GTX 260 review from a first hand user

[vnderachiever]

Here's my setup:
Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4
Intel E6600 at 2.4 (stock)
2x2gb of Corsair xms pc 6400 ddr2-800 ram
EVGA GTX 260 Superclocked
Alpine7 HSF
74 Gb Raptor HDD
250 Gb WD Caviar SE HDD
Cosmos 1000 case
Antec Truepower Trio 550w Psu
Acer 22" lcd 1680x1050
XP home 32bit

OK. So I figured I'd post this because every review you see shows testing units with 1000 dollar processors and 400 dollar mobo's and stuff. This is a more realistic review for most of us. Keep in mind that I just got it yesterday, and haven't had time to try out EVERYTHING.... yet. I'll update as I test it. I upgraded from 2 evga 8800 gts 320 mb and it's niiice.

So I started by turning on Crysis. Cranked the settings up to High at 1680x1050 4x AA. 35fps steady while running and shooting. not too shabby.

Photoshop and the likes run with ZERO lag.

WoW runs great. With 25 characters on screen all casting spells and whatnot, I kept pinned to 60fps (v-sync)

Let me know what other games are good/I should try to test out this system with. Im at work right now but I'll pick one or two up later.

Also, If you have any suggestions on my build... feel free to comment. I'm always looking to upgrade

 

[peter_peter]

What speed is your GTX260 running at? Did you OC or can OC from Manufacturer?

 

[vnderachiever]

Oc by manufacturer. I don't have the exact speeds on me.. im at work. It's the "superclocked" not the "FTW edition"

 

[Granite3]

Spend $24 on an Artic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 to upgrade from that Alpine 7, and OC that 6600 to about 3.2, and you will notice a good little bump in frames for cheap.

 

[vnderachiever]

see.. I tried to OC. I can't seem to get the voltages right. My bios confuses me. It has a "linked'' setting for the ram and fsb so If I increase the fsb the ram goes up with a ratio (2;3, 1:1) etc. But it also has all the northbridge voltages and whatnot. I can't figure all that out for the life of me.

 

[vnderachiever]

also, I set the multiplier to 9 and changed the fsb to 350 and when I run CPU-Z it tells me that my multiplier is 6...it hits 9 for a few seconds, then goes back down to 6 for awhile... it just cycles like that.... 6 for like 10 seconds, 9 for 2 seconds, I think it's the speed stepping but I can't disable that in my bios.

 

[M3d]

Spend $24 on an Artic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 to upgrade from that Alpine 7, and OC that 6600 to about 3.2, and you will notice a good little bump in frames for cheap.

Yup, been running that e6600 at 3.2 for almost 2 years with the Freezer 7 Pro. Good cheap cooler for mild OCs.

 

[vnderachiever]

What's the best way to OC my processor safely(is that even a word?) ? Should I pump up the mult to 9 and set it to 350 or so, then mess with the voltages? I dont know which voltages to play with, just the northbridge?

 

[billin30]

I dont know if I am getting the minimum voltages, but I have my Q6600 up to 3.0 Ghz. Did it by just increasing the FSB, kept the multiplier the same. As for voltages, I just left it on auto. Everything seems to run stable. I tested with one of the stress tests people had recommended and everything was fine. Took me a few tries obviously, but after some crashes from setting the voltages myself, I just let it auto and everything worked fine.

I just have my memory synced i believe. I tried messing with the timings and i kept getting crashes. Keep is synced, up the FSB and auto the voltages. I cant remember the name of that stress test program, but its one thats been mentioned a lot.

I am going to try and push it a little further. Just bought some new paste, so i am going to reset my artic cooler freezer pro 7 tonight and see how cool we can get it running. Then if everything is mellow, might try and push it to 3.2.

 

[jerreece]

also, I set the multiplier to 9 and changed the fsb to 350 and when I run CPU-Z it tells me that my multiplier is 6...it hits 9 for a few seconds, then goes back down to 6 for awhile... it just cycles like that.... 6 for like 10 seconds, 9 for 2 seconds, I think it's the speed stepping but I can't disable that in my bios.

This is due to the power saving features Intel has in their chips. You'll need to disable those in the BIOS to get rid of this issue.

When your CPU is being used, it will go to the set 9 multiplier. However when at idle (or hardly being used) it drops to a 6x multiplier to conserve energy. Think it's called CE1 or something similar. My motherboard has two separate energy saving options for my Q6600. I'm told that when OC'ing you want to turn all that stuff off for stability purposes.

 

[vnderachiever]

Ok. I'll try leaving the voltages at auto and pump the mult/frequency up. I should set the ratio so that my ram reads 400mhz if im not mistaken right?

I looked for speedstep in my bios but couldnt find it. I wont be home for another 6 hours so I can't look now but I'll check tonight under power saving options. I did have an arctic 7 pro at one point now that I look at it. I just found the thing too damn hard to secure, so I got the alpine 7 which keeps it nice and cool and is quite easy to lock down.

 

[vnderachiever]

update:

Just found a site that had a nice overclocking review on my board. found the speedstep option its c1e I think, or ce1. I'll disable that then use the "easy tune 5" program that gigabyte has for overclocking. i'll let everyone know how it goes.

 

[vnderachiever]

quick update:

Haven't overclocked anything. Installed 64 bit vista.

Bioshock 60fps @ highest settings dx10

I'll be installing world in conflict tonight...apparently I had a free copy from when I worked at gamestop