How to Overclock x850xt?

J

JamesGold

Weaksauce
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Nov 29, 2006
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I'm totally confused about the video card overclocking process. There are all these programs out, rivatuner, coolbits, 3d and PC mark, I just don't know where to start. I want to OC my x850xt a small margin, just for a learning experience. Would someone be willing to tell me where to start/how to do it?

Thanks.
 
You would have to download Atitool. The program allows you to monitor the temperature of the GPU ( graphics processing unit) and, indirectly, the temperature of the ram. You can just hit "Find max gpu" or "find max mem" and the program will itself overclock the card. You can also adjust the fan speed manually. I'm sure there's a guide out there somewhere.
 
Well, there are some caveats. Your system may shutdown and reboot if atitool goes too far, this has happened to me several times on my x800xt and I haven't had any problems. However, I am using aftermarket cooling, specifically the zalman vf900.

As for doing it manually. What I usually do is find out what overclocks others have historically achieved and start out 20mhz lower than them. First, run artifact scanning from atitool to warm up the card until the temperature stabilizes. Then, put the gpu frequency at whatever value you found out from searching and run the artifact scanning tool for a minute. If no artifacts show then increase the speed by 5 mhz and keep repeating until the system destabilizes. When it does, lower the frequency by 5mhz and retest, but for 10 minutes or so. If it checks out, run a loop of 3dmark or play your favorite game for as long as you can. Now do the same thing for the memory speed with the gpu at stock. When you find the best memory speed, lower it by 5mhz along with the gpu and happy gaming. If you ever find that the system is not stable, lower the overclocks some more.

Also, if you click on the settings button, you will see a dropdown menu at the top of the window. from there you can access the fan control function of atitool to set the fan speed higher to keep temperature lower.
 
When running max GPU, my card got up to 100 degress celsius after just 3 minutes. I'm afraid to keep going at that temperature.
 
Stop overclocking until you replace the standard cooler with an aftermarket one. You can boil water with your GPU, definitely not a good thing. You might want to underclock so your GPU doesn't fail sometime soon.

My X850XT never reached above 55 C even in 100+F summer days using the Zalman VF900. I strongly suggest you look into a better cooler before you overclock!
 
Yes, an aftermarket cooler will solve those temperature problems. I use the zalman vf900 myself and it is excellent. I wouldn't spend more money on that card, though, I would probably save the money to get an hd3850 at the least.
 
I just purchased a non OC'd 8800Gt which I plan to OC. I just want a bit of practice on my x850xt so I have a basic idea of what to do on the 8800GT. So I shouldn't continue trying to OC the x850xt because the temps get up to 100C in the max GPU test?
 
I OCed my x850xt a while ago and I think that might have broken it. I'm not saying if you OC an x850xt then it will break it i'm just saying it happened to me so watch out.

Basically I got some green/red lines on my screen and it only happened with my x850xt WHEN I had some type of drivers (current or old) installed. My brother OCed his x850xt and it still runs perfectly and he's had it longer then mine but then again he has aftermarket cooling so I don't know.
 
skadebo said:
Well, there are some caveats. Your system may shutdown and reboot if atitool goes too far, this has happened to me several times on my x800xt and I haven't had any problems. However, I am using aftermarket cooling, specifically the zalman vf900.

As for doing it manually. What I usually do is find out what overclocks others have historically achieved and start out 20mhz lower than them. First, run artifact scanning from atitool to warm up the card until the temperature stabilizes. Then, put the gpu frequency at whatever value you found out from searching and run the artifact scanning tool for a minute. If no artifacts show then increase the speed by 5 mhz and keep repeating until the system destabilizes. When it does, lower the frequency by 5mhz and retest, but for 10 minutes or so. If it checks out, run a loop of 3dmark or play your favorite game for as long as you can. Now do the same thing for the memory speed with the gpu at stock. When you find the best memory speed, lower it by 5mhz along with the gpu and happy gaming. If you ever find that the system is not stable, lower the overclocks some more.

Also, if you click on the settings button, you will see a dropdown menu at the top of the window. from there you can access the fan control function of atitool to set the fan speed higher to keep temperature lower.
Click to expand...

Thanks skadebo!

How will I know when the system destabilizies/when I have gone too far?
 
JamesGold said:
Thanks skadebo!

How will I know when the system destabilizies/when I have gone too far?
Click to expand...

System destabilization basically means that your computer reboots, or crashes or throws some sort of error. Sometimes, the game will run but you will start to see image corruption, also called artifacts. Basically, if the computer isn't running fine, that means you have gone too far. Since you won't be changing out the stock cooler on the x850xt since you have bought an 8800GT, don't overclock the x850 too much. Honestly, some people overclock high with/without proper cooling and their cards are fine, while others don't have such luck.
 
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