Overclocking my X800XL

[PSS]

I have an ATI X800XL. I want to overclock it. How much will it help (in Frames). Will there be a lot more heat? What program should I use. I heard some program shows artifacts (instability) so I know when to back down...

[bread]

Any 3D program will show artifacts. Some more then others.

 

It should help some in games, just really depends if you need it. IF the game you are running is going along at a high frame rate, then you won't get that much out of OCing the card. If you are struggling for frames in a game, then OCing will help you to not struggle as much. Kind of a if ya need it, then do it, or if ya want to OC just to OC, then do it too.

 

As far as heat, it will increase heat a bit, but that will also show its face too in stability issues.

[Guest area51]

I built a rig for a friend that had an X800 XL a couple of weeks ago. It was a marginal overclocker at best but it definetly ran higher than stock without issue (especially after I stuck an arctic cooling silencer ATI 5 rev 2 on it!) The program you should be using is called AtiTool and can be downloaded from here. It allows you to search for both max core clock and max mem clock independently of one another. Basically you set and leave it alone for awhile (~1 hour) It looks for errors at any given clock and then backs down when it detects them...Meaning when you come back after an hour or so you can be sure this freq will run stable and error free. I use this tool all the time...if you have any questions pm me.

[Guest area51]

Sorry forgot to add that just looking for visual artifacts is not a sufficient test if yo want your card to last for awhile. Calculation errors start far before they are noticable to the eye!

[Surrept]

Yeah seeing artifacts isn't a good thing, When I hear people say it'll run this game with only a few artifacts.... I wouldn't doubt if they're causing damage

 

Clocking will add extra heat, your gpu might have a built in temp sensor, mine doesn't so I just go with ati tool to tell me how my temp lvls are. With stock cooling my 9600 could get a decent clock, I went with what ati tool maxed at, then once I put water on, ati tool would let it clock alot higher (500-550 from 300~ stock)

[PSS]

Ok, Lets say I clock my card 450/1100 (from 400/980) This is an 11% increase in both mem and core. Will there be an 11% increase in games?

[Surrept]

You might get an 11% increase in benchmarks but the true test of a videocard is playability. Minimum frames is what typicaly improves gameplay. I say give it a shot and see if you hit terrorists in the head 11% of the time more often

[Guest area51]

Ok, Lets say I clock my card 450/1100 (from 400/980) This is an 11% increase in both mem and core. Will there be an 11% increase in games?

 

I am assuming you mean an 11% increase in the frames per second for example? The answer is unfortunately no. There is no direct relationship between the percent overclock you achieve on your card and the way your games will render. You will notice an increase in your benchmarks to be sure and your frame rates will definetly go up...but probably more along the lines of 1-3% or so. It depends on the game...they all are written differently and respond differently. Here is an example for you to look at. In this case this card went from 540/1180 to 574/1200 and the increase in frames per second was 2.5 on Doom 3.

 

Overclocking will not in most cases overcome a lack of pixel pipes, or last gen gpu, but will definetly squeeze more out of the card! My X800 Pro runs stock at 474/450 and I run it during games and benchmarking at 555/531 (the tested stable top end) this gives me a huge jump in 3DMark 05 for example...from 4700 to 5800 and is the difference between being able to run games at med/high settings to all very high!

 

One thing I would recommend though is if you are going to seriously overclock your card is to ditch your stock cooler with a quickness. The ones that seem to be performing the best right now are the arctic cooling silencers and the zalmans (for air anyway...water will crush them) They will in most cases give you higher stale clocks and keep loads at much cooler temps...nice if you want the thing to keep working :nod:

[PSS]

Well, since the X800XL blows its hot air right over the chipset fan, when I started the "Find max Core clock" in ATI tool, my chipset temps surged to 52C, from 47. I am not sure if this is because of the total system load or the video card heat, but I'm back at 400/1000 for now.

[dosu]

my card is 400/500 how is yours 400/1000 and safe?

[loc.o]

ds mem: 500*2 = 1000, exact same settings.

 

PSS, have a look at the Ati Silencer Cooler (nr 5 rev 2 in your case for the x800xl). It will exhaust hot air to back, is quiet and cools better then stockfan. Ok price. Push it up 10/10 and have an AQ3 run (i prefer that one because its short), compare scores and so one.

[xer0trigger]

The ATI Silencer works pretty good. The HIS IceQII X800XL I have comes with it stock. I figured it'd be better than anything else out there since it pushes the hot air out the back of the case. I got a stable 440core/1100mem on it - I wouldn't expect too much more out of the XL, it's not known to be a great overclocker, but for the price, it can't be beat (much less than the XT versions, and 4 more pipes than the Pro versions).

 

On another note, I like Rage3D CCC Tweaker the best of all the ones I tried. It has the auto-artifact scanning like ATI Tool, and it integrates in the ATI Control Panel, which is great not having an additional program run at startup.