Viper II - Overclocked

[HannibalX]

I got this card Tuesday of this week, initialy it performed moderatly well. Scores were inbetween a GeForce SDR and a GeForce DDR on most tests. In Some tests it flat out beats a DDR and in others it sags behind the SDR.

So I figured I would overclock it, the default core speed is 125 Mhz and the default memory speed is 143 Mhz. This gives you a 250 pixel fill rate and a 500 texel fill rate. At stock speeds it's still slightly higher on fill rate than a DDR GF (Not a GTS mind you), being the GF has only a 480 texel fill rate.

I started overclocking the memory first in 5 Mhz incriments, running a Quake timedemo after each to see if it was stable. Eventualy I got the memory slider bar to the maximum value of 180 Mhz.

Moving on to the core, I didn't get as far as the memory but thats to be exspected with all the heat the memory is now generating. Again I increased in 5 Mhz incriments so as not to damage the card, and to see my reliability factor. The core maxed out at 155 Mhz, creating a 620 texel fill rate. When set to 160 Mhz the machine locked up in the middle of the timedemo. I ran the timedemo 4 times at 160 Mhz, and it only passed one out of 4 times, and thats to unstable for my likes, so back to 155 I went.

In the end my numbers increased from 125/143 to 155/180. Currently my card has a 310 pixel fill rate and a 620 texel fill rate. That is an entire 140 points higher than the GF DDR (480), so I'm pretty happy.

I didn't notice any artifacts on screen while the card was overclocked which is nice, and keep in mind that this is all air cooled.

Tomorrow I will pop off the stock heatsinc, attack memory heatsincs and a video cooling unit and try again. My next attempt will be using the registry so I can take the memory higher than 180 Mhz.

So here are the benches:
Quake III High Quality, 800/600:
125/143: 32 FPS
125/180: 41 FPS
155/180: 52 FPS

My System:
AMD K6-II 450 @ 500 Mhz
192 Meg Kingston Ram (PC 66 - Errrr!)
Diamond Viper II 32 Meg AGP
Creative Sound Blaster Live! Value

Anyhow thats it, peace all.

[Edit]Misc[/Edit]
[Edit]Recalculated fill rate, I was mistakenly thinking the engine was quad when it was only duel - Thanks AdamK47 - 3DS[/Edit]

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Those are some pretty good scores for a k6-2, at least I think they are...



Mike

 

[HannibalX]

Yeah, K6-II's aren't all that bad coupled with a fast video card. Although it is definatly the bottleneck, with a faster CPU the Viper II would do much better.

 

[AdamK47]

I don't know where you got that 500 Mpixel and 572 Mtexel default fill rates. According to my math your way off. If you look here:
http://www.diamondvideocards.com/default.asp?menu=viper_II&sub_menu=tech_specs&item=
You will notice that the Viper II has a dual pixel pipeline and a dual texel pipeline per pixel pipeline. That means with the default core speed of 125MHz you'll have a pixel fill rate of only 250 Mpixels, but the texel fill rate is twice that, 500 Mtexels.

The GeForce SDR and DDR have four pixel pipelines with only one texel per pipeline. That means at the default core speed of 120MHz, you'll have a pixel fill rate of 480 Mpixel and a 480 Mtexel fill rate. In case your wondering, the GeForce 2 has the same 4 pixel pipeline, but also incorperates two texels per pixel pipeline.

In my review of the Viper II, I have found the card to be as fast in comparison to the GeForce SDR, but far from being as fast as a GeForce DDR. The drivers for the Viper II are holding it back big time. Especially due to the many bugs in the Savage 2000s hardware T&L engine. Notice I said "bugs in the hardware".

 

[HannibalX]

BTW: This is what will be adding to the card.

All memory chips will be fitted with these 1/2 inch by 1/4 inch memory heatsincs's.
http://2cooltek.safeshopper.com/4/143.htm?128

The core heatsinc will be replaced and refitted with GlobalWin FA420 video cooler.
http://2cooltek.safeshopper.com/4/20.htm?128

I will affix everything via thermal apoxy.

 

[HannibalX]

Yes your right, I read the spec sheet, wrong. I thought it said both were quad, so my math was off.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

I just bit and ordered those ram heatsinks for my GF2.. Thanks for the link!



Mike

 

[HannibalX]

Cool, NP man. They come in really handy when you want to super OC your video card.

 

[HannibalX]

BTW: If you don't wanna put down 10 dollars for the alliminum ones (They are actualy cut up Alpha's), you can get the cheaper kind for a buck.

4 for a dollar, pretty nice.
http://2cooltek.safeshopper.com/7/124.htm?128

 

[ssjgokou1]

Trinitron, I have a question about this "quad" or dual engine pipelines thing. First off, the v3 runs at 166mhz, or 166MP, which can do two texels per clock, so it's 333MT, but the Viper II can do two Pixel's per clock because of it's dual engine/pipeline setup, right?!?! So it can do 125mhz or 250MP, or 500MT's right? So why do a lot of benchmarks look similar when the v3 is compared to the viper, if the viper can do almost two times more than the voodoo, and why doesn't the voodoo have two pixel pipelines?

How come the v4's have two pixel pipelines, but can only render one Texel per clock? So it's clocked at 166mhz, or 333MP and MT, why doesn't it do two texels per clock, since it can already do two Pixel's per clock?!?!