Well a little news and a lot of my thoughts, in this forum.

nVidia has released a set of "Official Beta Drivers", 71.84. These have already been found as "Leaked Beta" drivers around the net. I've tried the leaked set, and they run great on my computer. IQ appears to be better, and frames per second are increased a little. Just what I was looking for.

But, for me and a lot of others there has been a bug, that raised your idle and load temps by ten degrees or so. At least on a 6800 GT. This can be solved by overclocking the 2D speeds of the 6800 GT to 401. The temps come down by the ten degrees or so to normal. You can also bring your 2D speed back to default, still okay with temps. But, again there is a problem, at least for me. Everytime I reboot, up goes the temps again. I don't think I want to go throught this procedure every time I boot up, so I went back to the 67.03's, great drivers, again, at least for me.

As I have not tried these "Official Drivers", I can't confirm if the heat issue is still there, but I am seeing reports that it is. I think I'll stick with 67.03's again.

Has anybody had this problem with the 70 series drivers, I understand it's there in all of them, I know it is in another 70 series I tried, can't remember which.

As a former ATi user, I was used to one driver release every month. Kind of something to look forward to, and contrary to a lot of opinion, mine now is that, ATi is making the best drivers. I know this has not always been true, but to me it sure seems that way now. There drivers always seem to solve at least some problems on a regular basis and give some speed improvements.

As a BFG 6800 GT OC user for about three months now, I'm getting, kind of annoyed with the constant release, or should I say leaks, of drivers on what seems to be a biweekly basis or even more often. Granted, these are betas, and should be expected to have bugs, but is nVidia using us for there beta testers, I wonder. But if they are, I don't think they are getting enough feedback. I can't say that I've had any real trouble with any of these beta's, except the ones with the heat bug. But there is always someone having some kind problem or other. But they are beta's after all, so not to complain.

But to me, it's very annoying, that nVidia would release a driver, that they should know everyone is complaining about, that has this heat bug. At least 6800 GT owners are complaning about, not sure about any others. Don't they listen. I wonder how many people it takes to develop a set of drivers for release every six months. Come on now, how about a little more often guys.

Another thing, I'm not a SLI owner, yet, but if I was, I haven't seen any official drivers that support SLI, am I wrong? I would sure hate to have a mighty expensive SLI settup, and have nothing but Beta drivers for it. Somebody tell me if I'm wrong about this.

Okay, I'll admit, that maybe ATi's scheme of one driver release a month is, well MAYBE excessive, but I sure used to look forward to it. Now after nearly four months, I'm SURE looking forward to a new nVidia official driver. I've already grown tired of loading beta's every week, enough of that. Come to think of it, maybe ATi's really on to something here, Give you something to look forward to every month. Not bad, at least to me. Keep them happy, what a novel idea. If you can't sell them a vidio card every month, keep them happy and maybe they'll come back and buy a new one every year, hey, maybe they'll buy one every six months, lets refresh this last one.

So now I buy the latest, greatest $400-$500, eh, $600 card, and before I even get it really intalled, get a driver update, and start to enjoy it, what do you know, I've got an outdated card. I want to go out imediately and get a new one so I can brag, I've got the best. Yeah, sure. Not me. Got to last me two years. I want to have the latest and greatest for at least a year, wish I could at least.

Now before somebody accuses me of being an ATi fanboy, I'm not. I've used both and they are both great in my opinion. To be honest, when I got my new 6800 GT, I really went looking for an ATi 800 XT, but I couldn't find one locally, and all of a sudden, right there in from of me, after a little searching on a shelf at Best Buy, where someone had hidden it behind some cheaper cards was the BFG. I got it. And I couldn't be happier, I love it, runs great, no problems. But that's how close I came to being another happy ATi owner. But I'm not looking back, I'm very satisfied.

But, by golly, I want more offical drivers.

More often.

Like ATi does it.


Anybody else got an opinion?