Overclocking graphics card - Drawbacks?

[Silent Shark]

I've got a low clocked 8800GT, and a Accelero S1 & Fan on the way, which should significantly improve cooling performance. Because of this I was considering making an attempt to push up the clocks on the card a bit, because most of them are sold at higher clocks than mine. I'm not planning on pushing the card hard. I'll not be exceeding the speeds other cards that are 'pre-overclocked' sell at.

I've virtually no experience with overclocking (I tried it once on a GF4 Ti4200, and it didn't go well), so I wanted to know what the potential problems are, other than the increase in heat output?

As far as I'm aware, I'll need to make sure the power supply is up to the job, but are there any other things to monitor/side effects? What are the limits to overclocking?

Anything else I might need to know?

[DDY]

The only downside is the noise generated by the cooling provided the overclocking is done properly, e.g. keeping the card cooler means higher fan RPM, but since you have an Accelero S1 on the way it shouldn't be as bad.

You should easily get the speed that pre overclocked cards run at.

The main thing you should worry about is the temperature, this can be monitored using nVidia's nTune, nTune is also useful for it's overclocking features so download that and you're all set.

What brand and model is your PSU? If it's the one in your profile it's perfectly capable for this job.

Oh by the way, I don't want to rain on you but there have been reports of dud 8800GTs which don't overclock very well.

[Silent Shark]

Thanks for that DDY.

If temps are all I have to worry about then I'm sure I'll be fine. I'll test the S1 at different clocks to see how well it copes. The system in my profile is the one I'm doing all this to. Good to know that the PSU should be fine.

And thanks for the warning about dud 8800GTs. I had heard rumblings of such problems in other forums. I won't be that bothered if I can't overclock it though, I just thought I might take the opportunity given the huge improvement in cooling I'm expecting.

[matty-hodgson]

well most 8800 GTs overclock well.. i've had 3 and all of them have done 700 GPU and 2000 memory.

i ordered an eVGA 8800GT from Scan on sunday, arrived today, that overclocks well.. only upped the fan speed to 50% and it kept around the same temps



the PSU will definately cope fine
mine's running an 8800GT SLi right now
with a quad core CPU, 2 HDDs, 2 DVD drives.

i know yours in the 520, but it's still more than capable!

[-iceblade^]

nice setup, there Matty .

just temperature, and noise. Might i sugest Ravatuner for nVidia overclocking? it is the one i've seen most nVidia owners use to OC, and it's pretty powerful.

[Cistron]

mine's running an 8800GT SLi right now
with a quad core CPU, 2 HDDs, 2 DVD drives.

i know yours in the 520, but it's still more than capable!

And what's the point on 17" CRT screens?

[matty-hodgson]

And what's the point on 17" CRT screens?

i bought the eVGA 8800GT for my brother, but thought i might aswell see how an SLi set-up works on my PC while he's in france with school..
gets a worse FPS in Crysis but works reasonably well in CoD4, get over 100FPS all the time on CoD4, usually get about 70 without it.

[EarlGrey]

If you are not messing with the voltages then you can't really harm the card by overclocking it. Just take it easy, go up in small steps, testing each time, watching that temperatures aren't going much above stock, and as soon as you see corruption on screen dial the speed back a bit and enjoy