Too much focus on unlocking and overclocking

AltTabbins

AltTabbins

Fully [H]
Joined
Jul 29, 2005
Messages
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Is it just me, or does it seem like the newest trend is to buy a videocard based on the fact that you MIGHT be able to unlock features or overclock it to insane speeds?

It seems like every thread I go to, somebody comments on unlocking pipes on a 6800nu, flashing an x800/x850 pro to XT PE speeds/pipes or unlocking a x800gto to xtpe speeds. I get sick of people recommending it to people who want honest advise about what videocard they should purchase. I mean, think about it. If they don't know what card they want or what card is top-of-the-line, then do you honestly think that it would be safe for them to try to flash their new card or go through the time-consuming, dangerous task of overclocking?

With ATI, the success rate is low for a successful bios flash. People run into problems with unlocking the new pipes, cooling and the notorious fan problems that have haunted their cards since they first released them. VERY few people actually successfully achieve a stable xtpe card out of their x800/x850 card. I was successful with one x850 pro here in the office and came close with 2 others. Still not enough for me to start telling people to buy cards just on the basis that you MIGHT be able to unlock them to get something more.

With Nvidia, I have personally NEVER had a 6800nu unlock/overclock to GT speeds successfully. This is our main testing card here in the office.. We have 7 of them sitting on our dev table (all different brands, from XFX to EVGA). Not a single one of them has unlocked to be "stable" at GT speeds. I came closest with the EVGA, but even with our flagship custom copper cooler, it still is just too much voltage for the nu's core. I talked to Shaun (my co-worker and head developer of cooling solutions) and he has never come across an actual 6800nu that unlocked to stable @ GT pipes/speeds.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am ALL for overclocking your cards.. Just as long as you know what you are doing. In actual gaming, I don't see much of a difference in any of the cards that I have overclocked, so I choose to keep my warranty intact and leave them be.

The moral of this thread is that you only get what you pay for. Just because a card might unlock doesn't mean that you should try and cheat the company and get more than you pay for... the company will probably have the last laugh. Never expect anything for free.






Please!! no threadcrapping or ATI vs Nvidia wars or flame posts.
 
1) This is [H]ard OCP (OverClocking People)

2) Some people enjoy it, it is a hobby.

3) People who recommend a good overlocker to a n00b just because it's cheap, then don't want to support said n00b when he screws up flashing a card should burn :mad:

4) You make some good points, but then again, we are at [H]ard OCP, and they're asking for a video card at a known overclocker forum, not videocards 'r us.

5) You're not "cheating" the company. You can do whatever you want with your hardware, and the company won't care. If they want to really lock the pipes, they can. It actually costs more to do most of this shit, if you count in the extra cooling in the price per performance calculation.

To sum it all up, they're asking for advice on a pricerange of cards on an enthusiast board that specializes in overclocking/unlocking to get the most performance per dollar. At least it's not people claiming WR's for every benchmark like xstremesystems.org.


Oh, and those GTO/GTO2 cards are just a way to discard of x800xt/x850xt cores at a low price, they need to clear their warehouses of crap they can't sell, because no games use SM3.0, right? ;)
 
Again, please don't get me wrong. As I said in my original post, I am all for overclocking. I just don't like how "noobs" get on, ask for a card and make what would be a bad purchase because of a misleading idea that they can get a 850xtpe out of an x800.
 
This is not just an overclocking forum.

It used to be that BUT times have changed.

The members here offer advice, support, tips, tweaks we also provide results, experience and the list goes on ...

As the OP said, overclocking or unlocking isn't the answer to all questions.

We should start off by finding out what type of experience he has and what is the purpose of the video card... benchmarking, gaming ...

Unlocking or overclocking a card would be an excellent suggestion IF the results were 100% stability and success with no consequences.
 
Hugs gto2 :p

but really, its hardly a new trend, maybe new to yoy but not a new thing at all, the ti4x00s, usually OC'ed or flashed to the next number up, the 9800 going to pro's and the pros to XT's, the 6800 to GTs etc etc etc
its not new at all, the gto2 is just the latest example, and there have even been images to burn to cd made for noobs who don't wanna try the simple line of code needed for doing it with floppy drives.

and yea it is [H]!, there are other more mundane places to get advice.
 
Rabidfox said:
1) This is [H]ard OCP (OverClocking People)
Click to expand...

That's what OCP means? I guess I'm a n00bie. Why the brackets around the H? To emphasize the Hard?

 
Wrong !!

It stands for Overclocker's Comparison Page

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=795198&highlight=OCP

This WAS how it started ... people mature, sites mature and companies/businesses mature ...

If you look around the forums, there are enough indications of this. I don't think Digital Artwerk has anything to do with overclocking, neither is For Sale/Trade ..

I am aware that I'm talking about the forums but the front page rarely talks about overclocking unless it's something special such as hitting 1Ghz on an X1800XT.

Overclocking is pretty basic nowadays, many of us do it .. but there are too many people out there that wouldn't dare think/try to do it.

When we offer our advice we should offer advice that's suitable to the OP's needs.

5) You're not "cheating" the company. You can do whatever you want with your hardware, and the company won't care. If they want to really lock the pipes, they can. It actually costs more to do most of this shit, if you count in the extra cooling in the price per performance calculation.
Click to expand...

Interesting ... do you mention what you've done everytime you request an RMA ? Your honesty must be so shocking that they ship the replacement on a Concorde jet to YOUR house and tell you to keep the defect.
 
Interesting ... do you mention what you've done everytime you request an RMA ? Your honesty must be so shocking that they ship the replacement on a Concorde jet to YOUR house and tell you to keep the defect.
Click to expand...

And how many times has a person bought from a retail store, toasted the card and returned it to the local store.. People don't live up to their honor anymore all because they wanted too much out of something. Companies look at this and the honest person gets burned by stiff return policies, where even if they have a GENUINELY bad card, its very hard to exchange/return it.
 
well ...i bought my 6800 with some hope of unlocking the pipes....i mean who can complain with paying for a 6800 and getting a GT..
it didnt work, and i live with it. Im not one to rma it, but there are people who will do that, and yes it irritates me too.
i am rma'ing something to netgear as we speak, and holy crap man, its like impossible, they run thru all this stuff, it taken a week just to get an rma # and i still have to call
i htink if every company did that, noone would want to rma anything.

Other than that, overclocking is fun, it's simple, (sometimes its not) and you might not get a HUGE boost in games, but the e-penis seems to grow :)
 
mohammedtaha said:
Wrong !!

It stands for Overclocker's Comparison Page

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=795198&highlight=OCP

This WAS how it started ... people mature, sites mature and companies/businesses mature ...

If you look around the forums, there are enough indications of this. I don't think Digital Artwerk has anything to do with overclocking, neither is For Sale/Trade ..

I am aware that I'm talking about the forums but the front page rarely talks about overclocking unless it's something special such as hitting 1Ghz on an X1800XT.

Overclocking is pretty basic nowadays, many of us do it .. but there are too many people out there that wouldn't dare think/try to do it.

When we offer our advice we should offer advice that's suitable to the OP's needs.



Interesting ... do you mention what you've done everytime you request an RMA ? Your honesty must be so shocking that they ship the replacement on a Concorde jet to YOUR house and tell you to keep the defect.
Click to expand...


Sorry about the confusion on what OCP means, I thought I remembered that from years ago.

About RMA 'ing cards, softmodding pipes cannot harm a card. Overclocking can, to some extent(heat related), volt modding most definately can, water cooling and phase change cooling can(moisture). I've never RMA'd a video card that I broke. I've only RMA's 1 card, and that was for a known issue with the cards that cropped up shortly after release. You can't blame people for trying to cover shit up like that, noone ever wants to pay. If Nvidia and ATI didn't want you to overclock the card so easily, they wouldn't have included it in the drivers. Card manufacturers know that clock frequencies are flexible, they give adequate cooling for the range of frequencies (most of the time) that the card can operate at, that really can't be argued.

Look at ATI allowing AIB manufacturers to clock up it's x1800xt, same thing with any Nvidia card. Unless you burn the card, the card will artifact long before you break it.

If you want to get recomendations on stock cards, then do your homework and don't come to an enthusiast website where people talk about how far they can push the hardware. Sometimes you find goodies, like the GTO/2 where a manufacturer is just throwing away chips because they need to clear stock.
 
lloose said:
And how many times has a person bought from a retail store, toasted the card and returned it to the local store.. People don't live up to their honor anymore all because they wanted too much out of something. Companies look at this and the honest person gets burned by stiff return policies, where even if they have a GENUINELY bad card, its very hard to exchange/return it.
Click to expand...

I for one, refuse to do this. I RMA only if it's broken, or if I haven't overclocked at all.
 
mohammedtaha said:
Your honesty must be so shocking that they ship the replacement on a Concorde jet to YOUR house and tell you to keep the defect.
Click to expand...

Actually, I had a 6800GT rma'd and they told me to keep the defect, must be a miracle or something.

But seriously, I Love my GTO2. Absolute best bang for my $$. I am a total n00b at flashing and I did it right the first time. I think anyone could. And the card? Love it like a family member. I havent hugged it, but I have given it the thumbs up a few times!
 
Just overclocking your cards gpu/memory can sometimes boost the performance 30% and thats a real bargain. If you have a card that has the ability to unlock the pipes like the 6800nu's then by all means give it a try if it doesnt work just turn them back off again. And why does it bother you these so called as you say " noobs " in someway might damage the card ? Its not yours, its not a human being so who freakin cares lol
 
Good luck is a requirement for success with overclocking any component. I have gone through multiple CPUs and not found a good chip before. At some point you give up, the restock fees and all the angst is not worth it if you can't achieve success. And no I wasn't doing anything wrong. ;)

I had an X800XTPE that overclocked to 549/591 just fine. ATI Tool artifact scanner - it passed it w/flying colors. Six months later the card starts locking up. It now failed artifact scanner at the same settings it had worked fine with for months. Somehow the overclock, over time, damaged the card. And no the card was MORE than adequately cooled, GPU core temps were 63c at the absolute highest. Zalman ZM80D-HP w/enermax 80mm cooling it.

Overclocking is a risky crapshoot and I heavily suggest a person NOT bother with it unless they have "the luck".
 
I had bought a BBATI X800Pro vivo a little over a year ago. I read about unlocking 4 pipes and flashing either XT or XT PE bios to the card. I decided to do the mod. Unlocked 4 pipes and flashed to the X800XT PE card. All of this was on stock cooling inside a shitty Dell 8300 case.

Before I had 12 pipes, 475 core and 450 memory

After I had 16 pipes, 520 core and 560 memory. Ran flawlessly with my stock cooler. I was able to up my core to 570ish without any problems (arctic cooler 4). My memory was basically maxed out at 570.

Was it worth it, you bet. And i'd buy another X800Pro vivo again just to do the mod.
 
lloose said:
Is it just me, or does it seem like the newest trend is to buy a videocard based on the fact that you MIGHT be able to unlock features or overclock it to insane speeds?

[...]

The moral of this thread is that you only get what you pay for. Just because a card might unlock doesn't mean that you should try and cheat the company and get more than you pay for... the company will probably have the last laugh. Never expect anything for free.






Please!! no threadcrapping or ATI vs Nvidia wars or flame posts.
Click to expand...

What are you some PR rep from Nvidia/ATI or a vendor? lol cheat the company..lol funniest thing i've heard.
 
I have nothing against overclocking but I will never suggest to someone that they buy a slower chip or GPU just so they can overclock it and save money. Since overclocks are not a guarantee (far from it) it is a mistake to *assume* it will unlock and clock up without any problems. Just because you may have had good luck with it does not mean that applies to everyone else.

Hell I just this morning read a post from someone that said it took 3 chips before he found one that overclocked well. There goes any savings you had in restock fees right there.
 
All i have to say is this is the [H]. I come here for overclocking news...When i buy a videocard, one of the main things i consider is how overclockable is it?

Its all about saving $$...
 
so heres a quick question
when yall o/c are yall able to play a higher resolutions or just get better scores in like 3dmark etc.

i feel that i can actually bump some stuff up from my overclocks, resolution, detail etc. like im not really wasting my time with it
 
the bios flash was just as easy when i did it first time.and mem and core settings flashed back to x850pro settings,but keeps 16pipes, verified with ATItool, and can be overclocked, but i dont, havent went that far on overclocking, replacing heatsink.
i will be holding onto my card for another month or so, until s939 build.thank u compusa insurance.

friend just traded in his 6600gt and with his insurance put $50bux with it and got x850pro, he has agp and will stay with it for now he got insurance again, for later upgrade to 939.

not only did i recommend it to him, i took the time and showed him how to do it.(newb,but at least hes [H]ardcore now.) ;)

x850pro core/500 memory/500 12pipes
x850xt core/520 memory/540 16pipes
 
I've had poor luck overclocking results in the past even with adequate cooling.

So now, I don't gamble, I simply buy the hardware that meets my needs bone stock. If I can overclock it - fine.

0.0001% of the population might be ablt to get a 6600GT to 7800GTX speeds using insane cooling methods, but don't plan on it :D
 
I dont think the emphasis is always on overclocking but everyone trying to suggest the best bang for your buck. We just try to give advise to save you $$$ and keep you happy. E.G. When the 6800U came out it was $499.99 and the 6800GT was 399.99. People could easily overclock the GT to ultra speeds. For me at least, when I extended advise I did it to hopefully save somebody some $$$ as once set to Ultra the difference in real world performance was minimal. I could care less if another person shatters the 3dmark 05 record but If I can give them some solid advise and save them alot of $$$ at the same time then my good deed for the day is done. ;)
 
darknite said:
so heres a quick question
when yall o/c are yall able to play a higher resolutions or just get better scores in like 3dmark etc.

i feel that i can actually bump some stuff up from my overclocks, resolution, detail etc. like im not really wasting my time with it
Click to expand...

YES! I can usually play at a higher res, AND turn things like AA and AF on, or raise them to higher levels. X850pro to X850XTPE is a huge jump. I was lucky to get one that unlocked without any problems and runs at xtpe speeds. I've heard of success and horror stories.

Also, we're talking about hardware that is more than adequate to perform it's task at default or stock levels. I could still run all the same games with good performance on a stock a64 2800+ and a stock x850pro. I new that when purchasing them. I was prepared to run stock if the oc's didn't go very far. In my case, I ended up saving hundreds of dollars, and having a lot of fun in the process. But it's gone the other way for me before as well.
 
lloose said:
With Nvidia, I have personally NEVER had a 6800nu unlock/overclock to GT speeds successfully. This is our main testing card here in the office.. We have 7 of them sitting on our dev table (all different brands, from XFX to EVGA). Not a single one of them has unlocked to be "stable" at GT speeds. I came closest with the EVGA, but even with our flagship custom copper cooler, it still is just too much voltage for the nu's core. I talked to Shaun (my co-worker and head developer of cooling solutions) and he has never come across an actual 6800nu that unlocked to stable @ GT pipes/speeds.
Click to expand...
I can't say categorically, but I personally never saw anyone claiming that a 6800nu could be turned into a GT. If that's what you thought Rivatuner could do for you, then you needed to pay closer attention. First of all, the memory is ddr1 not gddr3. Even in the unlikely event that you could get it to run at the same clock speed, it still wouldn't be as good overall, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Second of all, there's a reason that a particular quad of pipes was disabled, and whatever the reason is, it probably means less than GT speed on the GPU with the pipes/vertex unit enabled. That being said, I had a 6800nu that unlocked the pipes and the vertex unit without artifacting, then I ramped up the clocks to 375/800. The overall effect was a gain of about 1000 points in 3dM05, and a very pleasant gaming experience in DOOM3 and FarCry. It was no GT, but it was somewhere halfway between an nu and a GT, which was worth the trouble and really made me happy about my investment.

I know that all this is a subpoint to your overall argument, but since your supporting evidence seems to include a lot of unrealistic expectations that neither I nor many others would have suffered from, it undermines your thesis. I come to [H]ardOCP to find the secret sauce, not the vanilla ice cream, and it rarely disappoints.
 
Commander Suzdal said:
I can't say categorically, but I personally never saw anyone claiming that a 6800nu could be turned into a GT. If that's what you thought Rivatuner could do for you, then you needed to pay closer attention. First of all, the memory is ddr1 not gddr3. Even in the unlikely event that you could get it to run at the same clock speed, it still wouldn't be as good overall, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Second of all, there's a reason that a particular quad of pipes was disabled, and whatever the reason is, it probably means less than GT speed on the GPU with the pipes/vertex unit enabled. That being said, I had a 6800nu that unlocked the pipes and the vertex unit without artifacting, then I ramped up the clocks to 375/800. The overall effect was a gain of about 1000 points in 3dM05, and a very pleasant gaming experience in DOOM3 and FarCry. It was no GT, but it was somewhere halfway between an nu and a GT, which was worth the trouble and really made me happy about my investment.

I know that all this is a subpoint to your overall argument, but since your supporting evidence seems to include a lot of unrealistic expectations that neither I nor many others would have suffered from, it undermines your thesis. I come to [H]ardOCP to find the secret sauce, not the vanilla ice cream, and it rarely disappoints.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. I was just going to touch on that. A 6800 cannot become a GT for various reasons.
 
I bought a 300a and oced it to 464. I bought a 550e and took it to 825. I took a 2.4 to 3.4.

I bought a 3.4 and got... 3.4.... No worries. All the extra MHz is free anyways. Recommend a good card, if it gets better after purchase, even better. If not, oh well, still a good card.

To me, overclocking is getting something for free (well... Kinda... Cooling is extra, but it's fun!). If I can't overclock/flash/whatever, oh well. I get what I paid for. The stock MHz. If I get more, hey FREE SHIT! Kinda like buying a box of Trojans. Good rubbers, and if you get 13 in a 12 pack, awesome. If people on the internet notice a batch of Trojans with 13 in most of them, and people pick up on that and start buying those batches, even if it's not guaranteed... Hey, free rubber! Almost same scenerio. Picking up on manufacturers "mistakes" or "binning" or whatever, and exploiting it. Or getting more HP from your car by advancing the timing. Free HP... Not guaranteed, but likely.

Overclocking is a hobby. You don't have to do it. The 6800 is a great card. If you can get it to 6800U speeds, go for it. If it doesn't work, are you out anything? Nope. You bought a 6800. That's what you get. If you do get the 6800u speeds, you got a 6800u for $100 less.
 
Commander Suzdal said:
I can't say categorically, but I personally never saw anyone claiming that a 6800nu could be turned into a GT. If that's what you thought Rivatuner could do for you, then you needed to pay closer attention. First of all, the memory is ddr1 not gddr3. Even in the unlikely event that you could get it to run at the same clock speed, it still wouldn't be as good overall, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Second of all, there's a reason that a particular quad of pipes was disabled, and whatever the reason is, it probably means less than GT speed on the GPU with the pipes/vertex unit enabled. That being said, I had a 6800nu that unlocked the pipes and the vertex unit without artifacting, then I ramped up the clocks to 375/800. The overall effect was a gain of about 1000 points in 3dM05, and a very pleasant gaming experience in DOOM3 and FarCry. It was no GT, but it was somewhere halfway between an nu and a GT, which was worth the trouble and really made me happy about my investment.

I know that all this is a subpoint to your overall argument, but since your supporting evidence seems to include a lot of unrealistic expectations that neither I nor many others would have suffered from, it undermines your thesis. I come to [H]ardOCP to find the secret sauce, not the vanilla ice cream, and it rarely disappoints.
Click to expand...

Your right.. I never said that they were the same, if you read my post, its meant to show that I am tired of people saying that it is unlockable to GT speeds/pipes.
 
If you're on a certain budget, overclockability comes into play. You can get a better bang for the buck by reading on forums as to which cards can get better performance by OCing. I had a 9800pro that died on me, so I wanted something in the $200 range that would get me equal or better performance. My 9800 pro didn't OC well at all, so I went with a 6600gt (read that they were banshees), and it in fact turned out to be a banshee. Way better performance in games.

I'll always be this way (see sig). I've gone 9800 pro unmodded, to 6600gt OCed, to a 6800nu OCed and unlocked. It's the only way to go. A 6800gt was about $100 more, and doesn't perform $100 worth better IMHO. Take something not so good, make it better. Keep the change. My short and sweet theory.
 
Overclocking is a Hobby. It takes skill and a long time to fine tune the process to perfection.
 
It's the reason cards sell.


Look at the 9500/9700 cards by ati, they were not only faster than Nvidias cards but the reason I bought my 9500 pro was because I knew ahead of time that I could flash a 9700 pro bios to it and instantly have a card as fast as a card that would cost me much more money.

I bought my 6800GT because I knew I could easily overclock it to 6800Ultra speeds. I think this is the reason Nvidia dropped the whole UItra moniker.


It doesn't hurt that there have been articles in almost every major technology publication stating that overclocking is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's all marketing.
 
peacetilence said:
It's all marketing.
Click to expand...

Soooo true....and now manufacturers are selling cards that are oc'd from the factory. This seems to be a somwhat new trend. Makes you wonder if the "stock" speeds are purposefully under-clocked or under-rated directly from companies like nvidia.
 
sarbz said:
Soooo true....and now manufacturers are selling cards that are oc'd from the factory. This seems to be a somwhat new trend. Makes you wonder if the "stock" speeds are purposefully under-clocked or under-rated directly from companies like nvidia.
Click to expand...

It makes me wonder why people pay more for a card that's already maxed out, LOL
 
sarbz said:
Makes you wonder if the "stock" speeds are purposefully under-clocked or under-rated directly from companies like nvidia.
Click to expand...

Of course they are. That makes for better yields of chips that can run the desired frequencies.
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
Of course they are. That makes for better yields of chips that can run the desired frequencies.
Click to expand...

Of course. Without that, there would be no basis for overclocking. The thought of two chips out of the same wafer, one costing $100 less, but being able to run at equal performance to the more expensice chip is why we OC. But I meant going one step further and lowering the clocks even more so everyone can sell them as an "overclocked" product, and try to take advantage of some "overclocking" marketing hype. Like if the 6800gt was released with a 300mhz core clock spec from nvidia instead of 350.

True overclockers don't usually buy products that are already overclocked. And if they do, they're going to try to oc them more.
 
I picked up a 3dconnect x800gto for $157 AR from monarchcomputers 2 weeks ago. When its my first time flashing a video card bois and being able to mod it to x850xt PE specs without a problem its hard not to recommend the card. Even if it didn't mod its a fast card for the ~$180 range and I would have been happy. But getting a ~$350-400 card for under $160 is great! According this techpowerup article pepple have reported 108 successful mods and 6 failures as of Nov. 14th. Thats about a 95% success rate!
 
Fact is a company must fill in/make the multiple cards and if for example they are overstocked in 6800ultra sales and everyone is buying the 6800gt's they would have to use the ultra gpu in the 6800gt to meet supply and demand. You see this alot with cpus and its a real bargain for the overclocker to get one of these. Im running a amd x2 64 3800 at 2.6 ghz stock its 2.0ghz now it runs perfectly and could of easily been a x2 4800 however supply / demand required them to use a 4800 cpu and make it a 3800 to fill the demand of the customers.
 
Shane said:
Fact is a company must fill in/make the multiple cards and if for example they are overstocked in 6800ultra sales and everyone is buying the 6800gt's they would have to use the ultra gpu in the 6800gt to meet supply and demand. You see this alot with cpus and its a real bargain for the overclocker to get one of these. Im running a amd x2 64 3800 at 2.6 ghz stock its 2.0ghz now it runs perfectly and could of easily been a x2 4800 however supply / demand required them to use a 4800 cpu and make it a 3800 to fill the demand of the customers.
Click to expand...

3800's only have 512k cache. Is the other 512 disabled or something? Or was your analogy off a bit. :)
 
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