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Overclocking 6600gt

S

Silversierra

Senior member
Hi, this is the first time I have overclocked, and I got my 6600gt to 564mhz core, and 1.21ghz memory. I know these are not spectacular, but better than stock. My question is how high can I push my memory? I know that when I go over 564 core, I get artifacts. Is memory the same? Does it cause artifacts if you go to high? Or how do you tell how high to go. Please give me some info on this. Thank you!
 
Yes, if you go too high. But memory artifacts usually look different. They can be snow effects (white dots on your screen), whole system freezups, or various others.

My suggestion is to keep it at stock or whatever is comfortable, unless some game your playing actually benefits from the OC.
 
Actually it seems like memory artifacts are the noticible flickers on the screen, while core errors just cause a total lockup. Although, if you OC the core more, it makes more heat which can move to the mem chips and give artifacts as well. I don't think a problem with the core will cause artifacts.
 
Silver, yesterday I OC'd my eVGA 6600GT AGP card to 599/1175 with no problem (water-cooled). However, I did start getting artifacts @ 595/1175 but they weren't bad enough to crash the game or anything. They showed up occasionally as lime-green textures spread out throughout the game. I'm not sure whether there is more of an increase in gaming performance by bumping up the core or the mem so you may want to play with your speeds some more (from the few benchmarks I ran it seemed that bumps in mem speed increased the benchmark score by more than giving the core clock the same bump in speed.)

I suggest looking at your GPU temps immediately after running benchmarks or extended gaming to make sure you aren't cooking the card anytime you overclock. If the temps look ok (>85C) and you aren't getting artifacts then try giving it a little more speed.
 
Hey just a thought...

Is there really a point in overclcoking your video card? If you plan to keep the card for an extended period of time i would htink not. Overclocking shortens teh life of your video card depending on how much you overclock by. Now a days videos cards are running so fast that there is no point since you will only be benefitting from an icrease of 3 to 5 more fps. THe cpu is normally the bottleneck in most ppeople's pc. If you were to overclock the cpu is probalby the first place to go and the perforamnce increase would be dramatic (noticeable).

OC also voids your warrenty.

Just a thought.

I oc my 9800pro, the card didnt last more then a year before it just stopped working. I wish i didnt oc so i co8uld RMA to ATI.
 
My card was running pretty cool, about 55C. I think that's because the fan is running x,000 rpms and sound like a blow dryer. When I got my memory up to 1.21ghz the 2d settings were all messed up and the card couldn't slow down in 2d mode. Memory at 1.16 and 564 core were as high as I could get and still have 2d work ok and not have green and pink jaggies in aquamark 3.
 
Yeah I'm not going to run it overclocked. I just wanted to see what I could get. Then if I get a game in the future that doesn't run too well, and once my warranty is expired, then I can run it higher. So did tweaking the other day for a few hours to see what I could get void my warranty? I'm running stock now and my temps were low (55C) while I oc'ed. I used the frequency settings that came with my nvidia drivers, so I figured it must be pretty safe. If my warranty is already void, I might as well just crank it up all the way then? I read how to do this in this month's pcworld magazine (go figure).
 
Originally posted by: Silversierra
Yeah I'm not going to run it overclocked. I just wanted to see what I could get. Then if I get a game in the future that doesn't run too well, and once my warranty is expired, then I can run it higher. So did tweaking the other day for a few hours to see what I could get void my warranty? I'm running stock now and my temps were low (55C) while I oc'ed. I used the frequency settings that came with my nvidia drivers, so I figured it must be pretty safe. If my warranty is already void, I might as well just crank it up all the way then? I read how to do this in this month's pcworld magazine (go figure).
Click to expand...

TBH there is noway of telling if someone has overclocked a card. They told me that they won't be responsible for burnt deaths and break deaths. That was my local PC store anyways. Technically your warrany is void but as long as you dont burn on break your core/mem it should be fine....
 
So if the card would fail, would it be wrong to rma it? I'm not running oc now, if it fails now, it should be because it's defective because it isn't overclocked. Or does the stress of oc'ing it once permanently deteriorate the card?
 
Originally posted by: Silversierra
So if the card would fail, would it be wrong to rma it? I'm not running oc now, if it fails now, it should be because it's defective because it isn't overclocked. Or does the stress of oc'ing it once permanently deteriorate the card?
Click to expand...

Theoretically, you've voided your warranty, and you should not be able to RMA your card (unless you fess up and they decide to still give you an RMA, which does sometimes happen). There have been a number of long, sometimes contentious threads about this, but the wording in every warranty I've ever seen is clear. Running out of spec (even for just 'testing') voids your warranty.

You really can't predict what kind of effects high temperatures and/or running beyond spec will do to a card. It could exacerbate defects in the chip, leading eventually (though not immediately) to an earlier death than would otherwise occur. Or it could do nothing.
 
Then is it wrong to "burn in" a new computer by running benchmarks continuously. This can cause card failure if there are any slight chip defects. Well, I probably wouldn't have gotten anything out of a warranty anyway because I bought from a no name brand(Jaton).
 
Originally posted by: Silversierra
Then is it wrong to "burn in" a new computer by running benchmarks continuously. This can cause card failure if there are any slight chip defects.
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No, its not wrong. You WANT to find those failures immediately so that you can ship back any broken components for a refund/replacement. I build PCs as a side-job and the burn-in process is a MUST for me. Nothing sucks more than building out a PC, giving it straight to the consumer before burn-in, only to find out that their $500 video card gives them a BSOD each time they fire up CS. The burn-in will ensure that most problems are noticed even before all of the functions of the PC have been tested.

Overclocking the video card doesn't hurt it UNLESS you do not provide the proper cooling. It is the heat that causes the hardware deaths, not the increase in speed. So if you overclocked your card but kept it as cool as it was stock then there would be no damage done to the card.

It is also my understanding that no one will be able to tell that the video card was overclcoked unless you have done something physical to the card. I don't think that their is a little chip on the card that remembers if it has been OC'd or not. However, if you did kill your card after overclocking it then I personally feel that it would be wrong to RMA it (saying that it had not been OC'd.)
 
Originally posted by: nOObBooB
1. Is there really a point in overclcoking your video card?
2. If you plan to keep the card for an extended period of time i would htink not.
3. Overclocking shortens teh life of your video card depending on how much you overclock by.
4. Now a days videos cards are running so fast that there is no point since you will only be benefitting from an icrease of 3 to 5 more fps. THe cpu is normally the bottleneck in most ppeople's pc.
5. If you were to overclock the cpu is probalby the first place to go and the perforamnce increase would be dramatic (noticeable).
6. OC also voids your warrenty.
Click to expand...

1. Yes, better performance.
2. Seems that OC'ing the card after you had it awhile is even more feasible than OC'ing when you 1st get it. As the card ages newer cards come out and you have to OC in order to compete with them (from an online gamers point-of-view)
3. Not if you use caution while OC'ing. Heat kills the card, not the speed.
4. 3-5+fps is reason enough for me to OC (although I feel the change is more noticable than just 3-5fps.
5. Agreed. Start with the CPU as it will provide an improvement to EVERY sub-system in the PC.
6. True. It certainly does.
 
Really want to test out your video card stability and thermal capabilities?

Run the RivaTuner card monitor, and use these..

rthdribl = Real-Time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting
http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/

3dc (*a demo)
http://www.humus.ca/index.php?page=3D&ID=49

Run them full screen for 2-5 minutes with the monitor running.

Look at your temperature then and see if it is stable.

Good luck.

Please note: If you run these windowed, your video card temperature monitoring will register higher temperatures. You don't game in a window, do you?

Gentle
 
My warranty is very vague. It says that product failure due to improper usage is not covered under warranty. Well, if my card didn't fail when I overclocked it, and if it would fail say tommorrow at stock speeds, I wouldn't say it failed due to overclocking/improper usage. Is this right? It doesn't say "Thou shalt not overclock or thou shalt have no warranty", it says if it fails due to improper use. It did not fail when I was "improperly" using it, so am I ok?
 
Hmm i've had my 9700pro since it was released and oc'd it to 360/360 perfectly stable... I dont think the life decrease is that big of a deal because by the time your card dies, it's time for an upgrade anyways. I'll take my shortened card life of 3-5 years compared to the 7-10 years of the stock as i wont be using a card for that long. At least i've always been told chips have a 10 year life expectency at stock speeds.
 
Basically it depends on the chip you get. Some chips do better than others when they are overclocked. However the main problem is that since companies only test the cards for an extended period of time at teh stock speeds. Since you pay for what you get. So in the end you could go like 3 years with out any problems but problems may araise with the video is oc. Since there was no test saying that it can run at oc speeds for an extend period of time.

Basically companies only ensure you get the stock speeds and that will last you without failure
 
Originally posted by: Silversierra
Well, if my card didn't fail when I overclocked it, and if it would fail say tommorrow at stock speeds, I wouldn't say it failed due to overclocking/improper usage. Is this right?
Click to expand...

The card could have become damaged while it was overclocked but maybe the problem didnt show up until a day/week later. I think most companies are preety relaxed when it comes to RMAing OC'd cards though. Unless you have played with the heatsink I doubt their RMA dept. would ever be able to tell what had happened or atleast what had caused it.
 
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