Tuesday, February 20, 2007
NVIDIA Overclocking
Before Get into the Procedures to Overclock the NVIDIA Video Card, Please go through the WARNINGS:The Warnings
Hold on to your hats, it's time for the warnings to roll out. Whenever the word 'Overclocking' is used, you have to get used to seeing the following facts:
If overclocking scares you, or you simply cannot afford to replace your video card on the off-chance it gets damaged, it's best to steer clear of it. Everyone these days seems to flippantly recommend that you overclock your components the second you have them installed in your machine, but the truth of the matter is that there is a risk of damage and some people do not want to take such a risk - and that's fair enough.
Nvidia Overclocking
There are a couple of ways to go about overclocking an nVidia-based videocard. The most basic is to use the 'Coolbits' registry tweak built into nVidia's video drivers. Essentially, the Coolbits tweak involves adding a single value to the Windows registry which then enables core and memory overclocking within the display control panel.
Setting up Coolbits
To enable the Coolbits tweak, the Windows XP registry needs to be edited. In case editing the registry sounds intimidating, see our guide here for more info. The Coolbits registry edit is very simple though, and is not going to cause any negative effects.
To enable the 'Coolbits' tweak open REGEDIT ('start\run' then type 'regedit') and navigate to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak'
If the 'Coolbits' value is already present in the right hand pane, double click on it and change its value to '3'. If not, Right click in an empty area of the right hand pane and choose 'new\dword value'. Call the new value 'Coolbits' and give it a value of '3'.
Close REGEDIT. Now when the nVidia display control panel is opened, there is a new 'clock frequency' page.
How to overclock nVidia cards with Coolbits Once Coolbits has been activated, overclocking an nVidia-based card is simple. Open up the 'display' applet in control panel, then go to 'settings' and 'advanced'. Click on the tab with the nVidia logo and the name of the videocard to open up the nVidia video card control application. From the menu, choose the 'clock frequency' option. Change the 'settings' drop-down box to 'performance (3D)'. This will show the default core and memory clock speeds for the video card when it is running in 3D mode. Using the sliders, the video card's core and memory speeds can now be overclocked. Before the new settings can be confirmed, they will need to be tested using the 'test settings' button. Once the settings have been affirmed by using this button, the card will be set to the new speeds. Please note that just because the overclocked settings pass this test does not necessarily mean that the same settings will work for games or benchmarks. In PCstats' experience though, this test button seems to err on the side of caution, so readers may be able to squeeze more out of their cards than the test button lets them get away with. This is when we need to turn to a third-party application to overclock further, which is a subject covered a little later in this article. The 'auto-detect' button will overclock the card's core and memory speeds automatically to a 'safe' margin. In our experience, this tends to be quite close to the maximum speeds obtainable with any given card in Coolbits. It can be considered a good jumping-off point. Do not use the auto-detect button if the sliders have already been changed manually, since this can give some seriously strange results and occasionally crash the system. Hit the 'default settings' button to return the sliders to normal first. The 'apply settings at startup' button will reapply any custom clock speed settings each time the computer is restarted. With Coolbits, this works most of the time. It may be worthwhile to double-check that the new settings have stuck after a reboot.
FACTS regarding Overclocking the Videocard: Overclocking is a subject that PCSTATS deals with every time a new processor, motherboard, stick of memory or videocard comes in for review, so it's a topic near and dear to our hearts. As you might expect, after having experimented with the subject so frequently, we have developed a pretty good idea of what does and doesn't work in the world of overclocking. Videocard overclocking can hold many benefits for the gamer or benchmarking enthusiast. As with processors and system memory, the faster the videocard's graphics processor and video memory can process information, the better. Smoother frame rates and higher benchmarks might be just around the corner. In this Beginners Guide, PCSTATS is going to take a comprehensive look at how to overclock any modern videocard. From theory to practice, ATI to nVidia, basic overclocking to tips and BIOS flashing, it's all in this guide! For insight into overclocking a CPU, motherboard and memory, please see our companion guide on that subject right here. How Overclocking a Videocard Works Videocards have three main parameters that affect their performance, the GPU core speed, video memory speed and the bandwidth of the interface between the videocard and the rest of the system (ie. AGP or PCI Express x16). There's not much that can be done about the video interface, but the core and memory speeds can both be changed, just like a computer's processor and main memory. The videocards graphics core (or GPU) handles the actual rendering of each 3D video frame. Overclocking it obviously helps the videocard push out polygons faster, increasing overall 3D performance. The video memory acts to the GPU as the computer's main memory does to the processor, storing video data and feeding it to the core as needed. The faster the memory goes, the less waiting around the GPU has to do, so overclocking the VRAM also has a major effect on 3D performance. As you might have guessed though, the most dramatic gains realized when overclocking come from pushing the core and memory together, since both facets compliment each other's performance as their speed increases. Can Overclocking Damage a Video Card? Yes it can, but the user would have to try really HARD to do some damage, and even then it would be unlikely... but not impossible. The only way to damage a modern video card through overclocking is to set the core and memory speeds WAY higher than stock and then attempt to run benchmarks. Since most recent cards from nVidia and ATI use thermal throttling to protect the GPU from damage, even this is unlikely to hurt a newer card. If the guidelines in this article are followed, there's no need to worry about damaging hardware.
It's possible to overclock a videocard just as you might a processor, for quicker speeds and better gaming. In this guide we will explain how to do just that, step by step. - Version 1.0.0
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