When will the 7.8 ati drivers be released?

[illuminatirex]

Hi, im expecting a delivery of my new gpu, and I was wondering when will the 7.8 drivers be released? are they usually released at teh end of the month? or mid month?

(Since i dont want to install the 7.7 ones, then the new ones, i always worry that somethign might go wrong while uninstalling, and installing the new drivers.)

Thank You.

 

[wingless]

for the time being, you can download the 7.8 RC3 Beta drivers. They work great on my 2900XT (yes dammit I bought one and its pretty nice). Heres a link you can copy and paste into your browser.

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/ati%20catalyst.htm

 

[illuminatirex]

Thank You, i just got my 2900xt shipped 2 hours ago to me, cant wait to get it, btw how is the noiz level? is it very noizy? , I have a x850xt currently and i just cant stand how loud it is.

 

[wingless]

You wont have to worry about the noise level unless you get ATI Tool and crank the fan speed up past 50%. The cooler on my Diamond 2900XT is the 3-heat pipe version and its very efficient. The fan usually runs at 38% even under a load. I got ATI Tool and cranked it up to 100% and i swear it boosts about 12 PSI! I could use it as a supercharger in my 240sx. Its crazy loud at 100% but you will never have to run it at that speed in actual use, even when overclocking. This card is full of features and excesses that you probably won't use any time soon. The fan is an example of that fact in that it has a capacity way beyond any reasonable need!. I got my money's worth with this one.

I've been using Nvidia cards for almost 10 years since the Riva TNT came out and I'm liking this ATI a lot. I've been reading online tonight about how the new DX 10.1 features will basically make the 2900XT shine when it comes out. Apparently this card will be fully DX 10.1 compatible.

 

[rammedstein]

it is a 25W fan, what did you expect? lol, yeah, they aren't loud, i have 2 in xfire and mine is cool

 

[illuminatirex]

Thank You for all the info, lol I didnt know it was a 25W fan, lol thats quite a lot I think compared with the older 19x00 series.
I currently have an x850xt and use the ati tool and I can hear the fan already at its 23% mark, and above that it gets quite audiable, not to mentione that at 100% its just unbearable, as if I had a hairdryiner in my case.

So Your advice is not to use the ATI Tool? ( I will definitively not be overclocking the card), since I am currently using a 1280x1024 max rez lcd monitor(for now) I usually used it because I never wanted for my current card to overheat, but i guess it actually reduces the fans lifetime, since it runs on higher speeds than it was originally planned, but with teh x850xt it was running on only 5% all time at stock settings till it reachec 70C or so. but i guess teh 850 cant compare tothe 2900 in its hsf, since the 8500 had not a gully aluminum build, only the fins, and part of the area which came in contact with the chip itselfe.

btw i looked at the card (back view) and i noticed that there is not much "cooling" material there, i mean only 1 black plate, is it a copper plate as well? I had some spare thermaltake copper heatsinks, and I was thinking aboutputing them also on top of that black plate, so that hopefully will reduce a bit teh temps of the memory, since i have 2 fans on the side of teh case which would blow some air on the heatsinks.

btw i thought the 2900xt had only 2 heat pipes, by looking at the photos of it.

Do you have any links to the dx10.1 articles by any chance? i read some (1) that said ati will be ok with 10.1 but nvidia wont, and teh rest of the articles mainly state that all of the current cads wil not support dx10.1, so i got a bit worried about this, and future lets say dx10.2 reelases.

 

[sailer]

Hi, im expecting a delivery of my new gpu, and I was wondering when will the 7.8 drivers be released? are they usually released at teh end of the month? or mid month?

(Since i dont want to install the 7.7 ones, then the new ones, i always worry that somethign might go wrong while uninstalling, and installing the new drivers.)

Thank You.

The last I read was that the 7.8 drivers will be officially released in Sept. Installing 7.7 drivers and then stepping up to 7.8 drivers should be no problem at all. The driver package usually does it automatically, though you can manually do it if you want. Though 7.8 beta drivers are out now, and from what I've read they work pretty well, it might be more of a hastle upgrading from them to the official release 7.8 drivers later. Your choice though. By the way, IMO, you got a good card and I say that as an owner of a 8800 GTS 640.

 

[illuminatirex]

^ Thank You for the information, I always thought that i have to uninstall the drivers from the previous versions first before installing new ones, i forgot the programms name (aticleen, or somethign like it)
so did the driver instaltion change? so i can dld , and install the 7.7 drivers and then the 7.8 ones when they come out? or will I as usualy need to dld 7.7 and tehn uninstall it, and tehn i will be able to install 7.8 so I wouldnt encounter any issues.

I guess I will get the 7.7 drivers, sicne its quite a bit of time till September, and I do not want to "mess up" any thign with beta drivers(usually i prefare to wait for official releases, not betas)

btw thx for the reasurance , the card will arive on tuesday, and to be honest i still am worried about it a bit since i got an impression that most of teh gpu's nowedays are...powerfull...but still somewhat weak, compared to the "wow" factor that was present with the 19x0 series during their release.

 

[sailer]

Compared to my 8800 GTS 640, I think the 2900 XT is on par with its performance, beating some, loosing some. If a person has an AMD cpu, the 2900 XT may work better than a 8800 GTS, as Nvidia has some issues with K7 and K8 chips.

As long as a person is installing officail ATI drivers over the old ATI drivers, my experience in the past (I used to have a 1900 XTX) has been that there was no problem. If I was using ATI tools or ATI tray, third party type accelerators, then I had to uninstall them before installing ATI's CCC. Of course, you can always uninstall the older ATI driver before installing the new driver for better peace of mind.

 

[illuminatirex]

^ thx for the info, so i guess ill get the 7.7 drivers, and then wait for the official 7.8 ones.

 

[EXT64]

Just FYI, I am using the 7.8 Betas with my 2900XT and not using ATI tool. It runs quiet and reasonably cool. Currently, the 7.8s use more power. I don't know if this is because they are betas or if it is required to make some of the video features work. With either 7.7 or 7.8 Beta you will be happy, and it is probably best to wait for the official. To change drivers, I always first uninstall CCC, then just install the new package (new CCC, drivers). The old pattern was a release at the end of every month, (so this should be end of August), however, this seems like a major update, so I wouldn't be suprised if it were delayed a couple weeks for testing.

As for DX10.1, MS keeps changing it, so I don't know if this card will be fully compatible. It has most of the features, but possilbly not all. However, by the time 10.1 is mainstream, you will probably want a new card.

Happy Gaming!

 

[illuminatirex]

Thank You fro the information, so i guess that will be the best to get the 7.7 one, and get rid of ATI Tool, but i have to admit im not really comfortable with not being able to use ati tool, since i always like to monitor the temperature, and fan %'ges, since my frontal lcd, eradings are usually way off(5 to 7 degrees C)

btw how loud is the card itselfe, just ballpark, in dba's? 30? 35? while gaming

Thank You

 

[sailer]

You could try downloading Speedfan for monitoring temps and fan speeds. I've used it for over a year and found it very handy when experimenting with overclocks.

 

[illuminatirex]

thank You for teh info, never heard of that app, will definitively check it out, if the 2900xt has reazonable fan speeds(that is relatively well relaed to temperatures) then i wont be messing iwth it, since it has good settings alread. Usually i think the saying "dont try to fix it if its not broken" to be acurate ...so I guess ill check it out and see. thank You.

 

[EXT64]

I can't say how loud the card fan alone is because my other case fans are low quality and loud and I have a 8 inch fan blowing inside my computer for extra cooling. Though, compared to the rest of my fans it is quiet :lol:

 

[illuminatirex]

^ lol thats good that its quiet , i just cant stand my 850xt's noiz while gaming, since i do nto turn the muzick up much.

 

[EXT64]

Oh yeah, I heard one person say (and I agree) that the noise you hear from the fan is only the AIR moving, not noise from the motor like on low quality fans. This means that it is quiet, and, the noise it makes isn't really annoying.

 

[sailer]

That is true, most of the noise is from the air moving, unless the fan has really bad bearings or something. The faster the air moves, the louder it is. Blade design can also affect noise, as well as fan speed. A large, slow fan will move more air at a given RPM, so can be driven slower and get the same amount of cooling. This is why so many people are getting 120mm fans or larger instead of 80mm fans.

 

[illuminatirex]

^ thats good to hear, lol the old 850xt fan was actually making me not want to play any games, nor do any mddeling, since it was just unberable, while working/playing without any sound, thank You for the info, lol im beggining to feel much beter about this purchase ...lol was a bit nervous what to expect, sicne this is actualy my frist "high end" gpu, that i ever got so soon after its release.
so hopefully all in all I will experience much less noiz, also considerign that im replacing my current 480W psu(with 2 80mm fans, which somehow are becoming more and more high pitched lately) for a 700W psu with a 140mm fan, and in addition i ordered 2 80mm fans to replace my 3(or 4) year old intake fans. Those are 2 ball bearing ones, so hopefully they will be much better than the 30dbs rated ones that I currently have.

 

[illuminatirex]

That is true, most of the noise is from the air moving, unless the fan has really bad bearings or something. The faster the air moves, the louder it is. Blade design can also affect noise, as well as fan speed. A large, slow fan will move more air at a given RPM, so can be driven slower and get the same amount of cooling. This is why so many people are getting 120mm fans or larger instead of 80mm fans.

I know, but the thing is taht my case(thermaltake xaser III series) has 7 80mm fans in it, and I found no way of modding them to bigger ones....I saw somehwere a fan adapter I think 80 to 120 mm one, but by the time i realized it was worth gettgin it was a bit too late, and it was no longer available, and i think i would probably experience simmilar ammount of noiz, sice the intake on the only 2 side fans i could mod is rather small, i would hae to dremel the side holes to make them bigger, but honestly I never really wanted to mod it, scein I was concerned tha I might make it "less atractive" with little gain in airflow, and also the fast tehat the side fans are not connected to the side panel, but to a smaller swinging "door" made it harder.

this is the case tha I am currently using:
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/Chassis/fulltower/xaser3/1000d.asp