Squeezing Value Out of Lower-End Cards

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Test Setup

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System Hardware
Processor(s)	AMD Athlon 64 3700+2.2 GHz, 1.0 GHz Bus, 1 MB L2 cache
Platform	Asus AN8-SLI PremiumNVIDIA nForce4 SLI, BIOS 1003 - BIOS version 1005
RAM	2 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR400 - 2 x 512 MB
Hard Drive	Western Digital Raptor, WD740GD74 GB, 10,000 rpm, 8 MB cache, SATA150
Networking	On-Board nForce4 Gigabit Ethernet
Graphics Cards	NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 256 MB GDDR3430 MHz Core 1.2 GHz MemoryNVIDIA 7800 GT 256 MB GDDR3445 MHz Core 1.07 GHz MemoryNVIDIA GeForce 6600 GTX 256 MB DDR2400 MHz Core 800 MHz MemoryATI Radeon X800 GTO / XL 256 MB GDDR3400 MHz Core 490 MHz MemoryATI Radeon X1300 Pro 256 MB GDDR3600 MHz Core 800 MHz Memory
Power Supply	Enermax Liberty ELT620AWT 620W
System Software & Drivers
OS	Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2
DirectX Version	9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Platform Driver	nForce 6.70
Graphics Driver(s)	ATI - Catalyst 5.12NVIDIA - Forceware 81.95
Benchmarks
3DMark 2003	Default Benchmark
3DMark 2005	Default Benchmark
UT2004	Custom Timedemo - THG8 Assault
Far Cry 32bit	Custom Timedemo - Cooler01Flashlight on
Doom 3	Timdemo Demo1
Half-Life 2	Custom Timedemo - DP_Coast_01
F.E.A.R.	F.E.A.R. BenchmarkMaximum Details and Quality

All tests were run with the common screen resolution of 1024 x 768 and 1600 x 1200 (17" & 19" CRT displays). The tests at the 1024 resolution were run in two variations. The first used neither anti-aliasing nor anisotropic filtering. For the second, antialiasing was enabled, set to 4x and 8x for anisotropic filtering. The quality setting was selected from within the driver menus for all benchmarks and vertical synchronization was disabled. Because NVIDIA uses profiles with optimizations for their hardware we set Catalyst AI to standard so it could to do the same for the ATI cards. For both the ATI and NVIDIA based cards, we set antialiasing and anisotropic filtering through the application. If certain settings were not offered directly in the game's menu or were behaving out of sort, we then used the driver.

Each card has its own identity and limits at which it can perform. For NVIDIA-based cards we use the Coolbits registry tweak to unlock the frequency selection menu in the driver. From here you can overclock the 2D and 3D settings for the GPU core and the memory. For ATI, we use a third-party tool called ATI Tool. The tool allows you to change the GPU and memory clock speeds and even has a feature to test the new features in a 3D window. It will report errors and even find the maximum frequencies for you, although this process can take a long time if there is a lot of room for improvement.

The card that was least capable of overclocking was the ATI Radeon X1300 Pro. We could not push the memory on the card at all. The core was only able to see a 3% increase in speed. Both of the other cards were able to achieve better results. The ATI R430 based card could achieve 10% more in both the core and memory frequencies. However, the overclocking shining star was the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with DDR2 that was able to gain a 7% core increase and an astounding 23% increase in memory clocks.

Header Cell - Column 0	Stock Chip Clock	Overclocked Chip Clock	% Overclocked	Stock Memory Clock	Overclocked Memory Clock	% Overclocked
GeForce 7800 GTX 512	550	N/A	N/A	1700	N/A	N/A
GeForce 7800 GT	425	N/A	N/A	1000	N/A	N/A
GeForce 6600 DDR2	500	537	7.40%	800	988	23.50%
Radeon X1300 Pro	600	621	3.50%	800	802	0.25%
Radeon X800 GTO / XL	400	439	9.75%	980	1080	10.20%

Test Setup

Test Setup

Overclocking Setup