Roop
02-02-2003, 09:54 AM
Myself and many other members of different overclocking forums around the world have found that the 9500/9700 don't run at high FSB speeds. This really sucks as the cards do cost alot and it was possible to reach a high FSB before the card was installed. Obviously the card is to blame here.
Whats wrong? Heat. The heatsink on the 9500/9700 is mounted in a way that is just good enough to run the card at stock AGP bus with a little overclocking on the GPU. That's fine and dandy for your average user who doesn't know what the FSB is but not for an overclocker. The GPU gets too hot and can't run at higher FSB (AGP) busses. You have two options to fix this, a) better cooling or b) a locked AGP bus.
The only boards that have locked AGP buses on the AMD platform are Nforce 2 based boards. Locking your AGP bus will allow any FSB without effecting the card itself. If you have a VIA based motherboard like myself, you don't have this option and will have to opt for better cooling if you want to push the card.
Better cooling. Buy a better heatsink? nah. Heatpipe passive cooling? nah. Those don't perform good. My FSB used to max out at 170mhz (68mhz AGP)) before. Right now i'm at 190mhz (76mhz AGP) and there still seems to be room for improvement.
Here's what I did: took the stock HSF off and cleaned the thermal interface material. i used arctic silver 3 and i also removed the shim. i stacked another fan onto of the stock fan. the fan i used was a 60mmx10mm fan. it's the one off of the stock AMD Athlon XP heatsink. I also mounted another AMD fan on the top of the card blowing directly onto the top of the GPU and the top ram modules. I used the little plastic deal off of the AMD heatsink to keep the fan slightly above the card.
the results are amazing.
before my mod:
max FSB 170mhz - would start to stutter after 5 mins of BF1942.
temp on the back of the GPU at idle: 55°C
temp at load 62°C
after my mod
current FSB 190mhz - will probably go higher, haven't tried yet
idle temp directly at the GPU core - 45°C
max temp at the GPU core - 50°C
all readings were done at +/- 2°C, 25°C ambient
well there you have it. The stock cooling is fine for a stock bus. If you want a high FSB you now know what to do. have at it!
Whats wrong? Heat. The heatsink on the 9500/9700 is mounted in a way that is just good enough to run the card at stock AGP bus with a little overclocking on the GPU. That's fine and dandy for your average user who doesn't know what the FSB is but not for an overclocker. The GPU gets too hot and can't run at higher FSB (AGP) busses. You have two options to fix this, a) better cooling or b) a locked AGP bus.
The only boards that have locked AGP buses on the AMD platform are Nforce 2 based boards. Locking your AGP bus will allow any FSB without effecting the card itself. If you have a VIA based motherboard like myself, you don't have this option and will have to opt for better cooling if you want to push the card.
Better cooling. Buy a better heatsink? nah. Heatpipe passive cooling? nah. Those don't perform good. My FSB used to max out at 170mhz (68mhz AGP)) before. Right now i'm at 190mhz (76mhz AGP) and there still seems to be room for improvement.
Here's what I did: took the stock HSF off and cleaned the thermal interface material. i used arctic silver 3 and i also removed the shim. i stacked another fan onto of the stock fan. the fan i used was a 60mmx10mm fan. it's the one off of the stock AMD Athlon XP heatsink. I also mounted another AMD fan on the top of the card blowing directly onto the top of the GPU and the top ram modules. I used the little plastic deal off of the AMD heatsink to keep the fan slightly above the card.
the results are amazing.
before my mod:
max FSB 170mhz - would start to stutter after 5 mins of BF1942.
temp on the back of the GPU at idle: 55°C
temp at load 62°C
after my mod
current FSB 190mhz - will probably go higher, haven't tried yet
idle temp directly at the GPU core - 45°C
max temp at the GPU core - 50°C
all readings were done at +/- 2°C, 25°C ambient
well there you have it. The stock cooling is fine for a stock bus. If you want a high FSB you now know what to do. have at it!