Overclocking HD 5770 *with low wattage PSU*

[h3retic]

Hello,

MY SPECS:
Acer Aspire E700 (modified after purchase = upgrades)
Intel Core 2 QUAD 2.40Ghz Q6600
4 Gb DDR2 400mhz RAM (3.25 gb used)
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 Mb GDDR5
500 Gb HDD Hitachi 7200 RPM
Windows Vista 32-bit
300W PSU

Im thinking about overclocking some of my GPU specs (current: core clock 850MHz, memory clock 1200MHz), without installing extra cooling systems or a new PSU.
I did some MSI Kombuster benchmarks, stress tests etc, with all results seemingly indicating that I don’t hit the max power limit (meaning that 300W apparently is enough).
I want to overclock to get a better performance in high end games such as Battlefield 3, Crysis 2 etc.
Right now, Im getting around 30-70 FPS in bf3 on medium sets, and 40-60 in Crysis 2 on medium sets.
My question is: is overclocking possible on my system without posing high risk to PC components?

U might say that 300W hd 5770 is really bad, well i get that a lot lol,
but it worked perfectly fine for me for almost 2 years now. i guess the rest of my system is pretty low energy demanding so yeeee....

thanks in advance

 

[scottiemedic]

Get Afterburner and increase in small amounts, keeping a close eye on your temps. If it starts getting unstable, stop.

It won't really 'hurt' other components, but you PSU may not be able to provide enough juice when you start OCing.

Be slow and methodical, bump, test, temp.

 

[truegenius]

you used a hd5770(max ~140w) + Q6600 (max 105w) and your psu is still alive.
better option is to stay away from overclocking now and manage a psu of atleast 500w to overclock hd5770 to 1010/1390 (max stable for my hd6770) and some from Q6600.

use prime95 to stress cpu and occ/msikombuster to stress gpu at same time and then check your minimum voltage reading on 12v, 3.3v and 5v using hwinfo32. if it is getting close to 12v or below 12v on 12v rail (reading), less than or equal to 3.3v on 3.3v or/and less than or equal to 5.0v on 5.0v rail then your psu is near to blow. you may encounter a restart due to overload.

 

[delluser1]

I want to overclock to get a better performance in high end games such as Battlefield 3, Crysis 2 etc.
Right now, Im getting around 30-70 FPS in bf3 on medium sets, and 40-60 in Crysis 2 on medium sets.

You could overclock till the 5770 squeals that it's going to release it's magic blue smoke, the 2 or 3 FPS you might get from it isn't going to be noticeable.

 

[h3retic]

Best answer selected by h3retic.