my latest sli 8800gt overclock.

RoyalMarine

here's my latest in overclocking my 2 8800gt 512



was thinking of trying a vmod and a bios update on them but decided for the sake of another 10core and maybe another 50 shader its not worth it.

i think the xfx card since it had a lot higher stock clocks handles it well but the evga card is a serious performer!

temps are outstanding and you can see where the duorb shines with 5oC lower!

temps are on idle and barely reach 40oC on load.

awhir

do a hard volt mad then u will hit over 800 no bother

christophicus

What kind of cooling are you running on those cards ?? They seem to be really cool ??

RoyalMarine

awhir wrote: »

do a hard volt mad then u will hit over 800 no bother

not worth it to be honest. i could end up frying something that will cost too much to replace for the sake of 10fps in crysis.

christophicus wrote: »

What kind of cooling are you running on those cards ?? They seem to be really cool ??

its a mess but hey what the hell.

Overheal

lmao. Not very practical is it?

duridian

:eek: Gaflubalub!
.... exhales tea

Certainly saves a lot of work if you tend to change the major components very often. Also eliminates the need to go looking for those pesky fan screws. I always seem to have them, except when I'm fitting a fan.

RoyalMarine

duridian wrote: »

:eek: Gaflubalub!
.... exhales tea

Certainly saves a lot of work if you tend to change the major components very often. Also eliminates the need to go looking for those pesky fan screws. I always seem to have them, except when I'm fitting a fan.

lol ziplock bags for all computer screw's ftw!

uglyjohn

nice set up, 40 C under load seems really low to me (never done any overclocking but apparently my GPU is 39 C now from boards).

how hot can a card go safely? how much of your cooling is necessary and how much is you just having a pile of fans lying around and throwing them all on for sh*ts and giggles?

RoyalMarine

uglyjohn wrote: »

nice set up, 40 C under load seems really low to me (never done any overclocking but apparently my GPU is 39 C now from boards).

how hot can a card go safely? how much of your cooling is necessary and how much is you just having a pile of fans lying around and throwing them all on for sh*ts and giggles?

without the fans the cards are idle (doing nothing) at around 35oC. when i overclock them they get to about 45-50oC idle. when i play games like crysis,counterstrike, etc they get to about 75oC. with the fans when im playing games they dont go over 50oC. so it really makes a difference. keeps them cooler and they last longer.

uglyjohn

75oC...interesting i was thinking of doing my first bit of overclocking ( i have a hd 3850). i thought i should check the temp of the card as it is so i alt-tabbed out of company of heroes. it was 80oC.
thats a bit high isnt it? to be honest i was kinda scared by the 80oC, i was expecting a lot lower.

RoyalMarine

80oC is high but nothing to freak over.

download rivatuner. the fan should be auto set to something low like 25%. raise that to about 50% and see if the temps drop much.

TerrorFirmer

80c is fine and well within operable temperatures. No need to worry unless it climbs close to 100c, I'm pretty sure the Sparkle passive 8800GT reached 110c in Crysis in benchmarking and testing. Plus, those Ati cards have the fan speed set fairly low by default.

uglyjohn

thanks lads, i'll try that tonight and then have a crack at my first bit of overclocking...hopefull you wont see me back here in a few days asking for advice on which new card to get:rolleyes::rolleyes: !

DirkVoodoo

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

80c is fine and well within operable temperatures. No need to worry unless it climbs close to 100c, I'm pretty sure the Sparkle passive 8800GT reached 110c in Crysis in benchmarking and testing. Plus, those Ati cards have the fan speed set fairly low by default.

True. First time I have actually been burned by a card was when I touched the plastic shroud on my 8800GT's reference cooler. It was getting up to the mid 90s in Crysis, so I downloaded Rivatuner. My load temps are now somewhere in the 80s and it idles at around 56/57. Higher than I'm used to, but I'm not gonna get a cooler unless I decide to SLi the thing, which I am tempted to try.

TerrorFirmer

Oh and - while temperatures are tolerable up to well past 100c, there would still, regardless, clearly be something wrong with your card if it was hitting those sort of temperatures with any sort of air cooling! Just so you know... But just hitting 80c is perfectly fine....The fan on the 3850/3870 seems to stick around 30%, I used to run my 3870 at 55% fan speed, was topping out at about 60c I think, but it reached about 83/84 with stock settings.

RoyalMarine

as terror pointed out, putting the fan up to 50 - 60% will help a lot.

just dont do what i did and put it to 90% and go on holidays for a week forgetting to reset it to stock!!

RoyalMarine

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

True. First time I have actually been burned by a card was when I touched the plastic shroud on my 8800GT's reference cooler. It was getting up to the mid 90s in Crysis, so I downloaded Rivatuner. My load temps are now somewhere in the 80s and it idles at around 56/57. Higher than I'm used to, but I'm not gonna get a cooler unless I decide to SLi the thing, which I am tempted to try.

dont bother with sli unless your monitor is 24"+. i have 8800gt sli and its a waste on my 22". only benefit was in 3dmark06 which gave me 4,000 points more.

as for fps in games i saw 3 fps more in crysis.
i think i need a new monitor to make this worthwhile!

uglyjohn

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Oh and - while temperatures are tolerable up to well past 100c, there would still, regardless, clearly be something wrong with your card if it was hitting those sort of temperatures with any sort of air cooling! Just so you know... But just hitting 80c is perfectly fine....The fan on the 3850/3870 seems to stick around 30%, I used to run my 3870 at 55% fan speed, was topping out at about 60c I think, but it reached about 83/84 with stock settings.

Thanks for all your help lads

I downloaded rivatuner last night and left it on while playing for a while. I Had a look at the results after.
The fan seems to change speed depending on the temp but they must really want to keep it quiet or spare the motor because it doesnt do much. The highest the fan got was 30% and that was when the card was at just over 80oC.
when i get home tonight i'll adjust the fan settings and then see what sort of temperature it stays at under load.
im not really worried about dumping loads of heat into the case since im not overclocking anything else and the dell fan is like a jet engine!

then i'll have a go at overclocking it.

RoyalMarine

the fan will be set automatically to adjust depending on the heat of the card.

disable that option and set it yourself.
ill make a quick quide on using rivatuner with 8800gt.
very easy once you set hotkey's to change profiles in rivatuner.
simply right click rivatuner on the taskbar and select your overclock profile.
when finished, right click and select default.

DirkVoodoo

Like RoyalMarineComm says, you setup basic fan profiles in Rivatuner (e.g. 40% 60% and 80%) and then set some trigger conditions based on temperature (e.g. 40% < than 60C). Once you learn how to use the Rivatuner interface (google) its a blast. My fan gets noisy enough over 80C, but at that stage you will be too busy blasting nanosuits in Crysis to notice.

RoyalMarine

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Like RoyalMarineComm says, you setup basic fan profiles in Rivatuner (e.g. 40% 60% and 80%) and then set some trigger conditions based on temperature (e.g. 40% < than 60C). Once you learn how to use the Rivatuner interface (google) its a blast. My fan gets noisy enough over 80C, but at that stage you will be too busy blasting nanosuits in Crysis to notice.

i cant hear anything with my z5500 blaring in the room

uglyjohn

i take back what i said about noise! i never thought such a little fan could be so noisy :eek:

but its not really noticeable over a game so i dont mind.

with the fan turned up manually the card stays in the low 30s under load so i feel a lot happier about overclocking it now. on an aside i am starting to regret buying such a mid-range card....maybe i should have gone for a 8800gt ..but thats neither here nor there....i'll see what difference overclocking it makes.

RoyalMarine

glad your temps are low

8800gt are so cheap nowadays.

uglyjohn

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

glad your temps are low

yeah, it should let me f**k around a fair it without worrying about melting anything.

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

8800gt are so cheap nowadays.

dont talk to me! i could get one for less than what i paid for a 3850 at the time and a few days after i bought my card ati announced their price drop! oh well, its always the way with electronics.

RoyalMarine

why not sell the 3850 on adverts for 70 quid then it will only cost you another 80 for the 8800gt

uglyjohn

hmmmm :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: i cant say im not tempted..it is struggling a bit more than i hoped. i think i'll just keep an eye on adverts and see if any turn up there.

€80...thats not even a night out....

uglyjohn

update: using the tool in catalyst control centre i managed to get the gpu up 15% and the memory 28%. i tested it in game for an hour after and everything seems to be working well. using the new fan setting i made it never went above 55oC. the whole thing was so easy i might even try and go a bit further tonight. I noticed a good inprovement in compnay of heroes, i was running a lot better, ever with a few settings turned up!

I just have one question:
when overclocking do i have to worry about anything apart from heat?

RoyalMarine

as long as the heat stays down it wont burn out. dont leave the overclock on all the time if your not playing games. adjust as needed and it will be fine.