Overclocking the 8800. How much is safe?

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DDuckMan

Limp Gawd
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Mar 10, 2007
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I have an EVGA 8800GTS that is cooled with a waterblock. After a couple months of stock speeds, I tried a little overclocking with ATITool. Stock speeds are 513/792. I overclocked it to 670/1000 and had no problems with errors or artifacts in ATITool, 3DMark06, and HL2 for an hour or so. Temps did not budge from stock load temp of 55C.

Normally I will clock a CPU until I get errors, then back off a bit. It's nice to know how close to the maximum speed it is running. In this case I chickened out. With most people maxing out at about 600-625, going over 670 did not feel safe. I intended to stop at 650, but I was using the "find max core" feature of ATITool and didn't expect to have to abort it manually. It seems like a nice card and I don't want the first error to go along with permenant damage.

Are there different guidelines with overclocking videocards? Is it generally safe to keep going until there is a sign of failure like with a CPU? Has anyone else run their card that fast without problems?
 
I think most people abide by "keeping temperatures lower than 80C, and never hitting 90C"

If you keep it like that.. I'm sure you can continue..
obviously if you begin to artifact then you need to back down on the overclock.


Also ... note that you currently own a EVGA card, which allows overclocking :) so I think your fine!!
 
I understand most people get 600-625 core, but do most people watercool? I now know of 3 people who watercool their 8800GTS, and I have the lowest clock. :D I am at 665. There is you at 670, and the guy who inspired my setup who is at 675. I know I can't go higher, I believe the other guy can't get higher than 675, too. We both run XFX cards.

So, if I were you (I was about a week ago :D ), I would go up 5Mhz at a time (manually, not on auto) and see when you get the first error with in about the first 60sec in the "Check for artifacts". Immediately drop it back down a couple of 5Mhz steps. From there, try extended testing. I bet you're fine at that point.

You went all out with the watercooling, why chicken out now? :p
 
On water, there's a voltage wall between 660 and 675mhz... Where a Vmod is required to go any higher than that.
 
Hmm, a fixable wall, eh? I'll have to check that out. I'm on water, 648 speed, using Rivatuner. The next step higher using Rivatuner is something like 670 or so, and 3d06 crashes at that speed. But with that vmod....hmmm.
 
Arcygenical said:
On water, there's a voltage wall between 660 and 675mhz... Where a Vmod is required to go any higher than that.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily... I run 24/7 at 684 core speed, and I bench at 702. I have not done the vMod yet. :) keyword, yet. The card is cooled by a Swiftech wb and ramsinks.

I have seen others running higher than 660(which is actually 648) without doing the vMod also.

Were you guys aware of the steps that these cards overclock in?
 
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