OCing my video card - is it easy?

[guitarxe]

i was going to buy an 8800gt (512mb), and the one i had my sights on was oced to 700. well they don't sell that any more at my store , and only have the normal one thats at 600 clock.

i was wondering, is it easy to OC the video card by 100mhz? i know OCing the CPU is a lot of hard work and requires tampering in the bios. is it similar for VGAs?

this card that im looking to buy is from ASUS and i've been told that the warranty on ASUS VGAs usually covers OCing?

 

[Conumdrum]

The OC version is better. It's a better GPU that passed more tests. It will OC better. The basic one will run fine at stock speeds but can have issues when OC due to it's lesser binned components.

Yes, it's easy to OC a vid card. Using Rivatuner you easily can overclock the 3 clocks till you have reached your goals. And it's easy to overheat the 8800GT with an OC, unless you get a aftermarket GPU cooler. You can set the fan on the stock heatsink to run at 100%, making more noise from the small fan than you can imagine, and still have uncomfortable temps.

 

[guitarxe]

well im only going to go for 100mhz, thats not too much of an OC to make the temp go wild, is it?

 

[lostandwandering]

well im only going to go for 100mhz, thats not too much of an OC to make the temp go wild, is it?

No, you shouldn't have an issue with 100mhz since the OC card uses the same cooler.

@Conundrum: in my experience it's usually not the core that's better, it's the memory. They tend to use better RAM on the OC cards to ensure stability at the speeds they want to sell at. At least that's the way it was with the 6 and 7 series NV cards.

 

[IndigoMoss]

Yeah the memory is usually a lot higher quality. Doesn't the OC cards from the 7 series cards use Samsung memory? Either way, 100 Mhz on the core isn't going to be a problem for you.

 

[nukchebi0]

Everyone remembers the terrible problems the 7900GT had with overclocking memory, right?

And 100Mhz won't be a problem, as others have said, but ensure the fan runs 90-100%. You should get the clocks for the shaders and the memory on the OC'd version, too, and try to match those.

 

[raidersmack]

If u OC and happen to have the need to upgrade the fan I recomend getting something from evga or xfx I've read that you can switch to aftermarket fans heatsinks without voiding warranty.

 

[nhobo]

Get the Gigabyte 8800GT that comes with the Zalman fan and is clocked at 700. Then you don't have to do *anything* except stick it in the case and load the drivers.