9800 Pro: GPU or Memory more limiting

[Megatomic]

Ok, in preparation for starting Far Cry, Doom3, and Half Life 2, I want to overclock my 9800 Pro to get the most out of it while playing these new demanding games. I have it overclocked right now at 399MHz/351MHz with an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer and I'm hoping to get my BGA ramsinks installed this week.

I already know that my current overclock is very conservative, it would go higher with the stock cooler. What I want to know is where should I focus my attention? Where will I get the most performance increases, from increasing core speed or memory speed? Or both equally?

Thanks for any tips, ideas, and/or opinions.

 

[magratton]

Mega, from past experience I have found that with 512MB Ram overclocking the GPU will only take you so far but adding more ram (another 256 - 512) also helps you get the most out of your system. You will find that the 512 will still create stuttering in the game even when you may think it is the GPU not keeping up.

You are still running 512MB Ram right? I guess the answer is: where you are at now, doing the OC if free. Adding more ram will only serve to help make the game run even smoother.

 

[Megatomic]

No, I have 1GB of system RAM. I was actually talking about my video card speed. Would overclocking the GPU or the RAM offer more performance gain?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
No, I have 1GB of system RAM. I was actually talking about my video card speed. Would overclocking the GPU or the RAM offer more performance gain?

I've always heard that ram will give you more (from vid card OCer's at various forums). Haven't benchtested myself to confirm though.

What kinda ram you got there? Samsung

Why you putt'in ram heatsinks on? I keep hearing it's an iffy process, sometimes resulting in a poorer OC. I'm at 415/380 on my 9800pro (planning to go up more when D3 comes ). Thought about ramsinks, but just put a side fan on my case that blows in on my card.

 

[Jeff7181]

In HL2 and D3, higher GPU speed would be more important (for processing the shaders).

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
In HL2 and D3, higher GPU speed would be more important (for processing the shaders).

I'd agree, but in most non-shader games, you'll get more out of the RAM (especially when using AA/AF). However, the RAM is usually the limiting factor on these cards; the GPUs will generally go over XT speeds (420-430 max seems to be the average), while the RAM will rarely get over 360.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Fern
I've always heard that ram will give you more (from vid card OCer's at various forums). Haven't benchtested myself to confirm though.

What kinda ram you got there? Samsung

Yes, it's Samsung 2.8ns memory.

Why you putt'in ram heatsinks on? I keep hearing it's an iffy process, sometimes resulting in a poorer OC. I'm at 415/380 on my 9800pro (planning to go up more when D3 comes ). Thought about ramsinks, but just put a side fan on my case that blows in on my card.

I have never heard that, and I have used these sinks successfully on 2 other cards. I use thermal adhesive tape to fasten them to the chips not epoxy so even if things don't work out I can easily remove them.

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
In HL2 and D3, higher GPU speed would be more important (for processing the shaders).

Ok, that's good info to know. So, for my current demanding games the video memory is the bottleneck and for D3 and HL2 the GPU itself is the bottleneck.

I guess I'm gonna have to max out both of them for the best all around performance.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

Both.

Balancing act, trial and error, play with it until you get core and ram oc without artifacts from your games that you currently play and not from 3d benchie suites.