Overclocking on an ATI X850 Pro

[superbrett2000]

I've got an ATI X850 Pro 256 meg AGP card on the way. I'm really interested in overclocking this card. Has anyone had any experience with doing so? I'm assuming that I would be needing to upgrade the cooling system and I have seen a few available in the $30 or so range.

What are some good overclocking utilities that I should use? Would spending the money on an aftermarket cooling system for the card be worth the price for the performance I could get out of it? If I do get an aftermarket cooling system what brands/models would be suggested? I have done a little research about hacking the BIOS but I do not know yet if it is a Vivo card or not. I'm going to assume it is not.

The purpose of this card is to hold me over for about a year until I feel that I can get a more worthwhile upgrade for the money than I can now. So if the life expectancy of the card is cut short a bit then its fine by me (so long as it lasts about a year).

My current specs are as follows:
Intel 3.06 ghz P4 with hyperthreading
1 gig Rambus RAM
ATI All in Wonder 9600 Pro 128 meg RAM

 

[rsmart]

ATITools from techpowerup.com would be a good place to start.

I've got a X850PRO PCIe card (Gecube) that goes to 555MHz core and 565MHz memory with a Zalman VF700Cu. The standard Gecube cooler didn't allow any less overclocking, but the temperatures got to 100deg C quickly. This was while running the ATITool fury-cube test which is pretty intense as the temperatures during gaming wern't as high. The VF700 keeps the temperatures below 75degC.

The Gecube heatpipe cooler got some pretty decent reviews, but mine really ran hot. Maybe there was something wrong with the installation, but there's no point in re-installing it.

The card was factory clocked as 475MHz core, and not 507MHz or 520MHz as seems common, so maybe that batch did run hotter anyway.