know I used to do the same thing and 9 times out of 10 everything works fine not using driver cleaner. But I have had a few times that it helpped. That was back in the days when new or beta drivers were coming out every few days for the 8800gtx's when I ran into a few wierd things that happened after a driver new driver install and driver cleaner seemed to fix it.

So prolly will not hurt to not use driver cleaner.

Guru3d has it...unless I missed another one. This one nukes files, but lets you pick.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=582 (Hope this is the one you're referring to. )

My GTS512 has wheels to Cali right now...stepped up to GX2....wanna see some after market air cooling solutions SOON. I'll be watching this thread for sure... Z

[cantankerous]

Hi TouGe, your sig says bios mod for your 9800GX2. What exactly did you do? Last I heard there was no way to flash a bios to TWO/BOTH parts of the card, but only one. With the card containing two PCB's they both need a bios flash and NVflash as far as I know was unable to do this.

If you have found a way, or know something I do not, please do share! As well, did you lock in your desired clocks AND mod the fan speed by any chance? I loved this about my Ultra card. Have clocks exactly how I want them and fan speed at 100% at all times. I never need software installed anymore. My card just runs as I like right from the get go. This is what I would like to see happen with the GX2. As soon as they get dual display support while running SLI I will be grabbing this card and hope to tune the bios exactly to my liking.

BTW, your new clocks in sig, is that your absolute max to sustain 100% stability and a clean image? What are your load temps in a worse case scenario with those clocks. Do you have a before and after temp for idle/load before you applied MX2?

Thanks, and sorry for all the questions.

[Buckeye]

Thanks for the tip on taking the GX2 apart...

I might give mine the MX-2 treatment too. The GX2 and MX2 togeather, just sound like a good match to me?

I do usually order from the egg too. On the 1st however, my SSC was only listed on the EVGA site. Joe is a man of his word, and did get my GX2 out the door today!

It now has wheels under it, and is rolling toward my house right now!!
I do feel better.

I also would love to see what Thermalright might make for the GX2...
Tough assignment.

FYI - Here is a new cooling option for the GX2.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7598.html

It's kind of hard on the eyes.
I still would like to see a review with numbers...

I think I would rather get the EK block myself, but none the less, there it is!

I think I am going to go slow on ordering a waterblock until I decide if my GX2 is really going to be my 1 time step up card.
If not, and I keep it for a year or so, EK will probably win.

Good find on that cooling block !

[zodiac]

Hi TouGe, your sig says bios mod for your 9800GX2. What exactly did you do? Last I heard there was no way to flash a bios to TWO/BOTH parts of the card, but only one. With the card containing two PCB's they both need a bios flash and NVflash as far as I know was unable to do this.

If you have found a way, or know something I do not, please do share! As well, did you lock in your desired clocks AND mod the fan speed by any chance? I loved this about my Ultra card. Have clocks exactly how I want them and fan speed at 100% at all times. I never need software installed anymore. My card just runs as I like right from the get go. This is what I would like to see happen with the GX2. As soon as they get dual display support while running SLI I will be grabbing this card and hope to tune the bios exactly to my liking.

BTW, your new clocks in sig, is that your absolute max to sustain 100% stability and a clean image? What are your load temps in a worse case scenario with those clocks. Do you have a before and after temp for idle/load before you applied MX2?

Thanks, and sorry for all the questions.

Cantankerous....I just saw this regarding BIOS...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/....php?p=2884980



Also found a guy on MVKtech dot net, that is talking about running the EVGA 9800 GX2 KO bios on his stock GX2.
I'd like to see the SSC bios (see stats below) running on a stock GX2 also.

e-GeForce 9800GX2 SSC 1024MB
Part Number 01G-P3-N897-AR
Core Clock Speed 675MHz
Stream Processors 256
Memory Clock Speed 2100MHz
Memory Bandwidth 134.4GB/sec
Shader Clock Speed 1674MHz
Bus PCI-E
Interface DVI-I, DVI-I, HDMI

[cantankerous]

Great, thanks a ton for this. So we can in fact save and flash bios with edited clocks, but what about fan speed adjustment? Can you ramp up the fan speed and flash with the faster RPM's as well as clocks? I would like to run the fan much faster and not have to rely on installing software to do this.

[zodiac]

Not too sure on that man....TBH, I'm n00bish in the video bios....hopefully to be rectified very soon : )
I would imagine, that even after the bios flash, that one could use ntune to up the GPU fan speeds... unless of course mvktechnet has some info regarding fan speeds in the bios. That is what I'd be doing in the interim. I can deal with the extra noise if it means lower temps. I'll keep hammering the net for answers tho.

Z

Edit: Should have looked before I answered. See link
http://www.mvktech.net/content/view/2069/37/
Pretty serious walkthrough on NiBitor... User defined fan speeds is in the list.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1260590 This thread discusses fan speeds in NiBitor...
Versions 3.7 and newer support fan speed modifications....mvktech has the lateest and greatest versions
Here --> http://www.mvktech.net/component/opt...rent,category/


Here's the thread I'm watching for the SSC bios...
http://www.mvktech.net/component/opt...8955/catid,13/

[phelan1777]

I am going from 8800GTS 640 to 9800GX2

so wonder what I will see for an improvement.

Packing up my 8800 today to ship out.

[Linchpin]

I am going from 8800GTS 640 to 9800GX2

so wonder what I will see for an improvement.

Packing up my 8800 today to ship out.

Should be a rather noticeable increase, I went from the 640MB GTS to the 9800GTX and the difference is very noticeable.

[TouGe]

Hi TouGe, your sig says bios mod for your 9800GX2. What exactly did you do? Last I heard there was no way to flash a bios to TWO/BOTH parts of the card, but only one. With the card containing two PCB's they both need a bios flash and NVflash as far as I know was unable to do this.

Already answered and very easy to do.

If you have found a way, or know something I do not, please do share! As well, did you lock in your desired clocks AND mod the fan speed by any chance? I loved this about my Ultra card. Have clocks exactly how I want them and fan speed at 100% at all times. I never need software installed anymore. My card just runs as I like right from the get go. This is what I would like to see happen with the GX2. As soon as they get dual display support while running SLI I will be grabbing this card and hope to tune the bios exactly to my liking.

As of NiBitor v4.0 the area where you would change fan speed is grayed out, so I don't see how we could change fan speeds right now.


Maybe with the next version of NiBitor we will be able to change this setting. Just use RivaTuner for now.

BTW, your new clocks in sig, is that your absolute max to sustain 100% stability and a clean image? What are your load temps in a worse case scenario with those clocks. Do you have a before and after temp for idle/load before you applied MX2?

As for my clocks, 702/1782/1080, these were the most stable for me. I could have set them at 720/1836/1062 but I would get infrequent glitches in 3DMark06 and errors in ATi Tool. When I am able to bump the voltages @ the BIOS level I'll probably revisit my current clocks but as they sit now I am able to score over 20,000 in 3Dmark06, so I am happy.
My Idle temps right now are 54/49 w/ fan @ 75%. When running ATi Tool I believe they were ~61/58. For some reason one card isdles hotter than the other. I noticed this when I first installed the card as well. I might try to re-apply MX-2 again next week to see if this changes anything.
My before temps were in the mid to upper 50's on both cards @ idle, so I gained 3-4 degrees w/ an additional 100MHz on the core clock.

[Talonman]

I have the Thermaltake Toughpower 1000W Cable Management PSU.

Out of the wires that remain attached all the time, are 2 Black 8 pin connectors.
One Black 8 pin connector goes to my mobo wich is working fine.
My second black 8 pin connector is just hanging in space right now. (and can't be removed)

The extra wires that I can plug into the PSU have 6 and 8 pin connectors, but both are colored RED.

I know I will need to plug in 1 RED 6 pin plug in to power my GX2.

My question is, can I use my 2nd permanent Black 8 pin connector that is hanging in space to power my GX2, or do I need to plug a RED 8 pin connector in the PSU to power the GX2?

Could I still have a wrong 8 pin connector available to plug in, if my mobo already has one in it?

** UPDATE **
My PSU does have two 8 pin CPU connectors that are both Black!!
I need to continue to let that one hang in space...
Actually, I guess I can finally hide it now...
All this time I thought it was going to be needed for my future GPU...
It was made for running another mobo the entire time!

I will stick to the RED removable wires marked:

(1) 6 pin to 6 pin with 'To VGA Card Rail: +12V4' on one end, and 'To PSU Location V4' on the other.
(1) 8 pin to 8 pin with 'To VGA Card Rail: +12V4' on one end, and 'To PSU Location V4' on the other.

My V4 12 volt rail is rated at 36 amps max, with nothing currently plugged into it...
Word is on the net, that a GX2 requires a +12 volt rail rated at 28 amps minimum to work properly.
I should be golden.

Time to load this puppy down some! Common UPS Ground... Roll baby roll...
I wan't to feed this new monster card some juce!!
Then let er run like the wind!

[Talonman]

never mind..