What's the safe OC for GTX 260 core 216?

My XFX black edition is OC'd to 666MHz (core) and 1150MHz (mem)... you can tweak it even further but it is an iterative process, and you need to test your own system stability to make sure it's "safe".

I have read of people overclocking them to ~700MHz, but you definitely need to keep an eye on fan speed/temp.

It's something you'll need to test.
Download Rivatuner or EVGA's Precision overclocking tool along with ATI Tool and Furmark for testing.
Increase the fan speed and watch your temps.
I run my vanilla card with the shaders linked at 686/1103 ( 80% fan speed ) for gaming, and 713/1151 for benchmarking, others have gotten higher stable clocks.

does it depend on what parts you have for your rig?

ok, what about the shader clock? do you link them both or do you adjust both seperately?

What specs would you recommend for me? i know the fan speed, but not the clock and mem numbers, so...

700Mhz on the core and 1230Mhz on the RAM fairly easily with my XFX GTX260 Black Edition.

I sometimes put it up to 720/1250 without problems.

what about shader clock? is it linked or did you put it separately? Fan speed? any voltage change required?

I need to be dead sure, especially from a seasoned pro like djcoolmasterx.

Linked clocks(I could probably get more out of it if I overclock that seperatly but there is no real need), fan at 60%, no vmods. ~40C at idle to 65C under heavy load.

Although with my card as it is factory overclocked to 666Mhz may be higher binned and have a higher voltage in its bios. Also some cards are better overclockers then others so YMMV.

Normal overclocking rules apply, get some stress testing software(3D Mark, Furmark) and work your way up gradually(5-10Mhz at a time).

ok... can you be more specific?
What's your core clock?
What's your shader clock?
What's your memory clock?

I know my card might have a different tolerance, but still, i need some sort of a baseline or limit in overclocking it.

It varies, start off at stock and work your way up, a slow process but ultimatly worth it.

Go up 20Mhz incriments till you pass 670Mhz, then 10Mhz to 700Mhz then -5Mhz beyond that once it becomes unstable, lower it a notch.

Then start raising the ram in sensible incriments. Its mostly trail and error till you get the right balance.

All GTX260's should be able to do 650Mhz easily so you can start from there if you like.

^ +1

Just for a reference my gtx 260 (216) vanilla is at:
Core: 745
Shader: 1510
Memory: 1025
Fan: 89%
Temp: idle 48
Temp: load 77

All gtx 260 if properly overclocked should at least hit 700mhz on the core. I have taken mine up to 777mhz for vantage and some crysis but decided to drop it back down after instability in Empire total war.

Good luck overclocking that monster!

i get everything except the memory part: is it better to leave it at 1000 or clock it up to 1200?

+1, I suggest trying all those softwares, they are excellent for testing and overclocking. Personally when I used to overlock a little, I liked the ATI tool since it has a nice to use interface with a 3d object running as you overlock so you can see if there are any artifacts or glitches right away.

The higher you get the memory the better. But you may be limitted. Some people's cards can hit 1200+ others can bairly get past 1000mhz; The max I can reach with my gtx 260 Maxcore 65mm is 1045mhz, after that I see serious artifact problems.

My EVGA GTX 260 (216) SuperClocked Edition is at:

Core: 750
Shader: 1620
Memory: 1200
Fan: 40% idle 45
Fan: 100% full 70

My fan goes to 100% over the 60 with Riva Tunner

KrypTHO...

I OC'd my Palit GTX 260 216p to: 701, 1200 and 1511 mhz. I used Just Cause 2 to notice perfomance increase, and it turned out to have an increase of 9% performance. But when I tested Crysis, instead of 30-40 fps, I had 15 fps after the OC. Even in the most simple game, Halo, the frames (when locked at 30 fps) went to 29 fps as well. I set the fan control to dynamic, but it doesn't seem to change speeds when temperature goes up??? These are strange affects of my OC.
Thank you for help
Olivier