Overclocking your Geforce DDR or Geforce 2 video card
Written: May 09 '00 (Updated May 09 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Gets even more performance out of an already fast video card for FREE
Cons: non
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| stevelarrison's Full Review: Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator |
By most estimates, overclockers make up about 2% of the home computer users. Oddly enough, even though most overclockers know more about hardware than the average person, most overclockers don't overclock their video cards. Oh sure, there is the unintentional overclocking that happens as a result of running your AGP or PCI bus above stock speed, but most people never really take the time to overclock their video card.
How do you overclock a video card
Most overclockers are familiar with bus speed overclocking that is used to overclock virtually everything Intel makes. Old time overclockers, and users of AMD processors with Super 7 motherboards are familiar using jumpers or bios settings to change clock multipliers. Athlon users are used to performing all kinds of exotic surgery on their processors, but how do you over clock a video card.
The Basics
There is variation in all manufactured products. All graphics card processors will be capable of running at a different speed. For Geforce video cards, the processor is guaranteed to be stable at 120MHz, but in most cases, it is capable of running at higher clock speeds. The Geforce 2 video card is guaranteed to be stable at 200MHz, but in most cases, it too is capable of running at higher speeds.
In addition to a top end processors speed, video card overclockers also need to be concerned with the overclockability of the memory. The Geforce and Geforce 2 use asynchronous processor to memory ratios. That is, the processor doesn't have to run at the same speed as the memory. This helps overclockability because each variable in your potential overclocking success is independent, therefore, they can not limit each other. The memory in the Geforce DDR and Geforce 2 is what is know as DDR memory, or Double Data Rate memory. ( I don't have experience with SDR Geforce video careds ) As its' name implies, DDR runs at twice the rate of SDR memory. The memory in the Geforce is 150Mhz, but runs at the equivalent of 300MHz. The memory in the Geforce 2 is 166MHz, but runs at the equivalent of 333MHz.
A processor is a processor
As far as concerns for overclocking a video card, they are the same as the concerns for overclocking a processor. You need to eliminate as much heat as humanly possible. A good source of cooling goodies is www.plycon.com . I was going to order some heat sinks for my video card memory, but unfortunately, they are out of the thermally conductive epoxy needed to attach the heatsinks as of this writing, so I am delaying my order. Also on tap is some surgey to replace the stock fan that came with my Elsa Gladiac Geforce 2 video card.
So like, how do you actually overclock a video card
Aside from concern about increasing stock cooling, the mechanics are quite simple. All instructions are based on the assumption that you are running Nvidia reference drivers. (If you aren't, download the 516 drivers from www.reactorcritical.com, it will make a HUGE difference). I am also operating under the assumption that you have edited the Windows registry before, or can at least follow directions.
Try this at your own risk only. I will not be responsible for any damaged hardware or software
First the Windows registry hack:
Click on START then RUN and type REGEDIT then hit enter.
You are now ready to edit your registry.
Then open the following directory:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global
Right click on the Global directory and create a new key titled NVTweak. Next, right-click on the NVTweak key and create a new dword value named Coolbits. Adjust the value of Coolbits to 3 by double clicking on it and entering 3 in the value data field.
Since this is Windows we are dealing with, it is now time to REBOOT your machine so the registry hack will take effect. When your machine comes back up, you are ready to start overclocking.
Go to the DISPLAY section of the CONTROL PANEL, click on the SETTINGS tab, click on ADVANCED, click on Geforce 2 GTS click on ADDITIONAL PROPERTIES click on hardware options. You will need to click on the ALLOW CLOCK FREQUENCY ADJUSTMENTS before you can start using the processor and memory speed sliders.
How fast can they go?
For a Geforce DDR card, expect to increase the core processor speed from 120MHz to about 130MHz, and the memory speed from 150MHz to 160MHz (320MHz effictive).
The Geforce 2 seems to be much more overclockable. (Note the die size shrink from .22 micron to .18 micron between generations of Geforce and Geforce 2 ) I am currently running the processor at 245MHz (up from the stock 200MHz speed) and the memory at 385MHz up from the stock 333MHz speed. I will be adding heat sinks to the memory in the near future in an attempt to squeeze some extra juice out of this card.
What does that do to real world performance
In my review of the Gladiac Geforce 2, I mentioned that I got 87.1 Frames Per Second in Timedemo 1 of Quake III in high quality mode (800x600) with 32 bit color on a Pentium III 650 overclocked to 891MHz. The same system could only get 74 Frames Per Second when the video card was running at stock speed. This is a 14% jump in total SYSTEM performance for no additional cost.
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Steve Larrison
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