Best utility/method for stressing video card overclock?

[n7]

Just wondered what you guys use?

I usually try 3DMark or running a game or two (in this case UT3 beta), but that's time consuming & doesn't always show instability/artifacting for a while.

I'm using the ATiTool fuzzy cube thing right now, & it finds issues that i don't even see w/ anything else, & it find them in a minute or two which is nice.

Anything else? Or is ATiTool about as good a tool as any? (to me, it seems to be thus far).

 

[n7]

Wow, according to ATiTool my max OC on this 8800 GTX for memory is only 945 (1890)

Any higher & it shows errors...yet i can clock it far higher & still game, run 3DMark maxed, etc...seems like ATiTool is insanely stressful, almost overly so?

 

[Dazed and Confused]

ATItool has always been this way. It's artifact scanner is waaaaaaaay too sensitive. But on the other hand, no artifacts in ATItool = undoubtably safe OC's.

You can usually go 10 - 20mhz higher than what u get in ATItool without ever seeing artifacts in game.

BTW, if you don't get your memory higher than that I'd return that bum card for another one. My buddy has his Asus 8800GTS 640 @ 660/1725/1025 atm.

Personally, I use 3DMark05 as it completes afster than 06 so I can easily run it 2 or 3 times back to back without takign forever.

 

[n7]

Well, back when i first got the card this late spring, my max was 1026 (2052).

But back then, i was having issues with nV's drivers being sh!t, so i've run stock all summer.

Now that it's cooler in the apartment & i need more fps for UT3, i'm trying OCing again, but this time using ATiTool, which does indeed seem to be extremely sensitive.

I think i may just stick with what ATiTool says is good...rather have rock solid stability myself.

And on a weird note, initially when i tried 972 it was erroring...now it's working @ 972 for like 25 minutes

I suspect i could run 999 just fine even though ATiTool errors right away, but eh....

 

[Dazed and Confused]

It's one thing to use ATItool for artifact scanning but don't use it to OC your 8800, use Rivatuner 2.05 and don't forget to go into "power user" and enable shader clock controll.

 

[n7]

Yeah, ATiTool doesn't even see my video card.
I'm indeed using Rivatuner for the adjustments

Hah, my core won't hit over 594 MHz (the default BFG ships this with) :frown:
Can't even run 612 w/o errors

 

[ArchAngel777]

I liken ATItool's Artafact Scanner to 'dead' pixels. You really cannot see the problems because 1 or 2 or even 10 pixels that are the wrong colors in any given frame are impossable to detect unless they are clumped together.

In addition to that, the only time I can spot a dead pixel on my 216BW (21.6" @ 1680x1050) is when the image is static and I am about 4 inches away from it and look very carefully. That is why ATI Tools is able to spot artafacts that no one else would ever notice. I have about 5 dead pixels out of the box on my display that I bought it locally and I didn't even think once to return it. I think some people (side note) make far, far to big of a deal over dead pixels.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777
I liken ATItool's Artafact Scanner to 'dead' pixels. You really cannot see the problems because 1 or 2 or even 10 pixels that are the wrong colors in any given frame are impossable to detect unless they are clumped together.

In addition to that, the only time I can spot a dead pixel on my 216BW (21.6" @ 1680x1050) is when the image is static and I am about 4 inches away from it and look very carefully. That is why ATI Tools is able to spot artafacts that no one else would ever notice. I have about 5 dead pixels out of the box on my display that I bought it locally and I didn't even think once to return it. I think some people (side note) make far, far to big of a deal over dead pixels.

Fair enough, but what do you use for testing your OCs?



So far, according to ATiTool's scanner, my max is a whopping:
594/1404/972 :frown:

It does 594/1458/972 for a couple minutes before erroring.
Anything higher for the core or memory = errors within 20 seconds usually.

 

[cmdrdredd]

try this. http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa...hives/rthdribl_1_2.zip

I run this overnight in full screen with full AA and AF at a high resolution with the most stressful settings possible in the application. FPS will be very low, but it heats up a card good.

If you can run that for 8 hours and come back with a very hot card and no artifacts I think you're good.

Then again, I use multiple games etc when testing my overclock. In fact nothing showed artifacts with my card at 820/1000 but when I ran AMD's DX10 demo loop I got tons of them. I had to back down to this speed in order to eliminate them completely.

 

[n7]

Ah yes, rthdribl

I actually thought about that, but it requires me to manually look for artifacts right?

I'll run that for a while though; see what happens

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: n7
Ah yes, rthdribl

I actually thought about that, but it requires me to manually look for artifacts right?

I'll run that for a while though; see what happens

3dmark would also require you to look at the screen.

What I do is let that app run for a few hours and heat up your card pretty good then see if it crashed or has any visible anomolies.

 

[n7]

I will say, the marbles are so pretty

Yeah, 3DMark is annoying to run. Takes too long (even when i only run certain test).

I know i can clock higher w/o noticeable artifacts, but it looks like ATiTool is the uber tester, since it errors at really low OCs, even when everything else runs fine.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777
I liken ATItool's Artafact Scanner to 'dead' pixels. You really cannot see the problems because 1 or 2 or even 10 pixels that are the wrong colors in any given frame are impossable to detect unless they are clumped together.

In addition to that, the only time I can spot a dead pixel on my 216BW (21.6" @ 1680x1050) is when the image is static and I am about 4 inches away from it and look very carefully. That is why ATI Tools is able to spot artafacts that no one else would ever notice. I have about 5 dead pixels out of the box on my display that I bought it locally and I didn't even think once to return it. I think some people (side note) make far, far to big of a deal over dead pixels.

Fair enough, but what do you use for testing your OCs?



So far, according to ATiTool's scanner, my max is a whopping:
594/1404/972 :frown:

It does 594/1458/972 for a couple minutes before erroring.
Anything higher for the core or memory = errors within 20 seconds usually.

Well, I guess I forgot to mention my position on it. I think ATI Tools is great. If you scan and get 1 or 2 pixel artafacts, I consider that fine. If it shows several all over the place, or even some that are clumped up, I know I went to far.