is it safe to overclock my vanilla 6600?

[imrunning]

hi, i'm a newbie to this types of forum and this overclock thingy thing so bare with me.

i want to know i have and xpertvision 6600 with DDR3 (350Mhz/800Mhz) default. i ran 3dmark05 and i scored 2503 marks. the idle temp for this card is around 59~61 degress. when running 3d apps its goes up to 69~71 degress celcius. is this normal? i'm running on a 400 watts PSU and air as cooling medium.

then i overclock my GFX card's GPU core bus from 350 up to 400mhz but i dare not overclock the memory. this time i run my 3dmark05 and score 2750marks. the idle temp remain the same as before but now the temperature when running 3d apps rise to around 75~79degress celcius.

i wanted to know is it safe to maintain this overclocked state of my card for a long period of time with the given temperatures? is it healthy for my card?

Specs:
AMD 64 3000+(1.8Ghz)
gigabyte k8nsc 939
80Gb seagate sata
corsair 1GB ram
xpertvision 6600 DDR3 (350/800)

 

[badagentx]

They have already overclocked 6600's so it should be safe but I think you should get a new heatsink/fan for it. I have a eTNT 2 which is overclocked and it works perfectly.

 

[maluckey]

imrunning

Sucessful overclocking is all about heat management. If you can keep the heat low enough, then you can overclock everything from CD-ROM to the Mobo.

Add a case fan or a better video card cooler and go for it. If it locks up or shows funky graphical anomalies then turn it down.

Good luck.

 

[kalrith]

Yeah, I think a new graphics heatsink and fan is what you need. I was receiving pretty much the exact same temps on my 6600GT with the stock heatsink and stock settings. I overclocked it and received a good performance boost, but my load temp went up to 80, so I put it back to stock. I switched out the stock heatsink & fan for the Zalman VF700-cu, and my temps went down about 15 degrees. I also installed the RAM heatsinks that came with the heatsink, so I could overclock that as well. I overclocked my gpu from 500MHz to 596 and my RAM from 1GHz to 1.2GHz. My 3dmark05 went from about 3200 to 3800--an 18% performance boost. Even with it overclocked, it idles around 48 and only hits 60 at load.

 

[imrunning]

haha! thanks guys! really appreciate it. but now i have a few question.

1) my gfx card is a AGP card and the stock heatsink and fan they provide covers the memory, gpu, and the pcix to agp bridge thingy. and i try to see between the heatsink and the memory, there's a gap thats fill with a sponge thingy. i don't know what's that but i hope is a thermal paste. if i were to change the stock heatsink to a better one, how about the bridge? do they provide the heatsink for it?

2) i'm thinking of zalman Heatsink and fan, it looks cook with the huge fins and all, but what do you think the best heatsink available. (i'm also on a low budget)

3)and one more thing, my card a still new, just bought it last month. is the warranty voided if i were to change the Heatsink? hell, have i already voided the warranty by overclocking? hehe!

thanks guys for the advice again.

 

[kalrith]

1) What brand is your graphics card? I have this one. As you can see in the picture, the gpu heatsink is separate from the bridge heatsink, so I just left the bridge heatsink alone when I installed the Zalman. The VF700 did not come with a heatsink for the bridge, so if yours is connected to you gpu heatsink, I'm not sure what you should do. The spongy thing might be some sort of thermal compound. I'm not sure about that one.

2) From the reviews I've read, the Thermalright V-1 is the best graphics heatsink, but it's $45 and it won't fit the 6600 AGP card. The VF700 is only $29 at SVC right now. It's the same price for the one with the LED fan, if you're into that sort of thing. Also, the VF700 is really versatile. I plan on using mine on my next graphics card (probably 7800GT).

3) I don't think that changing the heatsink voids your warranty, but overclocking does.

 

[imrunning]

my gfx card brand is xpertvision. its the 6600 (non-gt) on the 6600gt pcb lay out. (don't know what's the motive though) here's the link i took form the webby but this is actually 6600gt on the xpertvision. is an agp card but the layout and design is similar to my card except its the 6600 vanilla.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/maximus_46/detail?.dir=/8e4b&.dnm=4778.jpg&.src=ph
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/maximus_46/detail?.dir=/8e4b&.dnm=8f58.jpg&.src=ph
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/maximus_46/detail?.dir=/8e4b&.dnm=f1f4.jpg&.src=ph
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/maximus_46/detail?.dir=/8e4b&.dnm=6da0.jpg&.src=ph

i the bridge is located ot the bottom where usually other card's brigde is tilted but this card brigde is straight. ahd also at the back of the card, i can see holes (is it for mounting???) and i don;t know whether its able to take on the zalman fan.

 

[kalrith]

imrunning,

I looked at those pictures and tried to do a little research on the card. I couldn't find much, but I did find a couple of pictures of the 6600 vanilla AGP card:

http://216.147.36.17/livestore/product_...sCsid=56f8c71ad3df112275b291678e70a311
http://www.xpertvision.com.tw/en/products/nvvga_6600.html#spec

Do either of those look like your card? The two holes on the back of your card are for mounting the heatsink. The VF700 comes with a mounting bracket as shown here.

I think to get any further with this, you're going to have to remove your heatsink and see exactly what's under there. Also, try to see if there's any way to keep the heatsink for the bridge on there.

Once you get your temps down, I would recommend using the NVTweak utility and seeing what it recommends you to overclock both your gpu and memory to (just pm me if you need help with this). I did this, and it overclocked my card from 500/1000 to 580/1160. I then proceeded to step it up to the maximum that would pass its test, which was 596/1200. Hopefully you can get a better heatsink on there and overclock to your heart's content.

Good luck!

 

[imrunning]

ok, this morning i took the courage to open up my card and take off the heatsink. this is how my card looks lik when naked.

my naked 6600 card
with heatsink
6600 naked with measurements

notice that my card's HSI bridge is straight up. there's additional mounting holes though on this card.

 

[MDE]

You'll defiantely need to stick a heatsink on the HSI bridge if you upgrade the cooling.

 

[kalrith]

I think this is what you need. Though I'm not sure if it will fit with the Zalman heatsink as well. This is the only other cooler I know of that will fit the 6600 AGP cards, but I think it runs about $45 or so. It looks like there is some room on the bottom of my card even with the vf700 on there, but I'll have to take my card out to look. I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to do that. Also, my gpu is at an angle, so the vf700 might fit differently on yours than mine.

 

[imrunning]

haha! thanks man! anyways. yesterday i bought a cheapo intel pentium3 heatsink for 5 bucks. and i modded my gfx card with that heatsink/fan! and you know what? my idle temp now is around 49~51 and my load temp is at 60~62degress that runs at 500/1000! without problems! can go higher, but scared... overclocking the speed Mhz burn my card?

 

[alimoalem]

you should be safe but do you need to? i'd wait off until you actually need to OC to prolong the life of the card. you can get one of those pci coolers for the gpu so you can cool it and have lower temps