Nvidia 6800 Ultra vs GeCube X850XT Review --- TheThirdMedia Hardware

Installation

Installing the 6800U was not an easy task, thanks to its huge size. Since the 6800U requires two PCI expansion slots, you have to clear another PCI slot just below the graphics card. Being the longest card we have tested, the 6800U streaches all the way to the 4th DIMM slot. Upon powering up the rig, the 6800U comes to life. We also noticed an onboard LED indicator just near the power connector.

The X850XT was much easier to install when compared with the 6800U. Although, keep in mind that we are using the GeCube Uni-Wise version with single slot solution. Most X850XTs comes with dual slot solution a.k.a dust buster cooler. The X850XT is pretty compact, reaching the 2nd DIMM slot. The fan on the Uni-Wise cooler runs pretty quite but it could have looked fancier if the fan has red coloured LEDs.

Upon installing the latest ForceWare and Catalyst drivers (at the time of review), we fired up RivaTuner and ATI Tool respectively to check out the clock speeds. At default, the GeForce 6800U runs at 400MHz core clock and 1100MHz DDR clock. Then we have the GeCube Radeon X850XT running at 520 MHz core and 540MHz (1080MHz effective) memory. Both cards were running on a 256-bit interface with 16 pipelines enabled.

Temperature and Noise

The GeForce 6800U actually runs much cooler than the X850XT, thanks to its dual slot cooling solution but this doesn’t mean that the 6800U produces less heat than the X850XT. The system was left idling for 30 minutes in a SilverStone TJ05 closed case to reflect real-world usage conditions. The temperature readings were recorded via RivaTuner’s monitoring tool. RivaTuner reports that during idle, the 6800U runs at 59 ºC core temperature with the ambient temperature at 45 ºC. On the other hand, the X850XT (with GeCube’s Uni-Wise solution) has a core temperature of 45 ºC with ambient temperature at 41 ºC.

Then we fired up TWO instances of RTHDRIBL for 30 minutes and recorded the temperatures. During full load, the 6800U reaches core temperatures up to 76 ºC with the ambient at 58 ºC. Then the X850XT was running way hot at 80 ºC core temperature with the ambient temperature at 56 ºC. Since the X850XT uses a unique cooler other than the recommended dual slot cooler by ATI, the reference X850XT should have a better cooling result.

Although the GeCube’s Uni-Wise cooler on the X850XT did not keep the card cooler, it produced much less noise when compared to the 6800U’s cooler. Upon booting, the 6800U’s cooler made high pitched noise until it boots into Windows. The Uni-Wise cooler on the X850XT was silent all the way, even at full speed. Nevertheless, we could not distinguish the noise level between the two at full load. Both cards ran pretty silent compared to all other fans installed inside our rig. The 6800U never increases the fan speed nor gives the option to adjust the fan speed.



	TheThirdMedia Hardware → Video Guide → Video Article > Nvidia 6800 Ultra vs GeCube X850XT Review