6800 Ultra overclocking - XFX? PNY? eVGA? BFG?

[Marc Brown]

In spite of the difficulty in acquiring a 6800 Ultra for the time
being, I'm going to get one. I intend to overclock it as much as
seems safe. I'm undecided on what sort of cooling to use. It
could be stock, or it could be that $125 waterblock, or maybe that
NV Silencer thing, although I'm not even sure if that would work
on an Ultra.

The main point of this post is to figure out which brand seems to
be overclocking the best. For now, here are what the signs seem
to be pointing to: BFG comes overclocked by default, but several
people have had trouble overclocking it even to typical OC levels.
Overclocking a GT to Ultra levels, for example. Speculation is
that the ram used is inferior. I've seen a few people claim that
XFX seems to overclock the best. Same story for the eVGA. And
one or two people have said it's a toss-up between eVGA and PNY.
At the least, it definitely seems as though the BFG, while
overclocked stock, doesn't have any particular advantages if one
wishes to take it closer to the limit. Apart from the warranty.

The goal here is to get a better idea of what is generally
accepted to be the best overclocker. Any takers?

Note: I didn't mention Gainwood, mainly because it has become
painfully obvious that that particular card is far too scarce
to ever become a potential purchase.

 

[Erik]

Well POV seems to do well. They use 1.6 nc ram.
My 6800Ultra runns great on 450\1200 with i modded bios, 1,5v (1,4 org)
Dont think you can go any higher without extreme cooling. Tried som benching
on 465\1250 but got a lower score so 450\1200 works best for me.

Idle temp on my 6800Ultra is 52C lidle, 80C full load. 13300 3dmark03 with
P4 3200@3500.

Erik
Norway

 

[kony]

Well POV seems to do well. They use 1.6 nc ram.
My 6800Ultra runns great on 450\1200 with i modded bios, 1,5v (1,4 org)
Dont think you can go any higher without extreme cooling. Tried som benching
on 465\1250 but got a lower score so 450\1200 works best for me.

Idle temp on my 6800Ultra is 52C lidle, 80C full load. 13300 3dmark03 with
P4 3200@3500.

Yep, good points. Research of memory on specific runs of
card is important, as is extreme cooling OR benchmarks to
determine the max speed that can be used before
overheat-throttling kicks in. There may be a way to disable
throttling but IMO, that's a bad idea.

Mainly, don't get proprietary designed cards if you want to
later find hard-volt-mods for it, since some companies may
deviate from nVidia reference design and require individual
card reverse-engineering to volt-mod. Not a problem for
some people but a hurdle for others.