R8500LE overclocking

[chuck232]

Well, I know this should go into the overclocking section, but not much activity gets there.

So I was wondering. I've gotten my card to 280/280 core/mem and I don't know how much further I should go. I still haven't experienced a lock-up yet and I've not seen any artifacts either. Now here is my question I haven't seen any artifacts, but it doesn't necessarily mean they aren't there. If you look at the screen, would you see artifacts if they were there?

Also, could I burn the card even though I've not had any problems yet? I don't want to destroy in less than a week.

P.S. Overclocked performance isn't all that great. I get an extra 5% or so in 3D Mark 2K1 SE when I overclock to 280/280. I'll probably just try and up the mem speeds now.

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[phill21]

hi again!!
i run my ultra at a overclocked speed all of the time. i dont put it up to the top like i would when benchamrking it but i do keep it near to it.
i normally have the card set about core 300 and the memory up to 530.. it seems to work fine, i have no problems or hassles with it up there
i get lock ups tho when i dont overclock, so it must be trying to tell me something..
if you do start to get problems at a certain speed, just lower it back a few, dont need to go mental lowering it back just enough so that its working with a little bit of head room..
i hope thats helped!

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[AMD_Man]

I thought you had your card over 300MHz?

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>

 

[chuck232]

Yeah it's at 310/310, but I posted this thread 3 days ago and no one replied til now.

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[bront]

The ATI card runs pretty cool, so you should be fine. Just make sure there is air blowing around the area.

Also, you'll know when you have artifacts. Also, when you get them, performance tends to suffer. So if one of your tests starts dropping off in performance, then you're probably pushing it too far.

I found that Dragothic is good for testing any color issues (Look for odd blue tints on the roof, and other color anomalies) with an overclock, and the Pixel Shaded test (The one with the 50 guys shooting eachother) is good for testing for artifacts. This is all in 3DMark2001 of course.

English is phun.

 

[chuck232]

and the Pixel Shaded test (The one with the 50 guys shooting eachother) is good for testing for artifacts

Yeah, when I pushed it to 315/315, it locked up at that test. Thanks for the tip, at 310/310, I seemed to be getting worse scores in the DOT3 Bump mapping and also the environmental bumo mapping. Single texture fill rate also seemed to slack a bit. I still got an extra 50 points extra compared to 305/305 though... I'm gonna lower the speed down to 280/280 to be on the safe side for now.

Falling down stairs saves time

 

[phsstpok]

Your taking the wrong approach. It is not necessary to keep the GPU and memory synchronized. Overclocking the GPU too much just increases heat production. Now that you have benchmark numbers at default and also 280/280, 305/305, and 310/310 try fixing the GPU. Start with it at default. Raise only the memory speed. Compare against the numbers you obtained earlier. When you reach the top with memory go back and start over with a little higher GPU speed.

I think you will find that you will do just as well with a lower GPU and and a higher memory speed (and you'll be making less heat).

I believe GPUs have "throttling", too much heat and they automatically slow down. (Not sure about this but it seems so).

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[chuck232]

Ok, thanks for the tip. I'll try it out when I get soe time. I just thought that I'd get better performance if I raise both the GPU and RAM as far as they would go.

Falling down stairs saves time

 

[AMD_Man]

BGA RAM runs extremely cool so even with just 3.6ns RAM, 300MHz is practically guaranteed to work 100%. I'd say your card can handle at least 275/300 perfectly. You might want to lower the GPU speed a bit and aim for higher RAM. RAM speed seems to have a greater affect on performance anyway (at least with the R8500). See if 300/315 works for you.

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>