Impressive 6200 Overclocks

[conrad.maranan]

Before my board died, I was testing at 650MHz artifact-free with 2.8V. Prior to the VMOD, my maximum on the RAM side was 610MHz with 2.6V. I also installed some OCZ Copper BGA ramsinks to cool things down a bit.

As far as how much of an improvement 40MHz was good for, I wouldn't know. My Ultra-D died just before I could even pull some 3D runs. In my book, 1MHz is good for something...anything...even a slight boost in ego.

EDIT: For cooling the GPU, you can try the Arctic Cooling Silencer. It looks like a fairly good unit.

[Ackbar]

Before my board died, I was testing at 650MHz artifact-free with 2.8V. Prior to the VMOD, my maximum on the RAM side was 610MHz with 2.6V. I also installed some OCZ Copper BGA ramsinks to cool things down a bit.

As far as how much of an improvement 40MHz was good for, I wouldn't know. My Ultra-D died just before I could even pull some 3D runs. In my book, 1MHz is good for something...anything...even a slight boost in ego.

Interesting... so your 6600 NU could only get the memory to 650 even with v-mod on the memory? I can get to ~670ish for it to play hours of gaming but for benchmarking I can go to 680. I'm actually a little more intereted in the GPU itself right now. I feel that I can clock that to 600 MHz + but first of all software won't allow past 600 MHz and second I'm getting some serious throttling after anything more than just benchmarking. Water cooling on this guy doesn't seem worth it for such a cheap card either... so I'm considering getting whatever fancy air cooling solution is available. Ideas?

Edit: Scratch the last question, you answered it while I was posting. LOL!
EDIT: The application for the 6200/6600 (NV Silencer 6) isn't available in the states yet it seems. But... from a search I just did, it appears they plan to release it in March, maybe we'll start to unlock the impressive power of the 6200 by then!

[conrad.maranan]

I don't think the memory on my card is all that great. The guy who took me down in 03 and 05 has his memory in the 700MHz range, if I'm not mistaken. I'll see what this card can do when I have my system up and running, although I might get sidetracked since I just ordered an X850 XT.

You should be able to clock beyond 600MHz. Maybe not in RivaTuner, but in Coolbits instead. RivaTuner wouldn't allow for anything over 450MHz on the core, so I just went into Coolbits and tweaked it to 540MHz from there.

[Ackbar]

I don't think the memory on my card is all that great. The guy who took me down in 03 and 05 has his memory in the 700MHz range, if I'm not mistaken. I'll see what this card can do when I have my system up and running, although I might get sidetracked since I just ordered an X850 XT.

You should be able to clock beyond 600MHz. Maybe not in RivaTuner, but in Coolbits instead. RivaTuner wouldn't allow for anything over 450MHz on the core, so I just went into Coolbits and tweaked it to 540MHz from there.

Coolbits for my card is limited to 600 MHz, take a look at AB's post where he has a screenshot after he flashed with a 6600 bios. It's kinda a moot point right now anyways since I'm throttling at those speeds regardless.

[conrad.maranan]

Man. 600MHz+ for the core and 700MHz+ for the memory would be awesome for such a value-priced card if you can get to that level. At least shoot for the memory VMOD.

Good luck.

[tinker77]

hmmm, g'luck with that mate

[Rancidelephant]

i just bought a second hand 6600GT for £115 when i could have had an XFX 6200 128MB for £60 new !!

Gutted !

[AlterBridge86]

not that bad rancid - GT's have DDR3 and a different PCB, so your memory clocks will be way higher..lol..and hopefully a nicer core overclock too! Good luck with it...as far as cooling and whatnot ackbar and conrad - guess we'll be waiting for the NV6...until then though, we need to figure something else out...lol...i'm hoping that the mvk guys come through with nibitor reading our bioses...be awesome to just do a soft voltmod...the memory vmod seems relatively easy...i see the legs of that IC and they are wide so soldering won't be a problem...i'm going to run to radio shacke tomorrow and i'll prolly grab a 10k ohm pot to solder on there...we have regular dimm IC's, not BGA IC's for memory, so on my memory i have attached two BGA sinks to cover the entire thing with Arctic Silver epoxy. speaking of that..i hope the NVSilencer6 FITS over the memory sinks..lol...if not i might be butchering a heatsink and slapping it on there...oh well..for now my card sits stock until i can get some volts

[Rancidelephant]

yeah the 6600GT should be a bit of fun, i have some ramsinks to go on it and im going to get a arctic silencer for it soon I assume the 6800 model fits the 6600gt ?

Im also tempted to get a lian li pc75 and put some water cooling in the top with my mach2 GT on the bottom How easy is it to mod a pc75 and how much would a watercooling kit cost for just the gpu? the chipset doesnt need cooling on the NF4 does it ?

Im getting excited just thinking about it

[AlterBridge86]

hey rancid - according to the arctic cooling website, you need NV6 for the 6600(GT) and 6200 series cards...guess you'll be waiting with us, unless of course you get water..lol..good luck

[Ackbar]

Hmm... I'm thinking that there might be another cooler just as good for those of us that can't wait a couple of weeks! Check out this thread: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=53966

The discussion is ongoing, but it seems that the Silencer and Zalman models are the best. Beyond that... little direct comparison has been made. I'd be willing to go for the Zalman since it comes with ramsinks, but those ramsinks look real crappy.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the Zalman VF700-Cu fits our card.

[Ackbar]

hey rancid - according to the arctic cooling website, you need NV6 for the 6600(GT) and 6200 series cards...guess you'll be waiting with us, unless of course you get water..lol..good luck

You can also use the NV1 Rev 2, which I also haven't been able to find anywhere unfortunately... it seems that all the Artic Cooling models that support the 6200/6600 (GT) are not available yet!

[AlterBridge86]

hmm..i see the zalman is a bit more available...maybe i'll grab one of these...see if it does any good...

[AlterBridge86]

ok, ordered one..lol..we'll find out how well it works

[Ackbar]

ok, ordered one..lol..we'll find out how well it works

Wow! You don't waste any time! LOL! Let me know how it goes. I think if I wasn't throttling so much I could easily get 600 MHz since I get no artifacts that high up. Unfortunately, I feel that the main limitation is the RAM bandwidth.

Check out these guys: http://www.frozencpu.com/ram-08.html
RAMSinks for TSOD style ram! Way too expensive in my opinion though.

[TEDY]

ackbar

http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/memory/ramsink.htm

CU they're 5$

i went and bought 5 packs...you never know when you need them.

[Ackbar]

OT: Is it possible to enable the temp monitor for us to view on our cards?

[AlterBridge86]

LOL - ackbar - yeah, memory bandwidth is killing us, but every mhz helps lol - so i'll let you know how it goes with the new cooler...as far as those TSOP style coolers go, i got quite a story..lol..i tried ot buy 2 packs from frozencpu, being that theres 4 in a pack..i got 2 packs of TSOP style FLAT heatsinks...not those big nice ones like in the pic...so i had 16 sinks..lol...so i called them and told them i got the wrong thing..so they say fine, i'll send out the correct ones. So I got the packagte and i got the those sinks but in BGA format, not TSOP. lol, so at this point i said screw it, and just put 2 of the BGA's on the TSOP chip - they fit, just about..lol...does the job..anyways, having the zalman will hopefully keep the ram nice and cool as well as the GPU...anyways, thats that.i'll let you know howi make out.

Good question ackbar - having the temp monitor work would be great..lol

[Ackbar]

LOL - ackbar - yeah, memory bandwidth is killing us, but every mhz helps lol - so i'll let you know how it goes with the new cooler...as far as those TSOP style coolers go, i got quite a story..lol..i tried ot buy 2 packs from frozencpu, being that theres 4 in a pack..i got 2 packs of TSOP style FLAT heatsinks...not those big nice ones like in the pic...so i had 16 sinks..lol...so i called them and told them i got the wrong thing..so they say fine, i'll send out the correct ones. So I got the packagte and i got the those sinks but in BGA format, not TSOP. lol, so at this point i said screw it, and just put 2 of the BGA's on the TSOP chip - they fit, just about..lol...does the job..anyways, having the zalman will hopefully keep the ram nice and cool as well as the GPU...anyways, thats that.i'll let you know howi make out.

Good question ackbar - having the temp monitor work would be great..lol

I think I figured this out. Need to edit your bios in NiBiTor and "Enable 6600GT Temp Monitoring" trick. I read up on the exact hex string that has to be edited and it's present in my bios as well as the 6600 GT! I'm betting that if we just edit this small line we'll have temp monitoring. Then reflash with your modified 6200 bios. Wanna try? I've had trouble getting my bios to flash...

EDIT: Look at http://forums.vr-zone.com.sg/showthread.php?p=631062 for the exact Hex edit bios string. If you edit our bios in NiBiTor you can see that it changes that exact string! I'm fairly sure this is all we'd have to do to enable it.

[AlterBridge86]

i'm going to give it a shot..be back

[AlterBridge86]

ah ha! You're a genious Ackbar!! It works...perhaps this is a slight problem..49c at IDLE stock speeds...i think the zalman should help quite a bit

[Ackbar]

ah ha! You're a genious Ackbar!! It works...perhaps this is a slight problem..49c at IDLE stock speeds...i think the zalman should help quite a bit

Yikes! I'll cook dinner on my 6200! I'm guessing no one anticipated that the 6200 (a value card) would need great cooling. I'll flash mine in a little while and see what's up. Could you tell me the exact command line parameters you used (since I've been having trouble flashing)?

[AlterBridge86]

lol, i guess at stock it doesn't need that great of cooling..they run it high...but if you wanna be xtreme with your budget cards, you gotta cool em :P anyways...did you save your bios succesfully? if not, do "nvflash -b original.rom" then mod the rom file with hex editor and then to flash it back i always to "nvflash -4 -5 -6 originalmod.rom", the 4,5,6 switches FORCE a flash despite any non-matching PCB, etc. Good luck!

PS
just got my notification, the heatsink is packed at frozencpu waiting for pickup!

[Ackbar]

lol, i guess at stock it doesn't need that great of cooling..they run it high...but if you wanna be xtreme with your budget cards, you gotta cool em :P anyways...did you save your bios succesfully? if not, do "nvflash -b original.rom" then mod the rom file with hex editor and then to flash it back i always to "nvflash -4 -5 -6 originalmod.rom", the 4,5,6 switches FORCE a flash despite any non-matching PCB, etc. Good luck!

PS
just got my notification, the heatsink is packed at frozencpu waiting for pickup!

Yup, I've already gotten a backup and also already modded it! But I haven't been able to flash any new roms and I think that's what my problem was. Awesome! I was missing the "-4 -5 -6" I think so I was having trouble just testing a flash with my original bios!

[AlterBridge86]

great news! good luck with the flash - post back and let me know how you make out...in the mean time, i gotta run to class..i'll be back in a couple hours...godspeed!