Is it worth overclocking the core on a GF2 MX?

[Muerto]

I just bought a Hercules GF2 MX and so far I've got the RAM up to 212 MHz but haven't OCed the core yet. Would it be worth overclocking the core at all? Unless I had DDR RAM on my card wouldn't it still be bandwidth limited no matter how fast the RAM went? Thanks. 🙂

 

[Jeff H]

I've read a number of reports that o/c'ing the core doesn't get you much w/ a GeForce MX card. And, as I understand it the MX supports either 128bit SDRAM or 64bit DDR. So, even w/ DDR it won't up the performance of the card, compared to SDRAM.

I just installed a Hercules Prophet II MX retail card, and haven't had a chance to test it out, other than to run both clock and memory to 200. I would like to get a fan on that heatsink before I push it very much.

 

[Rand]

You likely won't see any performance benefits at all. At best any extra speed you get will be virually unnoticeable even in a benchmark. About the only thing you'll accomplish by bumping the core clock speed up is to make the card run hotter.

 

[Howard]

RAM is a much more important limiting factor than the core.

 

[Viper GTS]

At higher resolutions you'll notice the difference, as most games become fill-rate limited at high resolutions. Eg 1024x768.

Viper GTS

 

[SuperFreaky]

the more you overclock the ram... the more meaningful your core overclock will be...

 

[BFG10K]

At higher resolutions you'll notice the difference, as most games become fill-rate limited at high resolutions. Eg 1024x768.

That is only true if the bottleneck doesn't appear elsewhere first. In this case the bottleneck is the RAM. Overclocking the core will do nothing if it is being held back by insufficient RAM bandwidth.

If you are going to overclock anything you should overclock the memory. But be careful because overclocking video card RAM can risk blowing it completely.

 

[glen]

Is there any reason NOT to over clock the memory?

 

[Viper GTS]

Yes. As BFG10K mentioned, you can blow your memory entirely. Eg it won't even run at STOCK speed afterwards.

Viper GTS

 

[glen]

<< Yes. As BFG10K mentioned, you can blow your memory entirely. Eg it won't even run at STOCK speed afterwards. >>


Nvidia's OCing interface will protect you before you get there.