Overclocking and Stability Testing Guide

[Leon]

Overclocking and Stability Testing Guide

By: Leon

System Specifications- In Signature
Overclocking Software - RivaTuner v2.0

Download it HERE.

RivaTuner is easy to use and supports both ATi and Nvidia cards.

Using RivaTuner for overclocking:

1. At the main screen under Driver Settings, click on the little arrow to the right of the word "Customize...". A little menu with 5 icons in a row will pop up like in the image below.

2. Click on the 1st icon which is labeled "System Settings". A new screen will pop up.

3. Click on the checkbox at the top that is labeled "Enable driver-level hardware overclocking".

4. A message will pop up asking if you want to detect the clock frequencies now or reboot before detecting. I recommend that you select the reboot option for maximum stability.

5. After rebooting, run RivaTuner again and go to the overclocking screen again. On the drop down menu on the top right, select "Performance 3D". Notice how you may now slide the sliders around, but do not do so until finishing this guide.

6. Make sure that the "Apply overclocking at Windows startup" box is unticked. You will only want to tick this after you have found the maximum stable overclock

Stability Test

Before we move forward with overclocking, I would like to take a minute or two to explain how to test for stability using 3DMark06.

1. After installing 3DMark06, run it once at default settings without overclocking so you can get a feel for what's going on.

2. After each time you overclock, run it again and keep an eye out for abnormalities that may signify that your overclock speeds are too high.

3. When you have reached the maximum stable speeds, set 3DMark06 to loop for around 3-4 hours to see if your system still remains stable. If it does, keep it like that. If it doesn't keep reducing and testing.


Now that we already have RivaTuner and 3DMark06 set up, it is time for overclocking!

What we are going to do now is find the maximum stable overclock for the memory first, and then move on to find the max stable core speed.

Overclocking the Memory

The lower slider in the RivaTuner overclocking screen is the Memory clock. Move it to the right to increase clock speeds, and to the left to decrease clock speeds. Now, this is what you must do:

1. Increase the Memory clock by 10MHz at a time. After each increase, do a stability test.

2. Once you notice some slight graphical anomalies, reduce the speed by 10MHz and run 3DMark once more.

3. If everything is fine and running stable, then go play all your favorite games, especially the newer ones such as Crysis that stress the graphics card a lot. Check for any problems.

Overclocking the Core/GPU

The upper slider in the RivaTuner overclocking screen is the Core clock. Move it to the right to increase clock speeds, and to the left to decrease clock speeds.

Do exactly the same thing as the guidelines for Overclocking the Memory (above), the only difference is you move the Core clock slider instead.

Once you have achieved a stable speed, go back to the overclocking screen in RivaTuner and check "Apply overclocking at Windows startup".

Remember to always test!

Congratulations, you should now have a stable, overclocked graphics card!


Leon

[Leon]

Pictures added.

[Akuma]

Nice guide, it will certainly be useful for all the people asking how to do it. ^^

[eleron911]

I pretty much do the same thing(when OCing) ,but I don`t run 3dmark06 after that.
And then again, I don`t OC since I don`t want to take any chances

[Leon]

Yeah, most guides just tell you to run 3DMark06 once. However, I found out that after playing games for a while, my computer would crash even after I ran 3DMark06 once smoothly. I figured that you would need to run 3DMark06 for at least the amount of time that you spend per gaming session.

[Sillyhat]

brkhobowriter, what do you set your oc settings at? I have the same computer and was just wondering what you consider stable for you?

[Leon]

Different cards have different stability levels even if we have the same model. My stable settings are 625/470 and are in the last picture.

[crash]

Bookmarked so I can link people here when they ask how to overclock

PS I think you should add a note to change settings for "Perfomance 3D" clocks ONLY. When I opened up RivaTuner for the first time, it showed me the clocks for 2D, which is NOT what people should change.

[someone777]

lol i learned this in hard way, clocking 100's until it crashed and reboot :P
Anyway this guide would help us with less typing with this type of question.
P.S we should make a guide for maxium clocks for each graphics card :O

[crash]

...
P.S we should make a guide for maxium clocks for each graphics card :O

It wouldn't be helpful because not everybody would be able to achieve those maximum clocks. People reach different overclocks maximums based on a variety of factors, not just the card.

But it would be interesting.