New rev of BFG GTX 285 OCX?

[dyrnwyn]

Greetings all.

I purchased an BFG GeForce GTX 285 OCX 1GB GDDR3 from Amazon back in March. My first one was buggy but the replacement has worked great. This version of the card is overclocked yo 702 mhz and has 240 stream processors.

I was bored and considering going SLI a few weeks ago, so I started looking all over the interwebs to find another one of these cards to no avail. No one seems to have it. But a quick trip to amazon this evening revealed the following:


There is a newer model of this item:
BFG NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 OCX 1 GB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 Graphics Card
$374.99
Not in stock; order now and we'll deliver when available

the model number seems to indicate a version change:

Old: BFGEGTX2851024OCXE
New: BFGEGTX2851024OCXBE

Does anyone have any more info on this new card? Is it likely to be compatible with the previous version? It'd be a shame if that answer is no of course.

Thanks for your time and attention.

 

[mcnuggetofdeath]

What are your other specs, and why do you want to SLI? Unless your running at 2560x1600 you probably wont notice a difference. Second, odds are something else is bottlenecking your system at the moment. Unless you've also got you CPU pushed past 4GHz. Third, Nvidia's DX11 cards are coming out fairly soon. Save your money, so that youll be able to see a real performance jump once the GTX300 series drops. Ive heard rumors of multi-threaded stream processors which might just pull me away from ATI if the rumors are true. As that would do wonders for Parallel processing if implemented correctly. Fourth, to my knowledge you can SLI anything, just know that the faster card will be downclocked to run at the speed of the slower. So any other GTX 285 would work.

 

[dyrnwyn]

i7 940 @ 3.5 ghz
6 gigs patriot ram (6-6-6-18)
RAID 1 TB
Corsair 1000X power supply
Coolermaster V8 CPU cooler
Lots of fans
you know the video card
P182 case.

I built this as a birthday present for myself earlier this year. Like I mentioned, looking at SLI not because I am having any graphic problems, but because I like tinkering with this thing. My last PC was an alienware 3.2 ghz P4 with a Geforce 7950 in it...so you can see I have made a substantial upgrade. I am also running on a 1685 x 1050 so this whole exercise is about utterly overpowering a smaller monitor. I run L4D at somewhere near 300 fps if I don't lock the vsync.

I appreciate your advice on the 300 series. Any idea when that might be?

 

[boulard83]

If i was you, ill just wait for DX11 card to come out.

 

[mcnuggetofdeath]

Id guess first quarter '09. From everything Ive read they want to launch as soon as possible after ATI debuts their DX11 cards which are expected near the end of this year. In the meantime perhaps try to hit 4GHz? You've got a higher multiplier than the 920 correct? Or is it simply running at a higher QPI?

and boulard, try reading the thread and using proper english.

 

[dyrnwyn]

I found most of the i7 overclocking info really confusing...that and waiting for the RAID to reset if I got a bad crash. I have minimal setting changes for this OC:

CPU ratio: Auto
Turbo: Disabled
Bclk: 160
PCIE: 100
CPU voltage: 1.20
QPI/DRAM Voltage: 1.25
Dram Bus: 1.64

It's summer now, so my case temp is a bit higher (44c) with CPU in that vicinity while idle. It didn't get so hot in the winter but Prime 95 puts me in the high 60s now when doing the maximum heat run.

I was a little reticent about going for a higher OC because the voltage increase seemed to raise my chip temp a ton right away, and I didn't want to run over 70c really. I know this is off topic, but your thoughts are appreciated.

thanks

 

[mcnuggetofdeath]

No I totally understand. I live in San Antonio, Texas and it was literally 105F today. That doesnt do well for overclocking. Although I do have a low power CPU and you dont. ( Core 2 Duo = 65w stock , i7 = 130w stock ). Have you tried incrementally increasing the QPI. Perhaps lowering the multiplier and raising the QPI would allow you to hit a higher overclock. In my experience by using a lower multiplier and higher bus speed I was able to use less core voltage. As you pursue higher bus speeds try increasing the Northbridge and ( idk what its called on an x58 ) bus speed voltage whatever. Try a Bclk of 195 or 200, and a 19x multiplier (3.7GHz and 3.8GHz). Also try a Bclk of 180 or 190 with a 20x multiplier (3.6GHz and 3.8GHz)

Like you said. Keep it under 70C just to be safe. My E7400 @ 4.05GHz hits appx 68C under prime95 and the thermal limits for my chip are 74C.

 

[dyrnwyn]

Yeah...I am planning on revisiting the OC issue some time in the future. Managed to blue screen this evening b/c I was being stupid, but it did boot with a 3.93...for a few seconds ;-)

 

[mcnuggetofdeath]

lol. 3.93 is a little high unless youve got a beast of a cooler. Let me know how adjusting stuff goes. Hit me up with any other questions you've got and Ill answer what I can.