XFX 8800 GTS 320 MB vanilla @ 650 MHz / 1512 MHz / 2 GHz... Is it safe?

[PICBoy]

Hi everyone.

This is my first time overclocking a video card and I wanted some tips for what I've done and how to improve it.

First of all, I'm using 2 programs: ATITool 0.27 beta 2 and Riva Tuner 2.03. The first one if for overclocking and the second one for monitoring and controlling the fan speed.

Without overclocking, the Riva Tuner read 513 MHz for the core, 1188 MHz for the shaders and 792 MHz for the memory. I used the "Scan for Artifacts" option from ATITool for 30 minutes and got 70°C with the fan @ 100% (wich I always use since it's almost impossible for me to tell the difference).

Then, I proceed to use the "Find Max Core" and "Find Max Mem" options and used a safety clock range of 650 MHz and 1 GHz... Which I thought was impossible to achive for this card. I ran the "Scan for Artifacts" option and got the same 70°C. Then ran Doom 3 for testing and gained about 15% more fps and those places where I got a sudden drop in fps for some miliseconds where now at full 60 fps. So the overclocked did indeed worked and made a good job.

But I'm still wondering something: The Riva Tuner says that my core is at 648 MHz and the memory at 999 MHz, so I'm guessing one of the 2 programs is no 100% accurate... But what really surprised me is that the shaders went from 1188 to 1512 MHz! :shocked: I thought I was supposed to flash the BIOS in order to get the shaders overclocked, right?

So I have 2 questions:

1) Do I need to flash the BIOS to get the shaders running at a REAL 1512 MHz?

2) Is it safe to go even higher?

Thanks in advance

 

[JPB]

No, the shader's will scale upwards while the core and memory are being over clocked. At least I am pretty sure they will.

Ill see if I can find the shader chart that someone posted here a while back.

 

[PICBoy]

Then why on earth do people risk their videocards flashing the BIOS if the shaders will scale upwards with the main core? what's the benefit in that?

 

[cubalis]

Originally posted by: PICBoy
Then why on earth do people risk their videocards flashing the BIOS if the shaders will scale upwards with the main core? what's the benefit in that?

Because the shaders can be run faster than the max core clock allows - i.e. there is still room for the shader clock to increase when the max stable core clock is acheived.