Anybody know about overclocking & unlocking 6200s?

[TubeTote]

I was hoping someone could give me a little advice regarding one of my video cards. It is an XFX 6200 nv44 with A1. This is a low profile card with 256 MB memory and no fan. Does anyone know if the 4 extra pipes can be opened up on this model? I have heard of it being done on other revisions with great success. I tried to use RivaTuner as suggested in a different forum, but the options were greyed out and not available.

I am quite impressed with the performance of the card as is, and I only paid 50 bucks for it...but a little extra power would be way cool.

Also, would overclocking be an issue with only a heatsink? I have seen that others are doing it. I will be using an Antec Aria case for this computer, which will run a bit warm I believe...but there is a blower included that fits into the pci slot next to the video card.

 

[imported_ST]

http://www.doomedpc.com/?q=node/36

hopefully that helps...good luck!

 

[dug777]

IIRC nv44 is the 6200 core, not the nv43 (which is the 6600 core). So no unlocking for you (only the very early 6200s were nv43). 6200s are the new fx5200 Overclock the hell out of it and you might get some low end use out of it tho

 

[TubeTote]

Thanks much for the input guys. I read over the document concerning unlocking the pipes, and it led me to believe that dug777's response is correct about my version...so no extra pipes on this model. I am still thinking about doing some overclocking. I am new to it and don't want to ruin my card. It has no fan so I am wondering about what temps are considered safe. My Aria case will run a bit on the warm side, but there is the blower that goes right next to the video card. Anyone done any overclocking with this card? Thanks in advance for the replies.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: TubeTote
Thanks much for the input guys. I read over the document concerning unlocking the pipes, and it led me to believe that dug777's response is correct about my version...so no extra pipes on this model. I am still thinking about doing some overclocking. I am new to it and don't want to ruin my card. It has no fan so I am wondering about what temps are considered safe. My Aria case will run a bit on the warm side, but there is the blower that goes right next to the video card. Anyone done any overclocking with this card? Thanks in advance for the replies.

why even fool with it? the 6200 with a fan doesnt even have much room. you are gonna cook that poor little card. what are trying to accomplish? the 6200 is joke for any modern game so what difference is 1 fps going to make? i own a 6600 and i cant even imagine anything slower.

 

[TubeTote]

Thanks for the reply, but I am just looking for some constructive opinions here. I have a 6800 in my main rig for now, and have a buddy who uses a 7800GT OC. I am simply building this system for someone who doesn't game much...but just for fun and the experience of overclocking I was wanting to try it. I don't expect huge, dramatic improvements in performance, but I figure why not squeeze out of it what I can. If the general consesus is that I could fry the card, then I will certainly reconsider messing with it. I was hoping for some opinions from people who have tried overclocking this card. It may be a joke to serious gamers, but it actually performs great for the 50$ cost.

 

[Matt2]

Just have Coolbits auro detect the maximum frequencies and watch the temps VERY closely.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: TubeTote
Thanks for the reply, but I am just looking for some constructive opinions here. I have a 6800 in my main rig for now, and have a buddy who uses a 7800GT OC. I am simply building this system for someone who doesn't game much...but just for fun and the experience of overclocking I was wanting to try it. I don't expect huge, dramatic improvements in performance, but I figure why not squeeze out of it what I can. If the general consesus is that I could fry the card, then I will certainly reconsider messing with it. I was hoping for some opinions from people who have tried overclocking this card. It may be a joke to serious gamers, but it actually performs great for the 50$ cost.

well i did a 15% oc with coolbits on my 6600 and that netted me 1.7 fps in Doom3 and 3.6 fps in Counter Strike Source. your card is much less powerful than a 6600 so your results will be less. i just dont see any point in trying to oc a passive 6200. any improvement you get will not be worth the risk especially if this will end up being someone elses card. why dont you oc your 6800 instead??

 

[TubeTote]

I believe that is a good point. In playing Serious Sam 2, this card actually performed quite impressively with a few moments of low fps during intense combat...not bad for what it is. I was just hoping that a slight overclock might improve on these moments of lag. The main reason for my interest in this venture is some of the user ratings at Tiger Direct which claim this card to be "very overclockable". Since I know little about the procedure I will likely take your advice. If I try it anyway, then I guess you told me so I have always planned on overclocking the 6800, but wanted to try it on a less expensive card first for obvious reasons.

 

[gwag]

when they came out they had the same core as 6600's, so you could unlock 4 pipes and with a good luck get close to 6600GT speeds. that was years ago.

 

[imported_CD]

I recently bought a FORSA 256MB 6200 with the NV44 A1 core. For about two weeks I tried to push my card to see how far it can go. Here's what I've learn't

Firstly, since its an NV44(and you've already found this out yourself), there are no extra pipelines to unlock.

Secondly, the core is locked(aka the com hangs when you use the coolbits hack), so you cant overclock the GPU or the memory without some tweaks. Initally, I overclocked by copying, modyfying and then flashing the graphics bios. It was a bit tedious, but at that time thats the only way i knew(I wouldn't recommend it if you're a casual overclocker. I messed up a few times and had to blind flash the card). Luckily after all the modding, the GC isn't seriously damaged.

Later on, I found out that the latest modified forceware driver by TweaksRus unlocked the core, and thus the coolbits hack could be used(the modified driver automatically installs the coolbits registry string). I'd suggest this method as its much more easier and all mistakes are reversible. TweaksRus

Now, before you start doin anything, I'd like to warn you, if you're not willing to spend the time doing this, don't bother.

The big heatsink provided with my GC came with a small fan, and thus is one up than yours. Also, even after putting in a bigger fan(I glued one of the casing fans on the heatsing-it ran about 5 degrees cooler), I could not overclock much. The core becomes unstable soon, and the memory chips I got couldn't even be run at their supposed speed(i checked the serial no of the chips on the websites and they were rated for DDR2 667, but it was unstable after about 630 MHz DDR(ie 315Mhz). Needless to say, benchmark performance increase was minimal.

If you want to put a fan, my advice would be to put one of those old pentium 2/3 fans. The lead on my GC wasn't the three pin one, so when I tried this I connected it to the spare chasis fan lead on the motherboard. Do secure the fan properly, as the vibration can loosen it.

As for my overclocking result i managed a stable 420 core(from 375) and 630 memory(from 532 - halve that if you're considering the base frequency because its DDR). The max I went was 460-670 but it became unstable if the load on it is high(ie when playing games).

The last thing I wanna add is that after the two weeks, when I reverted the settings back to normal, the system became sluggish. Games that played smoothly before started lagging, and did so even after i reduced the game setting to the lowest possible settings. I doubt its a hardware problem( mayb reinstalling Windows would help, but I havent tried it yet).

Hope that helps. HAPPY TWEAKING!

 

[TubeTote]

I found these replies very helpful, guys...thanks much. I think I should get more advice and do a bit more research before I get too carried away here One thing I would like to mention...when I installed RivaTuner it did give me the options to increase the clock and memory speeds. Due to my lack of knowledge I did not proceed at the time. The pipelines option was blanked out so I assumed that this version had only 4 to begin with, as confirmed in an earlier response.