6800XT a blessing in disguise?

[drunken_izools]

There seems to be very little discussion about this card around the web, however it seems the few threads that are around show that people are having great overclocking / unlocking success with this card.

I needed to get rid of my ageing 9800 non-pro so I decided to go for a PoV 6800XT (£109 Inc.) Dirt cheap, and fairly current technology.

Problem with this card is its stock specs - 8 Pixel pipelines, 4 Shaders.
300MHz core, 700MHz Mem.

However unlocking this card was a doddle - I now have it running with 16 Pixel pipelines, 5 shaders, 333MHz core and 875MHz mem - this seems to be very common.

I'll do some arctic-silvery later on the stock cooler to see if I can get any better.

Perspective:
£109 card. Out-of-box 3DMark 05 score - 2885 ish
Post unlocking / OC score - 3900 ish

Keep in mind those scores were obtained on a 2.6GHz P4 Northwood - you will undoubtedly get way higher scores on a current platform.

Note: This is only available for AGP. the PCI-e 9800LE/XT use the N41 core which cannot be unlocked to 16 pixel pipes.

Would be nice to know what sort of success other people are having with 6800XT/LE cards; this particular one certainly seems to be amazing value... I just hope I can get the core to 350MHz with some better cooling.

 

[blackdog2]

what is the difference between the xt and le

 

[drunken_izools]

As far as I can tell diddly squat. the chip on my XT is infact labelled LE - I guess some companies jumped on the ATI market-jargon bandwagon hoping n00bies thought XT GeForce's were akin to XT Radeon's. Or something.

 

[ShortyNumber45]

XT's are nothing but renamed chips, like for example a geforce 5900xt is originally 5700 ultra, NVIDIA just renamed it and added it a bit of extra features hence the term XT(stands for Extension).

LE's are lame Edition chips.

 

[blackdog2]

don't the 6800s all have a 256 bit memory bus? and the 5900 XT 8 pixel pipes???

 

[drunken_izools]

OK. research shows: 6800LE and XT are pretty much the same thing - 6800LE is spec'd to run at 320MHz - by renaming the core XT the card manufacturers can steer away from nVidia's specified core clock.

Pipes:

6800 LE/XT - 8 pixel pipes, 4 vertex shaders
6800 - 12 Pixel pipes, 5 vertex shaders
6800 GT / Ultra - 16 pixel pipes, 6 vertex shaders

all cores are NV40 (atleast on AGP) - this means they all have 16 pixel pipes and 6 vertex shaders, some are disabled on the cheaper cards. This is due to bad pixel or vertex pipes.

So... if you are very lucky you can enable all 16 pipes and 6 shader units on a dirt cheap LE/XT. This is highly unlikely. I am lucky in that I managed to enable all 16 pixel pipes and another vertex unit, bringing my chip somewhere between a 6800 and a 6800 GT.

Has anyone else had a play with the LE/XT cards?

 

[JayMan]

I have a 6800LE
4 pipes unlocked (12 total)
clocked at 350 core and 900mem

3Dmark2005...4109

those scores are better than a normal 6800 256MB

and mine only has 128MB

 

[blackdog2]

OK. research shows: 6800LE and XT are pretty much the same thing - 6800LE is spec'd to run at 320MHz - by renaming the core XT the card manufacturers can steer away from nVidia's specified core clock.

Pipes:

6800 LE/XT - 8 pixel pipes, 4 vertex shaders
6800 - 12 Pixel pipes, 5 vertex shaders
6800 GT / Ultra - 16 pixel pipes, 6 vertex shaders

all cores are NV40 (atleast on AGP) - this means they all have 16 pixel pipes and 6 vertex shaders, some are disabled on the cheaper cards. This is due to bad pixel or vertex pipes.

So... if you are very lucky you can enable all 16 pipes and 6 shader units on a dirt cheap LE/XT. This is highly unlikely. I am lucky in that I managed to enable all 16 pixel pipes and another vertex unit, bringing my chip somewhere between a 6800 and a 6800 GT.

Has anyone else had a play with the LE/XT cards?

Thanks for clearing that up. so it is nothing like a 6600 GT

 

[ShortyNumber45]

6800LE & 6800XT are totally not the same GPU at all, although both shares the same architecture. LE is based on the chip code-named NV42 while XT is based on NV40 or it may utilize different chips. If you wanna read the whole review check this out:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/286/

 

[drunken_izools]

I believe there is some discrepancy in what manufaturers choose to ship on their card - exaple being Point of View's AGP "XT" has a NV40 core labelled as an "LE".

 

[Booger]

Hey, I bought a 6800xt and unlocked to 16 pixel pipes and 6 vertex. However, the screen looked like fireflies were all over it while playing Q4. After experimenting I found that I could not leave either set of pixel pipes unlocked due to these artifacts - DOH! I was able to use the vertex shaders though. Clocked it up to 330/770 (10%) increase and it plays fairly well. Q4 800x600 special effects all on and 4x AA looks good. Only glitches a little from time to time.

 

[darren1678]

hi al this is my first post, so bare with me:

Ther is an excelent 6800xt card out there made by GALAXY GEFORCE 6800XT.

unlike the other cards mentioned here it uses gddr3 (1.6ns) and has a sublime overclock to 1.3ghz memory wise

standard gpu of 400mhz, heard of overclocks to 450/500

It retails for a little more than the average xt but it is worth it.
it also uses a ZALMAN heat sink, it's the card i'd have next to a 6800gs.

cant seem to find them for sale anymore only place to go is online to ebay and the like they can be had for about 100 pounds sterling. ex shipping

again you can unlock to 12 pixel pipelines .

 

[ShortyNumber45]

I've seen a 5900XT before that was made by Leadtek, I guess that was a very rare kind of card it utilized the chip NV36.

 

[bhavv]

what is the difference between the xt and le

The difference is that the LE was based on the previous chip that the GT and Ultra were based on with a .13 micron proccess.

The 6800XT is actually meant to be based on the same core as the 6800GS, which is a .11 part. At least im sure thats true on the PCI-E versions.

 

[Nytro]

only 4109??? i have 4150 with my 6600 GT OC