Overclocking a Geforce 2 GTS 32MB

[Stiffler]

Ok I am thinking about overclocking the card a little
It has 6ns RAM, no sinks and a very pathetic looking cooler on the processor.

Anyone know any sources of RAM sinks ?

Does anyone have any do's and don'ts ? Or friendly advice to offer ?

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[Smilin]

Whelp 6ns equates to about 166Mhz. You should be able to run it up to 333Mhz-DDR without going out of spec.

Give your GPU speed a decent kick, say 10-25% and then leave it...GPU speed isn't the real bottleneck.

After that start cranking the memory speed up in about 5Mhz increments until you get some visual errata or instability. Then back it down by 10Mhz. Benchmark the snot out of the thing to ensure stability.

Have cash in hand in case you burn it up

 

[Stiffler]

Ok Once I started the Overclocking feature in the driver it stated that the RAM was already running at 333 and the CPU at 200, I have moved it up to 338 and 225 for the moment. Gave it a 20x repeat on 3Dmark2001 to make sure it was ok. It came out fine with a score of 2852, this any good ??

My System :

PIII 866
256 RDRAM (700)
Geforce 2 GTS 32mb
(Windows XP - with Detonater XP)

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[Smilin]

I can't tell you if that's a good score or not. I've honestly never used a synthetic benchmark when tweaking my stuff. I'll sometimes use quake or another game to benchmark.

That memory is going to make the big difference, the more you can overclock it, the faster it will be. Not sure how much further you can get it without some heat sinks though. You could maybe find some old 80486 passive heatsinks, cut them in half and cover two memory chips each with them. Anyone out there make a thermal glue instead of paste?

 

[svol]

Arctic Silver Adhesive is a sort of thermal glue.

Both Thermaltake and Alpha have special RAM-sinks which can be perfectly used for memory chips on videocards.


Do not make illegal copies of this post

 

[Dani_mq]

you could go much higer on the memory, there is not much gain in overclocking the core, i run my generic gts at 380 memory and 200 core, stable at 400 memory i started to notice white pixels but only on black screens, i got 3013 on 3d mark 2001 with a pIII @ 840 256mb ram, win 2k, i think you could do better.
good luck

 

[Stiffler]

Thanks Dani do you have cooling on your RAM though ?

And if I get cooler and ram sinks do people recoment I use Artic Silver Epoxy on the Ram Sinks ? how about the core ?

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[Dani_mq]

I didnt use any heat sinks, it might help get an extra 5 - 10 mhz more from the mem, dont relly know for sure
I kept the core at stock speed or 210... dont remember
theres a good review of overclocking a gts on anandtech.com

 

[Crashman]

I had no problem running a card with the same specs at 220/380, at 390 everything was fine except on hot days when I would get artifacts.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Stiffler]

Wow well I did have a check of the temp (Completely unscientifically - I had a feel) And the memory was running warm, but not very much at all. I figured I could go further, but I really didn't want to risk anything. I am a poor student and I cannot affort the £135 or so to get a new card.

And hot days ? what are those ?? I am from the UK and the Northwest region (Manchester) And I have never seen a hot day, is that honestly possible ?

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[Crashman]

It gets very hot and very cold where I live-Michigan. And it gets even hotter and colder upwind of Lake Michigan, so I guess I'm lucky.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[AEboy128]

So, on the cold days you overclock and on the hot days you bring it back to stock clock. Just curious is there any way you could desolder the memory that's on a video card an put on some faster memory?? I'm guessing no, or not a good chance. It would be kinda neat tho to see an old voodoo3 with 64mb of ddr memory....

My system: <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=8946" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=8946</A>

 

[Crashman]

I left it at 380 all the time, even when I posted my benchmarks. You can change memory, but considering that Gainward sells a 4.5ns card for only $30 more than the GTS, that would be pointless. Concerning the VooDoo card, I don't think it was DDR to begin with, so no. Besides, it's chip is sychronous with the memory speed, so putting on faster memory wouldn't help if you can't overclock the chip farther.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?