Overclocking Advice for a 5900nu

[aka1nas]

Hi all,
I have been running a Gainward FX 5900nu Golden Sample card(400core/850ram stock) for over a year now and I could use a little performance boost. My problem with upgrading this card is that I can't get much more than 25Mhz extra on the core without getting it skipping(FX GPUs do this when the OC is a little too high, causing the GPU to have errors and flush the pipeline rather than give a BSOD). This is a little lame for a Golden Sample card, as they are supposed to self-OCing via the gainward software to about 440Mhz core. I have tried BIOS flashing to a 5950ultra for the higher Vcore and it still doesn't let me OC more. My core temperature gets up to 73C when 3dmarking so I was thinking that maybe a better cooler would help. What do you guys think I should do? I really can't drop the cash for a 6600GT or 6800 based card atm, but $30-$40 for a better VGA cooler would be doable.

Link to the card I have:
Gainward FX5900 Golden Sample

 

[Munky]

Well, you could slap a vf700 on top of it for about $30, that would definitely give you good cooling. But your performance gains from the extra 20-30 mhz would be minimal, I'd rather save up the money for a better card (you could even sell your old one for at least $70, I'm sure).

 

[ddogg]

VF700-ALCU

get this fan....i was able to do some good overclocking on my 6800Ultra with this baby...it runs really quiet also!!:thumbsup:

 

[Concillian]

I once had a 5900.

Don't bother spending any more money on it. These things do DX9 SO BAD. I went to a 9700 non-pro and saw a significant performance benefit of the stock 9700 vs. an overclocked 5900 in the games I was playing. The 5xxx series really does suck (at DX9).

Sell it and get a used 9700 series, 9800 series or just a plain 6600. All of those will be much better than a 5900. Sad but true.

I know, you feel cheated. So did I. A $100 used card performed better in every game I played at the time than my $200+ new card. I was dumb then and didn't research properly. Live and learn.

 

[Skotos]

highest 5950ultra scores 1549 in 3dmark 05

my 6600 scores 3205 in 3dmark 05