OC advise

[Merlin]

I am going to play with OCing my EVGA 8800GT. Right now its out of the box settings 600 core 900 Ram 1500 shader. I have the stock heat solution. When I apply the OC thru Riva will I have to restart the PC? I am folding on a long job right now with the CPU so I do not want to restart until that job finishes.

[ViPeR.Ja]

you dont have to restart the computer to apply the o/c

[DMB2000uk]

You can't overclock while the GPU is mid fold though, so you'd have to quit the GPU folding either way.

It should save checkpoint files though and continue where it left off once you start back up.

Dan

[stopthekilling77]

You can't overclock while the GPU is mid fold though, so you'd have to quit the GPU folding either way.

It should save checkpoint files though and continue where it left off once you start back up.

Dan

Not true, you can bump up shader speed in rivatuner in small increments while folding

[DMB2000uk]

Even still, I'd not want to risk losing the current WU if you go that bit too far.

Dan

[DJ Tucker]

i have the 9800gt which is the 8800gt really and i have overclocked from core 600mhz, shader 1500mhz and memory 900mhz to core 650mhz, shader 1625mhz and memory 1000mhz and all is good in my rig! oh and to overclock you need to really have you cards idling first as dmb2000uk said you dont want to bust your cards.

[skier]

i have the 9800gt which is the 8800gt really and i have overclocked from core 600mhz, shader 1500mhz and memory 900mhz to core 650mhz, shader 1625mhz and memory 1000mhz and all is good in my rig! oh and to overclock you need to really have you cards idling first as dmb2000uk said you dont want to bust your cards.

fyi the 9800gt is more comparable to the 8800GTX, my 9600 GSO scores about as well as a G92 8800GTS in becnhmarks


i've personally not had a single bit of luck overclocking video cards, i've given up entirely at this point actually, so all the power to ya there

[DJ Tucker]

thx skier m8 i didn't know i had an 8800gtx in sli in my system however 2 8800gtx's in my sig would sound much better than 2 9800gt's

[sbohdan]

fyi the 9800gt is more comparable to the 8800GTX, my 9600 GSO scores about as well as a G92 8800GTS in becnhmarks

i've personally not had a single bit of luck overclocking video cards, i've given up entirely at this point actually, so all the power to ya there

I'm sorry but all this is just simply not true. your folding power depends mainly on the number of pixel shaders and these cards are all different:

8800GTX has 128 pixel shaders (90nm)
8800GT and the 9800GT has 112 and are 65nm cards, so can be OC'd possibly more (those are pretty much the same cards just rebranded and renamed)
9600GSO has 2 versions: the 512MB that only has 48 pixel shaders and the 384MB that has 96 (it's a rebranded 8800GS) - they both 65nm
8800GTS has 128 pixel shaders (65nm) and is the most powerful, of the bunch (when it comes to folding) because it's 65nm and the 8800GTX is 90nm (the previous can be OC'd much better and runs cooler)

so as you see the 9800GT is NOT comparable to the 8800GTX at all and the 9600GSO is absolutely not comparable to the 8800GTS.

another thing: when overclocking (for the purpose of folding not gaming off course), remember that the memory OC has no impact on folding performance, so I actually downclock the RAM to have the card run cooler (especially stock cooling) and this gives me a little more headroom for OC'ing the shaders.

another thing: the shaders go in 54mhz steps, so:

I.e.
[...]
1404
1458
1512
1566
1620
1674
1728
1782
1836
1890
1944
1998
2052
2106
[...]

Setting to 1800 = same effect as 1782, 1750 = 1728, 1850 = 1836, 1900 = 1890 etc.
so if your card can't be OC'd anymore without loss of stability, than take it back down to the nearest value - the folding performance will not be impacted but you will gain more stability and possibly lower the temps which is always nice.

here in case of DJtucker, just back off to 1620 on the shaders or go up to 1674 IF you can (lower your ram to 800mhz ex.)

[ibleet]

9600 GSO scores about as well as a G92 8800GTS in becnhmarks

Really? Since when?

[skier]

9600 GSO scores about as well as a G92 8800GTS in becnhmarks

Really? Since when?

since i get 14k in 3DMARK06

[DJ Tucker]

i guess my memory helps my score in 3dmark06 as i get 15500

[sbohdan]

i guess my memory helps my score in 3dmark06 as i get 15500

in 3dmark and games YES, in folding NO

[ibleet]

Interesting...I have an EVGA 8800GTS G92 and a 9600gso won't even come close to the scores it puts out, so I have to agree with sbohdan on this one.

The components that affect 3Dmark more than anything are GPU and CPU. Memory...not so much. You're most likely scoring higher because of your SLI config. If you had a quad core in the mix yet, I wouldn't be surprised if your score would be over 17,000.