9800GT overclocking questions

[scottiemedic]

I have a 9800 that I want to OC running on an ASUS P5Q3 with a Q8200 OCed to 3.02Ghz. I installed the system tools from nVidia, but when I go into the program, it won't allow me to set the OC settings, but says at the top something to the effect that 'if components are unavailable, you might have to reboot or make adjustments to your BIOS'. So, I'm asking, what do I need to set my BIOS from auto to manual to use nVidia's tools? I'm guessing things like PCI/MCH, but I have never OCed a GPU. Here is a link to another Tom's forum thread I did recently that has all of my BIOS settings so maybe someone can take a look at what needs to be set different. Thanks all!!
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=29&post=257776&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

On another note, if anyone knows... I ran 3DMark06 and got a 12192. Sm 2.0 was 5126, HDR/SM 3.0 was 4899 and CPU was 4228. On the CPU tests, I was getting like 1-2 FPS. Do these number look about right for a 9800 with a OCed 8200 and 8 gigs of DDR3? I'm guessing it must be close, since my bro in law has a 1gig Radeon on a Phenom IIx4 955 with 4 gigs DDR3 and he scores 14000 +/-... Just wanted to run it by everyone, the LOW FPS on the CPU tests worried me...

 

[scottiemedic]

Anyone have thoughts? I know there are a few people who use nVidia and can give me a good answer

 

[Viper9201]

Can't offer much help except to calm your nerves on the CPU test results, I get similar numbers with OC'd E8400 and 8800GTS. I think the CPU test in question uses the CPU to render the images, and the reason they're so low is because CPU's aren't intended to, they have the wrong architecture for gfx. But I am just guessing

 

[saaiello]

Did you make sure you have the latest driver for your 9800 installed?

 

[scottiemedic]

I think I have 196.21, whatever there was before the release that they 'recalled'.

 

[scottiemedic]

I still have this unresolved, thought I'd throw it back to the experts. Anyone able to help figure out why my OC options are greyed out in nTune?

 

[Herr_Koos]

I still have this unresolved, thought I'd throw it back to the experts. Anyone able to help figure out why my OC options are greyed out in nTune?

196.21 was also broken, it wouldn't allow you to change any settings. Upgrade to the latest driver.

 

[saaiello]

Use EVGA Precision it is what I use for my 9800gtx it is easy interface to use. Also get driver 197.13 it has improved a few games performance also is cool if you use hd videos on youtube and hulu it will offload the video from the cpu to the graphics card it lowered my CPU usage for hd videos from 30% to about 10%.

 

[Micropat]

I just spent my day overclocking. I have a 9800 GT (Gainward) in a 1156 socket with an 860 i7 (4 cores @ 2.8). I kept the processor at stock.

The best 3D mark06 score I got was 10117 (3976 SM 2.0 and 3842 SM 3.0)
To do this I had the clock at 750 and the core at 1200. I was having slight stability issues at these frequencies.

I sorted this by going down to 736 clock and 1187 memory for a total score of 9899.
So my graphics numbers a bit lower than yours so you should probably be happy with your card. I should perhaps mention that I was running in 3D mode with the nvidia kit. I also got only 1-3 fps for the processor part.

As for the first part of your post: I don't know what you are trying to overclock your card but what I did was use RivaTuner.

 

[Micropat]

I did one run without the 3D glasses and my numbers increased quite a bit. For my stable overclock setting (clock @ 736 and memory @ 1187) I have a score of 15801 (6735 SM 2.0, 6471 SM 3.0 and 5087 CPU). So I guess there's room for you to improve your cards performance.

So like I said earlier you might want to try RivaTuner. I used it with the driver I had (since it's 3d compatible). I got warnings about Riva having not being tested with the driver I was using. I ignored the warnings and it worked fine. So I just suggest you try Riva with your current driver and see how you get on. Also I recommend manually adjusting the fan settings up when you overclock... just to be safe. You can monitor temps with something like gpuz or HWMonitor if you don't already use something else for that.

 

[doomdude009]

I would recommend both EVGA precision and Rivatuner I used both to OC my XFX 9800 GT. I can't really say it was the best OC I could manage didnt wanna funk with voltages all that much so I stopped at 700/1750/1100 and have no issues running it 3+ hours gaming at a time. So I'm sure you can get some oomph out of it

 

[scottiemedic]

Everyone is recommending Riva and such, what about nTune, or whatever nVidia's 'performance' tool is that is in the nVidia control panel? It gives me places to make adjustments (now that I dumped 196.21 all the options are lit). Is Riva the same thing essentially but better control of the numbers, or am I just way off target?