Graphics overclocking

[ric449]

Since I'm no overclocking master, I would like it if someone would look over the guide I made telling people how to overclock the graphics card. Here it is:

I was going to only have two parts to the overclocking guides, but explaining the graphics was a lot longer than expected, so I will have one guide on graphics overclocking, and see what happens with the rest of the overclocking guides. So, on to the graphics card overclocking guide:

First on the list is cooling. You must have some good cooling for the card, especially if you have a card that only uses passive cooling (No fan). You can buy specialised cooling solutions for the card if you need it, check review sites to see which is a good choice. If you are only going to be doing a mild overclock, then there may be no reason to bother upgrading the cooling, but it doesn’t hurt to do it anyway. The cooling solutions come in the form of ramsinks that are placed on the RAM modules of the graphics card, and heatsinks/fans for the actual graphics processor of the graphics card.

So now that’s out of the way, how to do it:

One way of overclocking the graphics is by the FSB. Overclocking this makes everything else connected to the FSB run out of spec, such as AGP graphics, processor, and memory (Also for some reason the PCI bus is overclocked too, which is not directly connected to the FSB on modern systems. I’m not exactly sure why this is so if anyone can tell me I would be thankful). So if you overclock the FSB, you also overclock the graphics card.

As stated above, the graphics card can be overclocked using the FSB, but this is generally not recommended by overclockers, since it can only overclock the AGP bus, not the actual components of the graphics card. Also it is nowhere near as flexible as the programs available that can overclock the card. Third party programs to the rescue! For NVIDIA cards there is nVHardpage, and for both NVIDIA and ATI there is RivaTuner. RivaTuner appears to be the most popular and supported as of today.

These two programs have two ways of overclocking the graphics card: core frequency and memory frequency. The core frequency lets you increase the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) clock speed, and the memory frequency setting lets you change the speed of the card’s memory. The core frequency is much more sensitive to overclocking than the memory, so don’t expect to overclock the core too much. Also, there is an option to change the AGP voltage in the BIOS. This is dangerous; this can fry your card if you are not careful. It may be worth looking over the Internet to see what voltage others use with your card.

As with all components, it is usually luck of the draw whether you get a card that can overclock well. When you do overclock the card’s components, as always, do it in small increments.

You know you have reached the card’s limit when you get something called artefacts, which is when the graphics look messed up or things are showing up that shouldn’t be there. Either way you will know when there are problems. A way to check if you have artefacts is to use a program called 3Dmark. Here is a link that will take you to the download section, where you can download a free version. You can also use this program to see how much of a score you get without overclocking and with overclocking, so you can see how much of an improvement you have.

So, is there anything I missed out here? I want my guides to be the best around, and to make them the best I need the views of the public. Thanks in advance!

[Tin]

overclocking the FSB doesnt do anything to the card at all....even if youre running a higher AGP/PCI clock, there will still be no gains. most cards will overclock pretty good on stock cooling, providing the stock cooler is not passive (as stated above). one of the best ways to assist your cooling is to remove the stock cooler and replace the thermal goop with some arctic silver 3/5, as this will provide the most significant gains in clock speed because of better heat transfer. here are some great programs to get you started on overclocking your video card.

Rad Clocker this is a great program for overclocking your ATI Radeon video card, it offers many options as well as a few other tidbits besides overclocking.

Rage 3D Tweaker one of the best overclocking utilities for ATI based cards. it will work on all cores from R100 through R360. this program also allows you to use custom direct 3D and open GL settings.

Coolbits this is a very simple overclocking utility for nVidia cards. it enables the factory overclocking option under your display properties. it is just a simple registry key that nvidia had left out of their drivers for OCing. it supports auto-detect, so you wont fry your card, and it lets you adjust a few more things as well. this is what i use to overclock my card.

[ric449]

Ok, editing them in now. Do you mind if I use that list you submitted? It was very informative.

[Tin]

not at all, you can use anything i put up ric. im here to spread the knowledge. the knowledge wont be spread unless you put it up

[ric449]

Ok, thanks a lot. Finished product: http://ricserv.servebeer.com/oc2.html

[Tin]

excellent guide ric...very good work

[Redfallon]

hmmm, a little late on this post but the oc utility that came with my sapphire 9800 pro seems to do a good job, it's got profiles to auto configure your card for games or benchies, and sliders for the OC.....I believe it's called "redline" or something like that....nice article ric

[ric449]

Wow, praise from 2 legendary overclockers! Well, I will look into redline redfallon. Thanks for the tips all!

[Redfallon]

I am not legendary, I've only being doing this for a short time, and my OC is nowhere near as high as tin's, comparing stock speed to OC speed. My vidcard is still lacking too, as I need to shop for a new cooler for it

[Tin]

my vid card is running the stock cooler and the stock thermal pads

[Redfallon]

WHOA that's awesome!

[Tin]

stock speed for my card is 475/900.

[ric449]

How do you do that? Do you just know what exact parts to look for?

[Tin]

alot of it depends on the manufacterer of the card itself. some manufacterers overvolt the core and memory so you can get a higher clockspeed out of them.

[fedz]

http://atitool.ocfaq.com/
This has an ATi card overclocker as well as an artifact tester for ATi and non-ATi cards. v.v. useful!!!

[fedz]

Oh, and by the way
I overclock my moblility Radeon (inside a laptop) to 211.5MHz core and memory from 175.5MHz default and it's stable. If that isn't good...
Percentage wise that's better than Tin Canary AND it's a laptop card (i.e. little cooling).
fedz

edit: I use rage3d tweak v. 3.9b

[imbest123]

Ive used ATI Tool and Rage3d. I like ATI Tool more because of the options but for some reason I got higher results with Rage 3d. This post was really a good idea.

[ric449]

That artifact testing overclocking program would be a good addition to the list, I'll look into that. Nice overclock you got there fedz, especially for integrated graphics.

[fedz]

Be sure to mention ATitool's incompatibility with ATi M6 chipsets. If anyone has one, using ATitool on it is a surefire way to fry your card (as I nearly found out). I use rage for overclocks and atitool for artifact testing. I can't find my old artifact tester (which was much better), but if I do you'll be the first to know.
Interestingly, my core will go to 237MHz but my memory'll only go to 215. I prefer staying a bit under for better stability. I've not yet had a single crash with rage3d but I've had 3 near-fry's with ATitool at lower frequencies than factory! (173MHz). There must be something wrong with their settings detection.
take care
fedz

[trowand]

I can't believe none of you have mentioned Powerstrip. It's an AWESOME graphics card overclocking utility that is sooo easy to use. I've made gains of like 15% in benchmarks like AquaMark3 and 3DMark01 and 03 by using it to overclock my 9600XT. It totally rocks. I highly recommend checking it out. You can find it if you search for it. I can't remember who makes it.

[mikezel]

Powerstrip can be found here: http://entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm
I can't believe I forgot it either, i was using it for a long time!
mike

[Tin]

my card will be going faster soon. i ordered up a cooljag 1U copper xeon cooler and i will be making my own ramsinks. 600MHz core speed isnt far away guys

[ric449]

I made a new guide on overclocking Intel processors, so I thought I would keep it in this thread. Just look over it, see if I missed anything out or got anything wrong please.

The last two guides talked about how to overclock your graphics card, and what you need to overclock. This guide will tell you how to overclock your Intel processor. (Don’t worry, I am not biased towards Intel, I just know a lot more about Intel than AMD. There will be guides on AMD as well as Intel.)

First off, what do you need to make sure you can overclock without damaging components? Well, as with all overclocking, you will need some great cooling. A high quality processor fan and heatsink will ensure that you can get as far as possible in your overclock. This is especially true with the Prescott core processors, since they can generate a whole lot of heat. Another thing to watch out for when looking out for a cooling system for your processor is what the heatsink is made out of. Heatsinks come in two types: Aluminium and copper. Copper is the more conductive of the two, meaning a copper heatsink will dissipate more heat. For more info on what processor fan will suit your needs, this guide will help, just look at the replace your fans heading.

Another choice for cooling is watercooling and peltier cooling. These are a lot more expensive than plain old air cooling, so make sure you need it before you go buying. These methods of cooling can bring a big temperature drop, so if it is a massive overclock you want you may want to invest in one. You can also use these methods of cooling for other components, such as graphics cards and the northbridge chip of the motherboard.

Now, how exactly can you overclock the processor? There is one way and one way only with Intel, and that is via the FSB. Unlike AMD, Intel always multiplier lock their chips, meaning it is impossible to increase the clock speed of the processor without increasing the FSB speed. This can be a major setback, but it also has an advantage over changing the multiplier.

You need to understand that when you change the multiplier, you are only changing the INTERNAL speed of the processor. The multiplier works by multiplying the speed of the FSB, and that’s how you get your processors clock speed. That means that the actual processors speed is faster, but the speed it can access the data it needs to process can still only be accessed at the FSB speed. This can be a big bottleneck. This is where upping the FSB comes into it.

Since the only way you can overclock Intel chips is via the FSB, you are speeding up the actual processor and you are speeding up the connection between the memory and the processor too. This means that overclocking the FSB can be the best way of overclocking. But now we get to the disadvantages.

One disadvantage is if the motherboard can cope with the extra speed of the FSB. If the motherboard can’t go past a certain FSB speed, then the processor can’t either. That is why people are always searching for the best motherboard for overclocking, since they want to get every last bit of performance out of their processor. The best motherboards for overclocking come from Asus and Abit. Abit even perform tests on their motherboards to check if they can overclock well. Don’t use Intel motherboards if you want to overclock, they just can’t do it. Intel set them so they cannot be overclocked.

Another disadvantage is memory requirements. Since the FSB is overclocked, so is the memory. This means that you will need to buy some memory that can take the extra punishment you plan on putting on it. A good reference table is here.

You can overclock the FSB by changing settings in the BIOS, or by changing jumpers on the motherboard. It is always best to be able to change the settings I the BIOS, because if you have a motherboard that can only be changed by the motherboards jumpers, you will only be able to overclock in large increments, which is not the best way of overclocking. The key to overclocking is by changing setting in very small steps. This way you have a better chance of hitting the highest speed the processor can run at.

When you overclock the processor, there is always the chance you will get instabilities. These manifest themselves as lockups, blue screens, and random resets. If you get any of these then the first step is to check the temperature of the processor from the BIOS. If you see that the processor is running at a high temperature, then you will either need to invest in better/more cooling, or downclock a little. With Intel processors, instabilities will almost never be because of high temperature since Pentium 4’s can downclock themselves to prevent damaging itself. But if the temperature is high you should invest in more cooling anyway because it will lower the processors life and since it downclocks you will not be getting full performance. If the temperature is fine, then you have reached the highest speed you can overclock. You will need to downclock or buy faster memory if the memory is already running past it’s specified speed.

There is also another way to get rid of instabilities, but it is slightly risky. Raising the vcore voltage. This is the processors power, and increasing its power can help you overclock further. This is a very risky process, you go too far with this and there is a real chance you can burn out the processor, possibly taking the motherboard with it. You can find peoples results here, just do a search. You can get a high overclock without upping the voltage, but if you feel that the voltage is holding you back then give it a try.

When you want to test your overclock, and you are not getting any blue screens etc. then you should use a program to test if it is completely stable. Popular programs are Prime95, Folding@home, and SETI@home.

So after all that you should know how to overclock. Just remember to overclock in short steps and you will be fine.

Happy overclocking!

[Tin]

i believe that RedFallon is the man to speak to about Intel OCing i could help you out with it, but AMD is more of my area of expertise. nonetheless, its looking like a good guide to me.

[Redfallon]

looks good ric, will help alot of people out, good that you have one sight with a broad range of knowledge! I check into it often to search for the answer to something I'm wonderin about!

[ric449]

Well, thanks a lot everyone! Will get it on the site right away!