Overclocking a BFG 7800 GT OC

[Slawek]

I have a BFG 7800 GT OC. I just overclocked my cpu to 4ghz so I figure why not do the video card too.

I enable cool bits, and i hit detect optimal settings. It picks 490 mhz and 1.18ghz for the memory. So after trying these settings I See artifacting, so I drop it down to 475 & 1.15.

Do you guys think this is a safe overclock? Can it be possible that I'm causing worse performance by doing this? I have the stock cooler and stuff... at these speeds 3dmark06 gives me SM2.0 of 1728, and HDR/SM3.0 of 1701.

Card specs:
BFG GeForce™ 7800 GT OC™ 256MB
>> PCI Express™
>> Memory 256MB GDDR3
>> Core Clock 425MHz (vs. 400MHz standard)
>> Memory Clock 1050MHz (vs. 1000MHz standard)
>> RAMDAC Dual 400MHz
>> Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 and lower, OpenGL 2.0 and lower for
Microsoft® Windows®
>> Connectors: Dual DVI-I, HDTV, VIVO
>> 850 million vertices/sec.
>> 33.6GB/second memory bandwidth

 

[JohnleMVP]

Set the video card clocks to stock.
Get a short 3D bench test program, I use CS:Source.
Run it a couple times record the avg fps. This should get the video card hot.
Then run the nVidia optimal settings OC thing. That will give you more realistic result then if the card is cold.
Overclock the video card to the "optimal" settings and run the 3D bench test again. If your avg FPS are higher then before your ok. You can keep pushing the video card little by little. Once your avg FPS are lower then before or you see artifacts you know when to stop.