I have a 9600gt and i was thinking about overclocking it, is there a performance gain to have with that card ? and is it safe to overclock it following the guide in this forum ? My pc is on all day.
If you can keep the temperatures within specification (with a margin for error/problem/heatwave/dirt), it's not that hard. I don't think many cards have VRAM temp sensors, so the RAM temp is a bit of guess work. Performance gain... not really. IMO. I've got an OC 275, which I downclock. When I set it to BIOS default OC, there's not much to talk about. Crysis still lags, and gets about 1-2FPS gain. Basically, again IMO, you can push them about 10% higher than default specs, but this 10% gain is where you find the ceiling for temps. BUT. I say BUT! It is fun to play with, trying to push a benchmark without burning the house down, lol. Have fun, and don't be a hero.
Overclocking is stupid to me, there is really no point in doing it. Not only can you decrease the life of it, you only get what a 5% to 10% increase in performance. Unless you oc the card to extreme levels, you still will only get what a 15% maybe 20% increase, and sometimes i think oc may make things worse. I never seen any reason to do it, if you want better performance, use XP or use certain drivers or buy a better card. Can you post your GPU-Z please
OC guides here are good and you'll be fine if you follow the instructions! Let us know how it goes! Good luck!
I think Oc'ing you GPU is next to pointless with a minimal amount of increase in performance, for example i have increase my 8800gt from 650core to 740core and increase the rest but cant remember to what and i get only a few fps increase. have a look at some reviews of cards that are oc'd over stock clocks. Factory OC's are a different story though, for some reason they just work that much better
I just leave everything at stock, and yes factory OC makes sense. Stock settings does the job just fine for me.
That's almost contradictory. Factory OC'd models just have a higher-clocked BIOS installed out-of-the-box; it's easy to flash the same, or even a superior BIOS to a regular card and make it essentially the same. Some manufacturers' warranties are so good that they'll even honor OCs if you somehow manage to mess up your overclock or screw up an aftermarket cooling installation. Besides, at most, you'll get a system reboot if you go over the top, assuming you're not hardcore enough to use voltmods. The chances of "frying" or physically damaging your card are low as far as OC'ing your GPU at stock volts goes. And of course, you get the benefits of better performance. The "few" FPS gained by OC'ing can be game-breaking when your average can dwindle to 20FPS, and even for games that play better, you'll notice an increase, depending on how far you push your card. IMO, there's no good reason to pay more for a factory OC'd model when it is so simple to OC it yourself, given that your warranty isn't going to be voided. Well, unless the factory OC'd model is cheaper than the reference clocked model. Go for it. Increase clocks, test/monitor effects, increase clocks, test/monitor effects, and so forth. RivaTuner is good for the overclocking, and FurMark can be used to stress test your OC. Make sure you OC in small steps, although I usually take a big jump to an OC'd model and then take the small steps. Read up a guide for more info.
with OC you can gain up to 20% performance with a little OC. of course if your are not cpu limited -_- and its not GPU will live a lot..., and factory OCs give exactly the same performance than user OCs -_____-"
@Zeke66: wow, we almost have the same system, except mine is OC for both GPU and CPU (a modest 685/1750/2000 @ 52C idle and ~75C full load, clock, but can go higher still, using rivatuner) using the original nvidia reference cooler. And yeah, the performance gain can only be seen on benchmarks, on games it's barely noticeable, unless the game is more GPU dependent.
Gain will entirely depend on a couple of factors, the two biggest ones are 1) The game itself - some are more cpu bound and some are more graphic intensive. 2) The resolution you game at and other IQ settings you use. Your system is pretty balanced as it is - so on average you probably won't see any gains unless you overclock your cpu and your video card at the same time. As far as it being safe - it's perfectly safe if you don't push it too far or let heat get out of control (if you get a lot of crashes in games or other graphical glitches after you overclock, you're pusing it too far). As far as lowering the lifespan - overclocking adds VERY little extra wear (again if you don't push it) - just using (heating and cooling) your video card causes the most wear and overclocking (within limits) adds practically nothing in overall wear. Besides the vast majority of video cards become completely outdated well before they wear out and die. So experiment with a little overclocking and see if it helps for whatever game(s) you are trying to improve.
Found the problem. I was thinking about overclocking because i had an important drop in fps playing Left 4 dead 2, and i have the sys req to play it (not the min but the recommended). The drop was every 2 min approx and during zombie rush or higly detailed scenery...so barely playable... I try different settings, none seems to help but the lowest resolution. If i use the game chosen settings for my card, everything was on high. Lot of fps drop.... I try to disable "multi core rendering" and poof no more drops in fps even at max settings... What i dont understand is that the multi core rendering is suppose to help with multi core... i have a dual core but my game is a LOT better without it ! :3eyes:
That card is a beast. Either something is wrong with your computer or i have no idea what the problem is, because with my 9500GT i can play L4D at 1280x1024 very high to high settings, AA FULL , AFX16 and get between around 40-60 frames easily. Is your system weaker then my system or something? I see no reason why you should OC your card, you should be gaming just fine.
I don't remember quite well, but my clocks were similar to yours 790/1700/2000 somewhere between that. I could go higher on core but would have to decrease Shader.
