Overclocking newbie

[Veritech]

Built my first pc last week and loving it so far, i'm never gonna buy
another pc again. Got a Gigabyte Radeon 9600pro and a Gigabyte
Motherboard(7VT600p-RZ). I've beening playing around with the Vtuner and
easy tuner programs and been loving the effects, haven't benchmark them yet
but will try.
Any how enough of my testimonials, i've O/C'd the 9600pro from 400/406(DDR)
to 450/420 just before the pc became unstable, and the cpu by about 100 mhz
to 1.9ghz. and i was wondering how far should i really push it before i
should start worrying. Temperature(51c cpu, 33mobo) wise i've got 7 fans
and my systems far from quiet but i don't mind.

Plus never really overclocked a pc before, anyone know where i could find a
good guide to basic overclocking.

Thanks

---Blu-Ray---
2600+ sempron
512Mb DDR 400
9600 pro 128 (O/C @ 450/420)
Gigabyte mobo wit 400mhz fsb
Raidmax cobra case wit 420w psu

 

[JamesKim1111972]

When I see overclock, I think watercooling. Maybe you can do a
watercooling setup and push it even further.

I guess you can push it far as long as it's stable and the temperature
isn't too high. But I don't know what's acceptable temperature for the
card and cpu. Moo.

 

[the6carrules]

Go and search for a program called ATITool. It lets you do all kinds
of stuff like set the Core/Mem clocks on the fly, test them, determine
what your maximum is, etc... Now I have heard (and confirmed somewhat
myself) that the programs "maximums" are very conservative, but it is a
great tool. You can save various profiles and load them on the fly,
etc...

I have a 9700 Pro with stock GPU (core) clock of 325 and Memory Clock
of 310. ATITool determined my "max" was 345 and 325. BUT, I was able
to run it around 370 and 350 w/o it becoming unstable. So go figure.

Interesting that the 9600 Pro has higher clock speeds than the 9700
Pro. I know that it came out after the 9700 Pro did, but had no idea
that its clock speeds are that much higher - probably producing more
heat. I also find it interesting that the 9700 Pro out performs the
9600 series. Oh well probably has something to do with the number of
pipelines or something that it needs the higher cycles in order to keep
up and be a card that fits between the 9500 and 9700.
Hope the ATITool helps..

 

[Veritech]

I believe the 9600 series is essentially an "overhauled" 9500. So they
increased the clocks speeds to improve performance slightly.

Thanks for the tip but i'm not gonna try anything too extreme just yet, all
but one of my fans are exaust fans so i'm gonna fit two in the front to pull
some cool air in and try and give my self a bit more "room" to O/C in.

 

[the6carrules]

that's the cool thing about ATITool - it will "test" what you do OC and
make sure it is OK and stable. It's free and there is no "spyware" or
"adware" associated with it.

Check it out. You'll be hooked on it.

 

[Don Burnette]

Go and search for a program called ATITool. It lets you do all kinds
of stuff like set the Core/Mem clocks on the fly, test them, determine
what your maximum is, etc... Now I have heard (and confirmed somewhat
myself) that the programs "maximums" are very conservative, but it is
a great tool. You can save various profiles and load them on the fly,
etc...

I have a 9700 Pro with stock GPU (core) clock of 325 and Memory Clock
of 310. ATITool determined my "max" was 345 and 325. BUT, I was able
to run it around 370 and 350 w/o it becoming unstable. So go figure.

Interesting that the 9600 Pro has higher clock speeds than the 9700
Pro. I know that it came out after the 9700 Pro did, but had no idea
that its clock speeds are that much higher - probably producing more
heat. I also find it interesting that the 9700 Pro out performs the
9600 series. Oh well probably has something to do with the number of
pipelines or something that it needs the higher cycles in order to
keep up and be a card that fits between the 9500 and 9700.
Hope the ATITool helps..

I second that on ATI Tool. I have been using it on my 9800 Pro with great
success.
I have it overclocked for 3d at 413/374. This was safe settings set by ati
tool, so I could probably even stretch it a little more. I do however have
an Arctic Cooler vga silencer on it.

 

[Veritech]

Did some "messing around " and here are my results

Overclocking results

Original

AMD sempron 2600+ @ 1.867 GHz

Gigabyte Radeon 9600Pro @ 397/406

Avg FPS in ATI tool:83

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

O/C'd

CPU @ 2.046 Ghz (FSB 187)(9%)

GFX @ 425/540(7%/33%)

Avg FPS in ATi tool:103(24%)

Not to bad i think for my first real crack at it. Tried to get the cpu upto
2.1ghz but the system crashed, lol. I'm amazed at the memory on the gfx card
33% wasn't anything near what i was expecting. thanks for recommending ATI
tool, great app. Is there anything similar for cpu o/c'ing. I'm not sure why
ati tool wouldn't let me go upto 450 on the core, think it might not have
been as stable. I know ati tool isn't the best benchmark in the world, but i
keep on getting rid of 3dmk 01, 03 & 05 to save a little HDD space(only got
35GB, lol).

Anyhow thanks again