Cards, Drivers, Overclocking, Benchmarking

[Anonymous]

i have just purchased a new video card, and thought i would post this for some response/discussion/feedback.

for $640 (canadian) i purchased a Leadtek GeForce 6800GT. i have overclocked it now to run at 439/1100. my realtime 3D navigation is much improved over the Radeon 9600XT that i have been using til now.

For another $250 i could purchase a nVidia Quadro FX 700 workstation card. however, from my research in this forum, it seems that most users are discouraging the purchase of workstation cards on the basis of lack of specific driver sets being provided by graphisoft to the card vendors.

as i have one more week to exchange my card, i would like some input fom anyone who has suggestions for a different card. some have suggested that BFG has better drivers for AC9 than Leadtek. This is confusing to me, as i believe drivers come from nVidia, not Leadtek BFG or others. am i mistaken?

also i ran the card compatibility test with the Leadtek 6800GT and it ran just fine. but on my own more complex projects, the performance was not as good. this makes me question if a more rigourous test (similar to the Mark 05 test) should be established to create a true benchmarking utility for AC9.

Any feedback?

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Lindsay,

You are correct to say that BFG uses native nVIDIA drivers. Not all vendors go this route - they create their own. I didin't mean to imply that BFG had better drivers than Leadtek - I honestly don't know what Leadtek does.

If your card is working and can stand the overclocking (doesn't that void the warranty?) then you should be ok. I'm sure there's something else to spend that $250 on.

[on the oc issue, BFG overclock some of their own cards. this is meant to give their 6800 GT crads similar or better spect to the 6800 Ultra cards.]

[Anonymous]

I have decided to stay with the Leadtek A400 6800GT. From what i can see, out of the box, BFG has the advantage on clock speed. However, Leadtek's massive cooling setup is primed for individuals who choose to overclock on their own. I dont believe it voids the warranty. In fact Winfox (the cards diagnostic software) is the utility I used to overclock my card. I am currently running my card at 430/1090.

Now, if i decide to work with 3ds in the future, should i then switch to the Quadro FX700? lol... i think im ready for a break from techno-babble....