How To Overclock Your Graphics Card

[BloodyLunatic]

can you oc whit nflash a 9800GX2

 

[randomizer]

If you know how to use a hex editor, sure. I don't think the current version of NiBiTor properly support the 9800GX2 yet, but I may be wrong. Upload bothyour BIOS files here so they can work on better support. Use GPU-Z to dump the BIOSs to files.

 

[3870 OC]

I can't run Catilyst because of my HDTV Wonder card. In Riva Tuner when I slide the bars over slightly to OC my 3870 and press apply it automatically reverts back to default. I tried overclocking at windows at startup sithout success. Any suggestions?

 

[dark41]

I'm still using and happy with a 7900GTX-TDH Extreme. This write up is fantastic and way overdue. I've learned more from this article and the responses here about vid card OC'ing than I did from 7 years worth of articles and forums. Good stuff.

It appears my card is stable with higher OCs using RivaTuner than it ever was with Coolbits (that's all I'd ever used until now). Factory settings are 675/1660(830). I've never gotten over 700/1710(855). Now I'm getting 726/1730(865) and afraid to try higher although there's no artifacts or crashing yet. Is that a software glitch as described in the article, or am I just getting lucky all of a sudden? Part of it I'm sure is setting the fan to 100%, which I couldn't do with coolbits, but I'm not confident that it would make this much difference on its own. Feedback welcome.

I was thinking years ago that there should be a GPU-Z, now I find out there actually is.

 

[randomizer]

Different driver versions will have a varying impact on your overclock, especially with software overclocking. This is because you are using the driver as the "middleman" to change the clock values stored in the GPU registers. I'm not sure if low-level software overclocking will make any difference compared to driver-level overclocking.

 

[dark41]

Well there's a huge difference between using Coolbits and RivaTuner for me. 705/1730 max with coolbits (artifacts if the mem goes higher and 3dmark06 crashes with core any higher) compared to 740/1784 with RivaTuner (so far, still no crashing or artifacts but I didn't try any higher) with the same driver (169.21).

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=4231657

 

[randomizer]

Coolbits is pretty damn old, probably rarely updated. That might contribute to the problem.

 

[kaijumax]

I have ATI 3870. You mention you couldn't control the fan speed with ATI tray tools. What did you use and were you able add that info to the BIOS flash?

 

[davewbrown]

I have an ASUS EAH3870 512MB but in CCC it shows 1024MB - not sure why. It's running stable at 930MHz but I can't seem to overclock the memory much.

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]kaijumax[/nom]I have ATI 3870. You mention you couldn't control the fan speed with ATI tray tools. What did you use and were you able add that info to the BIOS flash?[/citation]
CRABE doesn't give as much control over fan speeds as RaBiT (Radeon BIOs Tuner), but RaBiT doesn't yet support these cards.

 

[Guest]

There is no mention in the article what buttons need to be selected to save the new clock settings after entering the values, prior to saving as the new .rom file.

 

[randomizer]

That's because there is none. When you are using NiBiTor and CRABE, you are not actually overclocking your card in real time. You are simply reading the BIOS data into the program, changing the values and then resaving them as a new BIOS file (with corrected checksum I would hope from CRABE, definitely from NiBiTor.)

 

[kgibson]

I loved the article, simple and easy to understand but I do have a question... Does this work just as easily for cards in SLI? I tried Rivatuner real quick to see and whenever I change my clocks and OK the selection the values would be set back to default...

 

[bbies1973]

EXTREMELY helpful article. I just overclocked a 4 year old X800 card off of information in this article and have gotten more than double the benchmark scores! I was actually considering scrapping that old system until I read this article. Thank you, you've saved me money in exchange for about 10 minutes worth of work.

 

[xellos013]

I have my (bad) ASUS ax300 extreme almost 80% overclocked,
mormal is 325 mHz I got it to 568, higher it crashes

 

[Guest]

does this mean that pencil mods for the VCore are no longer needed?

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]sleepsus[/nom]does this mean that pencil mods for the VCore are no longer needed?[/citation]
Depends on the card and how high you want to go. The BIOS will only allow certain ranges, anything higher will have no effect.

 

[Clutch442]

I don't get it, how does Tom get the Riva Tuner screen as shown with the voltages. I have a Visiontek HD 3870 and if this screenshot shows up the one on the left is as far as I can get.

 

[xtreme57]

i prefer the riva tuner ....very user friendly ....excellent article on how to overclock step by step using riva...found this helpful

http://pcgamersera.com/2009/05/22/how-to-overclock-a-gpu/

 

[shrex]

what version of ati tools is being used, because my one doesnt have the voltage drop menu.

 

[theamazingrock]

Crud. I need some help.

I read everything, got excited, and tried overclocking my graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB) and I can only change the sliders on both nTune and RivaTuner only by 1 or 2mhz or else everything crashes/doesn't pass! I have no idea what to do here, and I'm dying to get some better performance from this card. Any advice? 'Tis my first time attempting to overclock a graphics card.

Also overall excellent article.

 

[theamazingrock]

Crud. I need some help.

I read everything, got excited, and tried overclocking my graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB) and I can only change the sliders on both nTune and RivaTuner only by 1 or 2mhz or else everything crashes/doesn't pass! I have no idea what to do here, and I'm dying to get some better performance from this card. Any advice? 'Tis my first time attempting to overclock a graphics card.

Also overall excellent article.

 

[theamazingrock]

Also sorry for the double post. Firefox went bananas on me.

 

[Guest]

I managed to get 771mhz core clock (from 600mhz), 950mhz memory (from 700mhz), and 1950mhz shader clock (from 1500mhz).
i haven't done anything to bios yet though. before i do how should i test to see if its stable? ill probably run it for maybe 8 hours to make sure.

thanks

 

[mrface]

This topic has been closed by Mrface