Gforce 6800 GT DRiver?

[riddy]

hi all , nice to meet you
i was wondering if you guys could help me find the best driver for my new vid card .
Gforce 6800 GT 256mb
my original driver doesn't satify my needs so i'm looking for the best one out there .
thanks

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

Go to the nvidia website and download the latest driver.

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Regards Howard :wave: :wave:

 

[olefarte]

You can go here, and find more drivers than you can ever dream of, mostly all beta's. Most work pretty good. I've got a BFG 6800 GT OC, and I"ve tried a lot of those drivers. Some of the later ones give better performance and IQ, but the 71 series and up, seem to have a heat related issue. My temps run average of 55/65, idle/load, but with some of the newer drivers, it increased to 65/80. While that is not necessarily real high, it's higher than I want mine to be. I've quit using the newer drivers that are "leaked", at least for the time being, there are just to many of them.

The right answer would be, go to the link that Howard provided and download the official driver, after all that's what nVidia says will work best for right now, or they would release a newer official driver. But nVidia doesn't release new drivers very often.

If you want to try somthing else, and after trying many of the drivers listed at the link I provided, I've settle on the 67.03 drivers, which provide a good mix of performance and IQ. But it's really up to you. You can just try some of those drivers and see how they work if you like. It's not really all that hard to change drivers, just takes a little time. Rumor is that the 71.84, 71.90 or somthing pretty close to it, will be the next official release.

One more thought, in the link I provided, there are quite a few "modded" driver sets. You might want to look at some of these, but I've tried some of them, and I can't really tell much difference between them and the regular nVidia drivers, despite claims of better performance and IQ.

By the way, what is there that doesn't satisfiy your needs with the original drivers.

 

[cmy6800]

I had some excellent results using the Forceware 71.81 drivers. I got them from www.guru3d.com Took my 3dmark2005 score from 38 something to 4327. Besides that, my game performace in DOOM 3 is up. Now, I updated these drivers at the same time I updated some other stuff... so, the drivers may not totally account for the huge jump in score. But, I think it is worth the switch. I am one of the folks who do not suffer from the temp bug found in some drivers. my idle temp before was 63 using (I think) 66.93 drivers and it is still 63 after going to 71.81 drivers.

 

[olefarte]

I had some excellent results using the Forceware 71.81 drivers.

I agree, those and the 71.84's are good drivers, I'm just one of the ones that suffers from the temp bug. This can be overcome though, by oc'ing the 2D speeds with NVTweak, to 401, and then resetting it back to stock speeds. This makes temps go back to normal. I would do this and have done it, but I can't figure a way to make it work after a reboot. I don't want to do ths after every reboot. This is either a bug in that the driver is reporting the wrong temp, or the temps have been higher all along, and are not being reported right with earlier drivers.

By the way, I also linked the same place you did in my post above. lol

 

[cmy6800]

You know, you might be on to something there with your suggestion of the temps always being higher. Reading your post, you said the idle with the 7 series drivers was 65. That isn't far off from my 63. Then again, I might have an odd temp bug of my own... no matter what, gaming, not gaming... doesn't matter. I'm always at 63. Highest I've ever seen it is 65. I use smartfan which is off by 10deg (says 53) and I have yet to conclude which one is correct. I could go through the trouble of getting a digital thermometer and whatnot... but, when it comes down to it, it is what it is and whether it is 53 or 63, it doesn't change anything. It is only a number. If it were me, I'd deal with the temp bug for the added performance of the 71.81/71.84 drivers. Remember the days before temp monitoring? Something you might check, and you may have already, is the ambient temp. Does it suffer from the bug as well? If it stays the same, I'd not worry about it. Just my $.02 (take it for what it's worth)

 

[olefarte]

You know, you might be on to something there with your suggestion of the temps always being higher. Reading your post, you said the idle with the 7 series drivers was 65. That isn't far off from my 63. Then again, I might have an odd temp bug of my own... no matter what, gaming, not gaming... doesn't matter. I'm always at 63. Highest I've ever seen it is 65. I use smartfan which is off by 10deg (says 53) and I have yet to conclude which one is correct. I could go through the trouble of getting a digital thermometer and whatnot... but, when it comes down to it, it is what it is and whether it is 53 or 63, it doesn't change anything. It is only a number. If it were me, I'd deal with the temp bug for the added performance of the 71.81/71.84 drivers. Remember the days before temp monitoring? Something you might check, and you may have already, is the ambient temp. Does it suffer from the bug as well? If it stays the same, I'd not worry about it. Just my $.02 (take it for what it's worth)

You know, I really can't remember if the ambient temp changed any. But I don't thiink it did. I've read in another forum, that several members tested the temps coming out the back of the computer, and they were definitly higher with the later drivers.

I tried to use Speedfan to monitor my temps and keep a record while playing games, but Speedfan doesn't like my system for some reason, and I uninstalled it. But, I can say that when it was working and not locking up, it did show that the temps were lower than what the nVidia control panel showed, even lower than the earlier drivers. So I don't know what to make of that. I think Speedfan is wrong.

I for sure have a rise in temps when playing games with both the earlier drivers and the newest ones.

 

[BringinHeat]

hey olefarte & cmy6800 i was thinking about dling the new forceware 71.90 driver which is on the guru3d site have you guys heard anything about that driver yet according to the info its the newest driver around. I have the DNA drivers and they have been performing really well for me so far but i any performance boost is a good thing. :wave:

 

[BringinHeat]

Just wanted to give you guys an update on that i just DLed and installed the new driver and tried out 3dmark03 & 05 i have a funny result my score from 3dmark03 with the previous dna driver was 12109 and now it is 12167 and with 3dmark05 my previous score was 5366 and now it is 5279. I wonder why my score on 3dmark03 increased but then decreased in 3dmark05??

 

[olefarte]

I haven't tried the 71.90's yet. I think I'll just sit tight on what I'm uning now until this temp bug is worked out. I havn't used 3D Mark in quite a while, so I can't really comment on that. I just look at actual performance in games and IQ to decide which one I like best.

 

[cmy6800]

Yeah, from what I hear, the 71.90's are a little funny (as you say as well). They have a thread in the driver section of their forum about the 71.90's. When I upgraded my drivers, I went with the 71.81's and not the 90's mostly because of the good results/reviews of the 71.81/84 and the so/so reviews of the 71.90s. I do know going from my 66.93 drivers to 71.81 netted over 500+ marks in 3dmark2005. I don't have the 2003 version. Actually, just had a thought on your scores... I did a test once with 3dmark2001se. I ran the standard benchmark, recorded my score, then ran the benchmark again and so on. I found that even though I changed nothing, every test came up with slightly worse results than the previous. Of course, this was all started after a fresh reboot. Your score in 3dmark2005 isn't all that far off. If you ran the 2005 test second, my findings might point the finger to why they are a little lower. Maybe try a fresh reboot and just run 2005 to get a number.