X800 Xt has overdrive after all!

Is this actually coming in 4.5?

 

For some reason, this comes to my mind.
Frankly, they needed new features for the 9800XT BAD to justify the price premium compared to the Pro. This whole auto-overclocking is just smoke & mirrors to me ( from both ATi and NV )... termal monitoring and downthrottling in 2D is a GoodThing though.


Come to think of it... OMG. Please someone tell me the R420 is not running full speed in desktop. I BEG YOU.

 

I dunno if the clocks change, but the power drain lowers significantly, and the thermal probe adjusts fan speed accordingly.

 

imho, the 9800XT was justified for it's fast, 256MB DDR ram and increased core clocks. Several games became playable at 6x AA for me that were not playable w/ 9800 Pro.

 

To me, "Overdrive" is a partially useless, silly feature, but a feature that is unique nonetheless, and I think might find some utility for very conservative people like myself (I have pushed my 9800P to a core speed of 452.xMHz, and no higher because that scared me to death, and after doing it for a couple of days and looping 3dMark for a few hours just to see what would happen--nothing--I chickened out and set it back to default where it has been ever since...)

For me, the idea of a manufacturer's-warrantied overclock, which is monitored and controlled by thermal sensors, is kind of a cool slant on humdrum, normal thermal monitoring. It's not that all of the gpus will run forever at 432MHz, but rather that some of will run longer than others at 432MHz, which is where the thermal monitoring and control comes in. That's primarily a yield issue, and will differ among individual chips.

But I can also see from ATi's position that the value of implementing Overdrive must be measured against how compelling it is to their markets, as it costs something to implement and support it. If the majority of people see it as take it or leave it, I'd imagine they'd drop it. But if it actually works from their point of view (few or no support issues) and customers seem to like it, then I'd imagine they'd keep it. I wouldn't call it "compelling" of course (still have my 9800P which is 1 year old this month), but in certain respects it is kind of intriguing for the conservative among us.

 

Not from what I've read.

Mario64

 

thought they said a few months time .

I would imagine in 2 weeks 4.5s wil be avalbile . So most likely 4.7s or 4.8s

 

From what I have seen so far overdrive will basically be a waste of time, as it SEEMS the 800XT is just about maxxed out already.
Talk about cutting it close with the core clocks. geez I'm not sure I ever saw something that had almost no OC potential B4.
Maybe when ya slap on a better cooloer it'll spring to life, but as of RIGHT NOW ( todays speed binned parts) the XT is a poor OC'er IMO.

I thought I read an interview with an ATi rep that mentioned the 800 was a good overclocker, as even though they don't condone it ( ya sure ) they know the enthusiast crowd wants and WILL oc their parts.
He must have been talking about the Pro, cuz from what I see there is little headroom with the XT with stock cooling, not that I'd use stock cooling, but some folks will.

Anyone know where that interview I read is?

Thanks

m

 

Can we finally get an actual core temperature reading now?