Graphics Overclocking: Getting The Most From Your GPU

Features
By Tino Kreiss
published

MSI’s D.O.T.-Enabled Driver

Catalyst 9.6

If you want to achieve a decent overclock, you’re going to need the right utilities and drivers. As with almost anything else, it’s a matter of using the right tools for the job. The problem is that the drivers especially are in a constant state of change, with user interfaces being altered and features being added or dropped. That means third-party tools are always racing to keep up, and a graphics card maker’s own overclocking utility may break from one driver to the next. Gone are the times where you could just update your graphics drivers whenever you were doing some “spring cleaning” in your system, anyway. 

If you play current 3D games, you’re more or less forced to keep your drivers up to date. ATI releases a new version of its Catalyst driver suite every month, and each one features new bug fixes, improvements, and optimizations for games. A good example of this is the game The Last Remnant. Thanks to CrossFire optimizations, the performance of dual-card configurations has actually improved by a factor of three. Games based on the Unreal 3 engine also require the drivers to be optimized for them, and it may take a Catalyst release or two to get there. Since many top-tier games such as Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Stranglehold use this 3D engine, keeping up with driver updates is imperative.

MSI D.O.T. 8.542

MSI’s Radeon HD 4870 card comes with its own overclocking tool called D.O.T. (Dynamic Overclocking Technology). You can’t download it directly from MSI’s support page, nor is it included on the driver CD. Instead, it is integrated right into MSI’s modified driver. At the time this article was written, the most recent release was version 8.542. Meanwhile, ATI had already released Catalyst 9.6. The trouble is, you can’t mix and match. If you upgrade to a newer non-MSI driver, you lose the D.O.T. feature.

Trying to be clever, we downloaded MSI’s own version of the 8.603 driver from the Radeon HD 4770 product page. Installing it onto a fresh system yielded the same result as using the ATI version--no D.O.T. tab with overclocking features. When we tried to upgrade to that version from the modified drivers that came with our HD 4870, the D.O.T. tab remained. However, none of the changes we made affected the actual clock speeds, in effect rendering the tool useless. Thus you’ll have to choose between using the most recent driver release with the newest bug fixes and improvements on the one hand and having the D.O.T. feature at your disposal while being stuck with an older driver on the other. No doubt MSI will upgrade its modified release, but it’s likely that it will always lag behind ATI’s latest official ones.

Tino Kreiss
34 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dingumf
    What the hell, I thought this was a guide to overclocking the GPU as the title reads "Graphics Overclocking: Getting The Most From Your GPU"

    Then at the end Tom's Hardware screws me over and writes "Conclusion: It’s A Tie"

    Isn't this a tutorial?
    Reply
  • they tell you how to overclock using CCC or riva tuner, or evga precision, they also tell you, overclocking = more performance at the cost of more power. what else do you want?
    Reply
  • dingumf
    joeman42What is really needed is a "continuous" OC utility that can detect artifacts during actual use and adjust accordingly. I've noticed that my max OC tends to change each time I test and depending on the tool I test with (e.g., atitool, gputool, rivatuner, and my favorite, atitraytool). Some games, l4d in particular, crash at the slightest error. Others such as COD and Deadspace are somewhat tolerant. Games like Far Cry 2 and Fear 2 don't seem to care at all. It would be nice if the utility could take this into account.As for the tools themselves, Atitraytool has far and away the best fan speed adjuster, the dual ladder Temp/Speed is a model of simplicity. Plus, it can automatically sense a game and auto OC just for the duration. Nothing like this exists on the NV side (you must explicitly specify each exe). Unfortunately, I am on a NVidia card now and Rivatuner is pretty much the only game in town for serious tweaking. IT IS A DESIGN DISASTER! random design with no discernable structure. A help file which consist solely of the author bragging about his creation, without explanation as to where each feature is implemented or how to use it. And no, scattered tooltips is not an acceptable alternative. It took forever to figure out that I needed to create a fan profile and then a macro and then create a rules to fire the macro which contains the fan profile just to set one(!) fan speed/temp point (and repeat as needed). Sorry for the rant, but I really hate Rivatuner!
    Oh hello. That's what OCCT is for.
    Reply
  • nitrium
    Rivatuner works just fine with the latest drivers (incl. 190.38). Just check the Power User tab and under System set Force Driver Version to 19038 (or in the articles case 18618) - no decimal point. Be sure that the hexidecimal display at the bottom is unchecked. All Rivatuner's usual features can now be accessed.
    Reply
  • masterjaw
    I don't think this is intended to be an in-depth tutorial like dingumf perceives. It's just for people to realize that they could still get more from their GPUs using tools.

    On the other hand, I don't like the sound of "It's a tie". It looks like it is said just to show neutrality. ATI or Nvidia? It doesn't matter, as long as your satisfied with it.
    Reply
  • quantumrand
    I must say, the HD 2900 is a great card. I picked up the 2900 Pro for $250 back in 2007 and flashed the bios to a modified XT bios with slightly higher clocks (850/1000). The memory is only GDDR3, but with the 512bit interface, it really does rival the bandwidth of the 4870. I can get it to run Crysis at Very High, 1440x900 with moderately playable framerates (about 25fps, but the motion blur makes it seem quite smooth). Really quite amazing for any 2007 card, let alone one for $250.
    Reply
  • quantumrand
    Just a bit of extra info on the 2900 Pro...

    The Pros were bassically binned XTs once ATI realized that the card was too difficult to manufacture cheaply (something about the high layer count it takes to make a 512bit PCB), so in order to sell their excess cores, the clocked them lower and branded them as Pros. Additionally, they changed the heatsink specs as well, adding an extra heatpipe. Because of this, the Pros could often OC higher than the XTs, making them essentially the best deal on the market (assuming you got a decent core).
    Reply
  • Ramar
    Overclocking a GPU generally isn't worth it IMO, but sometimes can give that extra push into +60fps average. Or to make yourself feel better about a purchase like myself; one week after I bought a 9800GTX they came out with the GTX+. A little tweaking in EVGA Precision brought an impressive 10% overclock up to GTX+ levels and left me satisfied.
    Reply
  • manitoublack
    I run 2 Palit GTX295's and have had great success with palit's "Vtune" over clocking software. I believe it works with cards from other vendors as well. Easy to use and driver independent.

    Cheers for the great article
    Jordan
    Reply
  • KT_WASP
    Conclusion: It’s A Tie

    I didn't know they were in competition until I read that.....I too thought this was about overclocking a GPU in general, not which card you should buy. Once again Toms throws that little barb at the end to stoke the fires.

    I think they do this constantly to get more website hits.. If the can get a good ol' fanboy war on every article, they will get people coming back over and over again to add fuel to the fire. After all, the more hits they get, the more they get paid from their sponsors. Which BTW, seam to be taking up more real estate then actual content on this site these days.

    Reply