Reply 80 of 93, by badmojo
- Rank
- l33t
I found occasion to fire up the mighty Cedar Mill recently despite it already being uncomfortably warm in my man cave. I had some red hot new-old-stock arrivals that would not wait for cooler weather. I’m the first to admit that these are a total indulgence – they’re replacing almost exactly the same hardware that I was using previously. But those came as bare cards, and I missed the experience of opening the boxes, reading the scant documentation, etc.
The Audigy 2 ZS is a classic and despite containing mostly air, the big box is a winner too. The 8800GTX is likewise a classic, and something that I’ve wanted since release - I went with a GTS at the time and it was great, but always regretted not spending the extra for the GTX.
I was interested to see if the BFG’s factory overclock made any difference to my existing ‘standard’ version of the card, so I ran Aquamark 3 on both @ 1024x768x32, AA: Off, Ansio: 4x, Details: V High. Same drivers for both:
‘Standard’: 81,081
‘OC’: 81,200
So there it is in black and white, the ‘OC’ is faster (by a teensy tiny amount).
I broke it all in with an hour of FarCry, which still looks stunning on a CRT. The heat this machine pumps out is phenomenal but a lot of it seems to come from the PSU - maybe it’s time to look into a more modern one, which I’m assuming will run cooler?
Life? Don't talk to me about life.