Safe to OC MSI GTX460 Cyclone (768MB) without extra cooling?

[Pott]

I've just got the bone stock Antec 300 case and graphics card.

I'm playing BC2 with 8xAA and the framerate could do with a little improvement. It's definitely playable and stunning, but I know I could push it a little.

I'd be using Afterburner; raise bus clock by 25mhz at a time, play for half an hour etc...

What else would you advise I increase with afterburner?

And will I be ok doing this with just my stock case fans? They're running on low right now but I could run either/both to medium or high (though I don't like cases to be noisy).

Thanks

 

[Termie]

The Cyclone's cooling should be sufficient for overclocking without worrying too much about case cooling. As long as you have the top and rear fan going with the Antec 300, you should be fine.

The Cyclone will probably be good for low 800s on the core without voltage tweak, low 900s with voltage tweak. That being said, note that 8xAA in BC2 is very, very demanding. You might consider playing at 4xAA. It's also likely to be memory limited, and you have only 768MB of vram. Memory overclocking might be worthwhile, but it won't overcome a full memory buffer.

Even my overclocked HD5850 doesn't run 8xAA at 1920x1200 satisfactorily for serious multiplayer gaming, so I doubt you'll be able to push these settings with your card, unfortunately.

 

[ZipSpeed]

I have my Cyclone at 850/1700/900. All stock voltage.

 

[Pott]

Thanks for the tips I noticed a big improvement in image quality with 8xAA, without being bothered this much by the decrease in frame rate. However this is on the campaign mode and I've not yet tried Multiplayer...

I'll OC it lightly (up to 800Mhz for now) with 4xAA and see what happens, then maybe try to push it just for campaign mode.

 

[Termie]

Thanks for the tips I noticed a big improvement in image quality with 8xAA, without being bothered this much by the decrease in frame rate. However this is on the campaign mode and I've not yet tried Multiplayer...

I'll OC it lightly (up to 800Mhz for now) with 4xAA and see what happens, then maybe try to push it just for campaign mode.

I agree - 8xAA is a big step up from 4xAA in quality, and for the campaign, you can probably run 8xAA, since you'll have time to enjoy the scenery. But once you try multiplayer, I think you'll need to go down to 4xAA.

 

[bryanW1995]

850 core is ok at stock voltage on my evga gtx 460 768, with a cyclone you should be able to do even better. 905/4400 is the highest I've gone at 1.087v, again with no issues, but I dial it down a bit for 24/7 use just to be on the safe side.

 

[notty22]

I have the MSI Cyclones as well.
If you leave the setting nvcontrol panel to adaptive power saving the cards down clock and down volt to their normal 2d settings when overclocking.
Thats very nice.
Single card I was able to run 920/100
Dual cards 895/990