Flashing a 6800GT to a 6800Ultra?

[HostileIntent]

Recently I've been trying to get my 6800GT up to the speed of the 6800Ultra. When I use coolbits or rivatuner I can only oc up to 424/1100 (stock is 350/1000 i think for the gt and 450/X for the ultra). When I attempt to oc harder I get a message that says my clock speeds don't pass internal driver testing. However, there are no artifacts or heat problems and the card is completely stable at 424/1100.

I figured that this must be a bios clock speed lock to prevent people from getting ultras out of their gts. I then decided to try and flash my gt to an ultra and oc a bit higher. Seeing as how the ultras and the gt's are the exact same card except for some small differences I don't think this should be a problem.

However, there is one thing that worries me. I did a little research and I discovered that the main difference between the the ultra and the gt is that the ultra is volted 0.1V more than the gt. It also has another power connector which makes me wonder if my gt will be stable if i try and volt it higher or will it simply not have enough power.

Has anyone tried this / know anything about it?

help pls :x

[siddy]

well, the +0.1 voltage might help, but it's certainly not a necessity. There ARE voltmods you can do to your card, but I certainly wouldn't suggest it.

You might be able to hit ultra speeds. Just keep clocking it until you get artifacts and pull it back a bit...but as long as temps are fine, there's nothing to worry about.

[Delta]

In my (fairly vast) overclocking experience you should see what you can get without overvolting things before you take that step. My x800 pro is overvolted, modded, and OC'd to be almost x800 XT plat specs, but only with alot of caution, cooling, and research.

I've had weird experiences with CPU's though, I've seen AMD 64's do funny things when pushed to their limits. Like give mad logic/math errors when OC'd 500 mhz more than stock even when they're running at a breezy 40 degrees celcius, and even when they were perfectly stable in a SuperPI 24 hour burnin just 100mhz lower.

All in all, it sounds like you've got a pretty generous overclock already. Considering your lack of experience in the matter, and the risk involved in you trying to squeeze another measely 5% out of your card, which results in an even more meager 2% of overall performance in games most likely, you should just forget about it and learn to enjoy the more than stock fps you already get which is probably far more than your eye can percieve or even your monitor can display anyways.

[Mirsky]

You can actually enable the extra pipelines using rivatuner without having to flash the bios.

http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_10.html

If you have an NV4X-based Nvidia graphics card (e.g. GeForce 6800 series), then you can choose to alter the number of pixel pipelines and vertex processors available on your card. On some lower-end 6X00 series graphics cards the additional pipeline/vertex units have been 'software masked' so as to appear non-existent. You can attempt to activate them here by choosing the Custom mode and thereby gain performance. Some pipeline/vertex units are 'hardware masked' which means they are physically marked as being unstable or damaged. You can choose to unlock such hardware masked units for additional performance by ticking the 'Allow enabling hardware masked units' and click the Customize button to configure the units. Note that enabling additional pipelines and/or vertex units, while improving performance, can also increase instability and graphical glitches. If you experience problems disable these options.

[HostileIntent]

You can actually enable the extra pipelines using rivatuner without having to flash the bios.

http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_10.html

no, what you are thinking of is a stock 6800NU card, not the gt that I have

[spartan]

I don't see the wisdom in buying a $300-$400 card and then pushing it so hard it dies. CPU overclocking has advanced further and remains a safer alternative to GPU overclocking, as well. So... I agree with Delta.

[Moe_Rahn]

With a GT to an Ultra there are no extra pipes, it's all in the speeds. I say clock it as high as you can and who fuckin' cares if you can hit Ultra speeds.

[StandingCow]

Yea, if all this trouble is for 5 fps dont bother..

[Lusty_Muffins]

I really wish there was something to unlock on my 6800 vanilla but it's PCI-E :( All I can do is OC. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with a reasonable OC but it just sucks that the extra pipelines are only for the AGP variety.

[spartan]

Do your research before you buy next time and you won't have that sadface you do now. :)

[Moe_Rahn]

Do your research before you buy next time and you won't have that sadface you do now. :)
IIRC his is a Dell, so it's not like he had a choice.

[spartan]

A Dell came with a PCI-E 6800 vanilla? Ouuuuuuuch. Ok, let me amend that last statement:

Do your research before you buy. And if you buy Dell, you forfeit all right and reason to complain on eleet intranet messageboardz.

... Funny as it is, I'm typing that up on my Inspiron laptop. Heh.

[Lusty_Muffins]

Yeah. I would never buy a Dell. My mother-in-law bought it and if someone's on it I am on it 110% of the time.

gf looks at it and goes "wtfux does it do?" and the mother-in-law looks at it and goes "my 500MHz is better i'll stick with it lolz1:

-edit- And i look at it and go "fomg sexing all over the place"