Overclock an ATI Radeon X1600Pro...

[cutter]

I would like to overclock my Sapphire Radeon ATI X1600Pro video card but don't know much about it. Basically I am trying to get a few games to run a little smoother, particularly Oblivion.
I am using Omega drivers if that makes a difference. Anyone know what the best way to go about doing this?

Any info would be great. Thanks in advance.

 

[SciFiMan]

I don't think the X1600 OC's very well. At least mine doesn't. You can try the latest Catylst driver and go to Advanced settings to see if you can Unlock it. If it thinks your card can be boosted a little there will be some settings and it will automatically keep it running as high as possible, and downshift when necessary.

And if you have the space, you could put on a Zalman cooler.

 

[cutter]

In another thread I was told about ATItool and have been using that to test what my max core and mem are and then save a profile with those settings. I'm hoping that helps a little but didn't even think to look into catalyst for any overclocking settings.

 

[angry_ducky]

Don't try to overclock within Catalyst; use ATI Tool, and run the "Find Max Core" until you get an artifact. Then abort, and lower the core clock by about 10MHz. Do the same with the memory. Then save it to a profile, and call it whatever you'd like. You can set it to load that profile every time that you launch a 3D app, so that you're not stressing your video card surfing the web.

 

[cutter]

I was wondering that so thanks for confirming. I just used ATItool and ran "Find Max Core" and it ran for a while then went to a blank screen. When I rebooted I looked at the log and the last few lines were as follows:

2006-06-14 19:35:07 Clocks set to: 551.25 / 405.00
2006-06-14 19:35:10 Clocks set to: 553.50 / 405.00
2006-06-14 19:35:11 Artifacts detected after 04:13.17. 31 pixels don't match.
2006-06-14 19:35:11 Clocks set to: 551.25 / 405.00


So does this mean I should set my Core clock to around just under 551.25 to be safe? maybe like 540 or so?

I also ran "Find Max Mem" and got the following (again, last few lines):

2006-06-14 19:48:18 Clocks set to: 499.50 / 459.00
2006-06-14 19:48:21 Clocks set to: 499.50 / 463.50
2006-06-14 19:48:22 Artifacts detected after 01:10.76. 8325 pixels don't match.
2006-06-14 19:48:23 Clocks set to: 499.50 / 459.00
2006-06-14 19:58:43 Artifacts detected after 10:20.46. 3017 pixels don't match.
2006-06-14 19:58:43 Clocks set to: 499.50 / 454.50
2006-06-14 20:16:13 Artifacts detected after 17:30.42. 3017 pixels don't match.
2006-06-14 20:16:14 Clocks set to: 499.50 / 450.00
2006-06-14 22:24:21 Scan complete. Total runtime: 9429 seconds. Artifact-free: 7687 seconds. Core: 499.50 MHz Memory: 450.00 MHz
2006-06-14 22:25:09 Clocks set to: 499.50 / 450.00

So I'm guessing my max mem would be 450. However, does it matter that I ran Find Max Mem when my Core was set to default 499.5?

oh, one last silly question: I'm assuming that my video cards base core and mem is 499.5 and 450, respectively since that's what the default shows on ATItool.

Thanks again.

 

[Wrick]

I have a X1600 Pro also. After running the Catalyst auto clock configure I am at 557/437. The orginal settings are 500/405. I have been thinking about using the ATItool, but now I do not know if it is worth it if I get close to the same setting with the Catalyst overclock.

In case I do try the ATItool, did you find out if it makes a difference that the core clock was set to default for the "find max mem"?

I think the X1600 is just poor at being overclocked. That being said, I do notice a differnce, even with the meger 10% increase in core and mem speed.

I am thinking about trying to get a $100 for my X1600 and getting a X1800XT for $240 on newegg.com.

 

[cutter]

I've actually heard that the x1600 is really meant to be overclocked.

One thing that I noticed when trying to overclock was that in ATItool the settings for the fan control can be changed. For some reason it was set sort of low so i bumped it up. I clicked on "try to keep GPU temp at ____" and set it to 70 degrees. Maybe now when I do find Max core and mem it will get better results. Because before when i did it the temp ran right up to 90 degress as soon as Find Max core/mem was started. And looking at the fan speed at the time, it never really tried to go above 65% so I figure now it will at least try to cool the GPU down more.

 

[Wrick]

I am very interested in what you get. Please keep me informed.