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9800GT Overclocking

T

Term-X

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 21, 2001
Messages
2,412
Hey guys,

I've had my 8800 GTS 640 running for quite awhile and recently jumped on the BFG offer to get a BFG 9800GT OC with trade in of the an old AGP card. Anyhow, I haven't been keeping track of overclocking results of anything beyond my 8800 GTS and I am curious what I can expect (on average) as far as overclocking goes.

I bought an AC Accelero with Turbo Module today simply because stock cooling seemed pretty bad and noisy (48C idle, 81c load :eek:) and now my temperatures are between 37c-40 idle and 55-60c load. So that should give me some headway to overclock.

Also, is ATiTool still good for testing for artifacts or should I be looking to another program?


Thanks


Oh and I am using EVGA Precision to handle the overclocking/fan control.
 
pretty much think high 8800GT overclocks... look for 8800GT with the 1.1v modded bios overclocks.. 760/1900/1000 should be a baseline overclock for that card with aftermarket cooling.. the 9800GT is basicly a rebadged 8800GT w/ an idle voltage of 1.2v .. heck you can even get the 9800GT firmware and put it on an 8800GT and it will register and run just like the 9800GT..

atitools an ok bench but atleast for me it artifacted way before i actually reached my max.. i usually use atitools til i artifact then turn on furmark and overclock til that artifacts and drop my overclock down 5mhz depending on what caused the artifacting if it was the shader going up or if it was the gpu..

id post some links but my firefox is being retarded and wont let me friggin paste anything in here..
 
Yea it's really weird. I ran ATiTool for about 10 minutes at 700MHz core and it ran fine, no artifacts. fast forward a couple hours later and its artifacting at 675 once in a blue moon. Temps were fine. I'll have to check out furmark I guess or perhaps I'll need to look into NiBiTor and see if raising voltage by 0.1 would help.
 
It depends on the load at that moment and how much the surroundings have heated up.
This is why long term stability needs to be established.
If you can keep your core cooler, you can sustain higher speeds.

I gave up using most stability test tools a while ago, they dont really give much correlation to how stable the card will be while gaming.
ie ATItool always lets me clock way higher than I can use in games, rthdribl and Furmark kill my card like no game ever can so I end up running clocks that are too low. I also worry that they cause excessive wear!
I now use those games that heat the card a lot (ie those that crash most with gfx card related crashes) to test with.

For gfx memory testing, I use 3DMark05 Return to Proxycon, that always nails it if my memory clock is too high.
For core testing, I use whichever games I am playing (just play them or benchmark for a long time) and a long Crysis benchmark runthrough.

Use RivaTuners graphing tool to monitor temps while gaming/testing to see exactly what is happening at the time of the crash.
It can monitor all sorts on the graph making it easy to spot reasons for failure.
ie
CPU temps
CPU loads
CPU voltage
System memory use
Core/Shader/Memory clock speeds
Gfx card memory use
Gfx card temps
FPS
etc etc.
 
Around 1.36V is what Intel claims to be the max under which they can guarantee stable operation and long life.
I've been running my E8400 at 1.4V (4.1GHz) for a year now and its been rock stable.

The max voltage you can get away with also depends on the temp the core gets to so better cooling helps slow down wear and helps keep the chip running stable.
I'm using a TRUE 120 with silent 120mm fan in an Antec900 case, case fans set to lowest speed.
 
Nenu said:
Around 1.36V is what Intel claims to be the max under which they can guarantee stable operation and long life.
I've been running my E8400 at 1.4V (4.1GHz) for a year now and its been rock stable.

The max voltage you can get away with also depends on the temp the core gets to so better cooling helps slow down wear and helps keep the chip running stable.
I'm using a TRUE 120 with silent 120mm fan in an Antec900 case, case fans set to lowest speed.
Click to expand...

Think he meant the GPU. I'm not 100% positive but I've seen people say at default it's running anywhere between 1.0 and 1.2 on these cores. But they didn't specify limits if any but I wouldn't be comfortable with anything more than 0.1v increase unless I was adventurous.

Anyway, I don't think I'll get much of anywhere with my GPU/Shader clock given that I am currently unable to use NiBiTor (it doesn't seem to work under Vista x64 for copying the card's BIOS) nor can I seem to get my USB stick to boot so I can do it from a DOS environment. The DR-DOS CD I got refuses to let write operations to my HDDs for whatever reason. I am going to need to format and dual boot WinXP with Vista x64, just for NiBiTor :mad:
 
lol yep, missed that.
When I hardware voltmodded my 8800GT, the thinking around that time was 1.3V with good cooling.
I had mine up to 1.25V with an Accelero S1 cooler but then I broke the pads I soldered to, so no more hardware voltmod.

Watch the temps like a hawk, that is what matters most.
 
Term-X said:
Anyway, I don't think I'll get much of anywhere with my GPU/Shader clock given that I am currently unable to use NiBiTor (it doesn't seem to work under Vista x64 for copying the card's BIOS) nor can I seem to get my USB stick to boot so I can do it from a DOS environment. The DR-DOS CD I got refuses to let write operations to my HDDs for whatever reason. I am going to need to format and dual boot WinXP with Vista x64, just for NiBiTor :mad:
Click to expand...

GPU-Z also has a button to export your video BIOS (right next to the BIOS version). nvFlash wants a .rom file, so you'll probably want to rename the .bin that GPU-Z saves.

Try the Lexmark USB tool for making it bootable.

I run WinXP x64 and I was able to read, edit, and reflash my 9800GT's BIOS with these apps and my old 32MB USB stick (seen as a USB hard drive on my system) booting into DOS for nvFlash.
 
Well, with my 8800GT at 1.2v I'm stable at 760/1900/1050. No artifacts and temps don't exceed 68c. Idle around 47c. Haven't tried pushing the core further.

Does this seem like a decent OC? Should I push further?

Edit: since I installed 185.20 drivers this card has become a lot more stable.
 
HydroBudz said:
Well, with my 8800GT at 1.2v I'm stable at 760/1900/1050. No artifacts and temps don't exceed 68c. Idle around 47c. Haven't tried pushing the core further.

Does this seem like a decent OC? Should I push further?
Click to expand...

I'd be happy with that to be honest. Seems like the general average from what I can tell.
 
HydroBudz said:
Well, with my 8800GT at 1.2v I'm stable at 760/1900/1050. No artifacts and temps don't exceed 68c. Idle around 47c. Haven't tried pushing the core further.

Does this seem like a decent OC? Should I push further?

Edit: since I installed 185.20 drivers this card has become a lot more stable.
Click to expand...

yeah i do 760/1850/1010 w/ 1.1v a lot of people have claimed that on the 8800GT there is no benefit to the going over 1.1v with the bios mod.. and only notice a difference when going over 1.1v with the hardware mod.. which im not going to void my lifetime warranty to do that..

the core will do 795/1900/1010 atleast on mine when im folding.. but i cant game at those speeds.. system hardlocks instantly if i go over 770 on the gpu.. ive had the memory up to 1050 but frankly theres not a noticable difference that warrants exceeding the max rating for these chips.. but 1010 is perfectly stable for me so ive kept it there.. my temps on my duorb idle is 36-38C full load 41-50C depending on the ambient temp in my room..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
yeah i do 760/1850/1010 w/ 1.1v a lot of people have claimed that on the 8800GT there is no benefit to the going over 1.1v with the bios mod.. and only notice a difference when going over 1.1v with the hardware mod.. which im not going to void my lifetime warranty to do that..

the core will do 795/1900/1010 atleast on mine when im folding.. but i cant game at those speeds.. system hardlocks instantly if i go over 770 on the gpu.. ive had the memory up to 1050 but frankly theres not a noticable difference that warrants exceeding the max rating for these chips.. but 1010 is perfectly stable for me so ive kept it there.. my temps on my duorb idle is 36-38C full load 41-50C depending on the ambient temp in my room..
Click to expand...

I'm lucky in the fact that I didn't have to BIOS or hardmod my card to get 1.2v to the core. I could take it to 1.3v if needed. Gigabyte GamerHUD allows me to adjust voltage with software.

I definately needed more than 1.1v to hit 760, as the card came stock at 1.1v. I guess I just have a hot running, voltage hungry card. Meh...so long as it works. These 185.20 drivers are the first drivers in a while that don't crash out when OC'ing the card like this. So I'm stoked about that.
 
HydroBudz said:
I'm lucky in the fact that I didn't have to BIOS or hardmod my card to get 1.2v to the core. I could take it to 1.3v if needed. Gigabyte GamerHUD allows me to adjust voltage with software.

I definately needed more than 1.1v to hit 760, as the card came stock at 1.1v. I guess I just have a hot running, voltage hungry card. Meh...so long as it works. These 185.20 drivers are the first drivers in a while that don't crash out when OC'ing the card like this. So I'm stoked about that.
Click to expand...


nice.. never heard of that gamerhud thing before guess i need to look into it.. might help me kill a few more minutes..
 
Heh, the GamerHUD is card specific, you would know if your card came with it.

I notice that you hit 68C with your current overclock.
Its a fair overclock anyway, I'd be happy with that overclock, dont push it any more unless you can get the temp down.
If you want the best cooling, get a decent Arctic Cooling Accelero cooler.
The Accelero S1 with a fan is damn good and pretty cheap too.
 
i know i have an evga.. i just never heard of it before so i decided to do some reading on it..

and 68C is nothing for an 8800GT or even a 9800GT since its the same gpu.. stock cooling(without changing the fan speeds), stock speeds 80C was normal..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
i know i have an evga.. i just never heard of it before so i decided to do some reading on it..

and 68C is nothing for an 8800GT or even a 9800GT since its the same gpu.. stock cooling(without changing the fan speeds), stock speeds 80C was normal..
Click to expand...

68C is pretty high and you will find that temp matters even more the higher your overclock.
If you want to clock more, you need better cooling.
 
Nenu said:
68C is pretty high and you will find that temp matters even more the higher your overclock.
If you want to clock more, you need better cooling.
Click to expand...


68C is high for a cpu.. not for a gpu thats rated for 105C before it starts hitting the thermal throttling.. and shuts off at 115C.. yeah i understand it matters for overclocking.. but at 68C its not going to make or break an overclock.. ive had my 8800GT go as high as 75C during the summer.. i just happened to be out of the house with my bedroom door closed with 3 systems sitting at full load and my 8800GT at full load.. wasnt a problem at all though.. opened my door and the temps dropped back to 55C with no issues.. the biggest issue ive had is with the memory overheating and my crappy heatsinks falling off..
 
CPU's are also rated between 95 to 110C before they throttle yet you wont find anyone running near those temps when not overclocked, let alone overclocked.
I was just passing some info on to you.

I'm running my 8800GT at 50C max with an Accelero S1 with a 20% overclock on the core.
Any hotter and I have to reduce my overclock.
I was explaining that if you want a higher overclock you need to reduce your temps.
Take it or leave it, you're hard to give advice to.
 
Nenu said:
CPU's are also rated between 95 to 110C before they throttle yet you wont find anyone running near those temps when not overclocked, let alone overclocked.
I was just passing some info on to you.

I'm running my 8800GT at 50C max with an Accelero S1 with a 20% overclock on the core.
Any hotter and I have to reduce my overclock.
I was explaining that if you want a higher overclock you need to reduce your temps.
Take it or leave it, you're hard to give advice to.
Click to expand...

thats weird that 50C makes the difference for you.. never had that issue with my 8800GT.. wonder if it has more to do with the memory overheating or something.. my 8800GT right now is sitting at 53C full load(folding w/ gpu F@H) at 790/1900/1010.. so i dont know.. though i wish i could actually game with these speeds.. but 760 on my gpu seems to be the limit no matter what temp its at..
 
Figured the Zalman on the card is at least half decent. Better than reference cooling, if I recall. So far the temps haven't had an impact on the OC so much as the driver did. If I drop the OC back to stock(for the card) 700/1700/920 I idle at 43c and load at 52c.

I don't think I'm going to push it further nor pursue any other aftermarket cooling. If anything I'd upgrade the card before trying to push it further. It plays every game I care about at full settings, so meh.
 
the memory should easily run at 1000mhz.. atleast have that overclocked.. would give you a nice performance boost over stock and should run perfectly fine..
 
InvisiBill said:
GPU-Z also has a button to export your video BIOS (right next to the BIOS version). nvFlash wants a .rom file, so you'll probably want to rename the .bin that GPU-Z saves.

Try the Lexmark USB tool for making it bootable.

I run WinXP x64 and I was able to read, edit, and reflash my 9800GT's BIOS with these apps and my old 32MB USB stick (seen as a USB hard drive on my system) booting into DOS for nvFlash.
Click to expand...


Well GPU-Z worked, weird that Nibitor can't work. Anyway, I tried the Lexmark tool you linked and it does not to seem to work, persay. I mean, it seems to format and load the system files fine but when it comes to actually booting off the USB drive; no such luck. It's either my ASUS P5B (latest bios) or my OCZ RALLY2 that doesn't jive, because I've tried all the possible BIOS combinations regarding USB/Device/Boot Priority. At any rate, now that I was able to obtain the BIOS via GPUZ, I am gonna try to rebuild a boot CD I guess and slap in the BIOS/nvflash stuff in there. Can't remember what tool I used to do that but it definitely was not UBCD.
 
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