nVidia Graphics Card Overclocking (tut with pics)

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ItalianStallion

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Ok so today boys and girls, I would liek to teach you all a valuebal lesson in overclocking nvidia graphics cards. I'm going to show you step by step how to overclock.

Introduction:
The idea of overclocking is to increase the speed of your graphics card to increase performance and increase your FPS in videogames. I'll be using my 6800 GT to show you.

The first step:
Ok what we want to do first is install nvidia's latest drivers on our system right now it happens to be 81.95 and it can be found here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_81.95.html Now install the driver and restart. Whn your computer is restarted, install Coolbits, a registry file that allows you to overclock in nVidia's control panel. You can get it here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=201

Step 2 The overclocking

Now that you have the newest driver and coolbits installed, we can get to work. Open up the nVidia control panel like shown:
oc15dj.jpg

Then once in the control panel go to the nVidia control panel click on "Clock Frequency Settings" Shown here:
oc27sx.jpg


Click on the manual overclocking radio button. Now start increasing both the core and the memory by increments of 5-10 MHz a try and then click test changes and if it pases, apply. Make sure to check that your fan is always on and to apply settings at startup.

Step 3 Stability Testing
Now go play a game that is very stressful on your card (Counter Strike Source, FEAR, COD2, ect) and see if you get any weird little pixles flyinmg around where they aren't supposed to, this is called Artifacting. If you are artifacting, you should lower you clock speeds about 5 MHz, first lower your memory, then retest, then if it continues lower both your memory and your core by 5 MHz.

Conclusion
Lets look back at what we did. We found the max stable overclock for your specific card. We increased the core's speeds and the memory's speeds. This should increase performance in all he games you play.

Ways to push your card further:
1. Buy a new cooler for it. (For the 6 series, use the Zalman VF-700CU or the Arctic Cooling NVSilencer 5.
2. Volt modding, I will eventually right a tutorial reguarding Volt modding.

Other Tools:
Other tools for Overclocking that I use are NVTweak and RivaTuner. They can be found at places like The Guru of 3d. http://www.guru3d.com
 
Some nVidia cards aren't able to be overclocked straight away, mine required me to change a registry file through the CD that came with the card to enable overclocking on the card.
Nice tutorial though, I'm sure people will find it helpful.
Highest overclock on my card so far is 600/1200 - air cooling, no temp increase from 50*C (using Vantec Iceberq 5 Premium VGA Kit)
RivaTuner is an alternative for overclocking. Get it here.
 
Also voltage adjustments on graphics cards can be very dangerous. a wrong step can destroy your card. Personally if you're looking for that kind of overclock look for more extreme cooling, water cooling for a start.
 
Also, with some cards overclocking can acvtually decrease FPS! like in my card, i know, my cards an ATI card, but i loose performance wehn i overclock the graphics, and it may be the case with some peoples nvidia cards.

Nice tutorial though, would be nice if someone made one for overclicking ATI cards :)

Would be nice too if you added some game benchmarks in that, eg, avarage fps on a game when not overclocked, then avarage fps on game wehn overclocked, try using 3dmark 01, 03 and 05 for this too, aquamark 3 is good aswell, but use games aswell, as games are better for seeing how powerfull stuff is than benchmarks.
 
So what am I supposed to do when "Test Changes" fails? I have an XFX 6800GT with a Zalman VF700 AlCu and neither core and memory speed can't be overclocked, the test always fails.

I have the latest drivers and tried both rivatuner and coolbits, but to no avail.
 
depends how high you overclock it, try overclocking the core by about 20mhz, see if that works, it seems like you move the core and memory up too high all the time, then it fails the test.

But then again, your card might not be able to overclock at all, my x800xt pe is not stable at any overclock, so might be the same with your 6800gt
 
Try testing it at 425 core and 1.14 memory. I have the same card and i have it set at 435/1.15 but i have the solid copper version of the VF700-CU.
 
not all cards get the same overclock, some cards get a much bigger overclock than others
I can get 600/1200 and I guess I am quite lucky as on my card stock speeds are 500/900 (although memory is the same as PCI-e 6600GT and on that it runs at 1000MHz)
 
Yes, your right, not all cards overclock the same. Some people have gotten my graphics card to 450 MHz core. I can't get mine to be stable at that speed, although it passes the test. My problem is, I beilive voltage, however I can't go to 1.4v, I run at 1.35v, the max i could go. If i go any higher guess what? My temps raise to 54 idle from about 41 idle. YAY
 
I already tried adjusting in small amounts. I'm just disappointed by the fact that it's not oc'able because I heard XFX was one of the better brands for oc'ing.

The card performs great though, I'm not unhappy about it's performance.
 
So its not overclocking AT ALL? You must have gotten a retarted one. I would sednt it back with the stock cooler one it and say it was DOA (If it's new).
 
ItalianStallion said:
So its not overclocking AT ALL? You must have gotten a retarted one. I would send it back with the stock cooler one it and say it was DOA (If it's new).
Click to expand...
As I said before, I'm disappointed about the part not being able to overclock but still very happy with the performance. And it's not new anymore too, so I can't send it back, when necessary I'll go for a faster card in the future.

But thanks for looking into it.
 
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