Video Card Overclocking Guide, for those who are new to it

[jjcom]

So you've just got that nice new video card going. Now you want to overclock it like you did your CPU after reading AthlonXP/64 OC guide. So lets get started.

First, off cooling:
Chances are your card has some type of cooler on the GPU, but, depending on the card, maynot have any cooling on the RAM. So don't expect to go very far on clocking the RAM if its already clocked fairly higher. But how can you fix this? RAM SINKS! There fairly cheap, about 10-15USD. Get the COPPER ones. Now many come with preapplied thermal compound of some sort. So you can use that, or get yourself some Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive. The Artic one will be better tho. If done correctly. Don't go crazy with this stuff. Its a one time deal unless you know how to remove these little suckers they're staying.

If your using the preaplied stuff, then you have to stick them on so they cover the whole surface of the RAM chip and your good to go. If you didn't...

Make sure you don't use alot of the Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive. Make sure that its covering the whole bottom of the RAM sink and put it on the RAM chip. Make sure its on there so its not connecting any traces on the board! If it is...well then...its not good. It could fry your card or it maybe just fine. You never know, so don't take a risk there. Make sure its not connecting any traces.

Good ventilation is key. Make sure you have good air flow on that card. A hole in your case where the video card is and a 80mm or a 120mm fan blowing in would be very nice. You could also take out your PCI expansion slot covers and put a fan there...or maybe get a PCI fan. So you've got several options to chose from.

Now lets talk about the cooler on the GPU. Stock coolers can be very good or they can worse than the reference cooler. So lets say you've got one of the bad ones, never fear you can always buy another one. Makes sure its COPPER. Depending on the cooler it may also cool your RAM. MAYBE So look into it before you sink your RAM chips.

This time you can use Artic Silver 5. This stuff isn't going to be on there forever like the other stuff. Meaning that if you want to change coolers than it won't be bad. Just take it off and no worries of the core coming with it. Now, depending on your card you may have screws on the back/front of the card you have to uncrew to remove the cooler. For some (like me) you might have tabs. There little things you have to push together and then the cooler comes off.

So now that your old cooler is off, its time for your new one The Silencer Series is fairly good from what I hear. There's many other options for coolers. Just start up a thread and someone will help you out.

Make sure you clean the video card's core off. Rubbing alcohol works well for this. Just get a piece of cloth or paper towl damp and clean the core off. DO NOT use very much presure at all. Be gentle.

When you install your new cooler, be careful not to crush the core. Keep the presure even on all sides. If your new cooler use tabs make sure they get all the way through. If your cooler uses screws, once they show slight resistacnes give them about a 1/4turn and you should be done.

RivaTuner is a good program to use to overclock your video card. ATi Tool is good to use as well.

In Rivatuner, ater its installed it enables the "Clock Freq." tab in the Nvidia driver panel. Also Rivatuner can show you some other facts about your video card.
What the Program looks like

What the HW monitoring looks like

HW monitoring may also tell you GPU temps.

RivaTuner, as you can see after using it, has option for overclocking the GPU and RAM. Take one up by about 5mhz. Run a few runs of 3DMark01, or 03, or 05 nature. Then raise it again by about another 5mhz and so on. Never raise both at the same time. If you start seeing artifacts or your score starts going down, lower your clock rate and run Nature 25times. Nature in any of the 3Dmark programs will work, but another member reports that 03 works best. Just try it out for yourself to see. If it passes than you should be stable. Now go on and raise your other setting and do the same thing. If all goes well, then your card will be faster then it was. Good luck and remember Overclocking is never garented and does VOID your Warenty so don't RMA if it dies.

ATi Tool can be used to test your overclock.



There's a good shot of the program. Just run the "Scan for Artifacts" test for while, over night would be good. Just another way to test your overclock.

Just to add Real time rendering this thing heats my 6800 up 6 or C over anything else I've tried..plus it looks pretty sweet This has just been officially entered as one of my required stress testers....maybe even a new background/screensaver

Yet, another way to stress test Lots of programs.


jjcom