# Overclocking my 8800GT



## Zilchary (Sep 30, 2007)

Hi all, I have a e-GeForce 8800GT 512MB and here are the specs : 

* 512MB DDR3 Memory
* PCI-E 16x
* 600Mhz GPU Clock Speed
* 1800Mhz Memory Clock Speed
* nVIDIA® SLI™ ready
 * DirectX® 10/OpenGL® 2.0

In my Nvidia control panel it says my Core Bus is 600MHz, and the Memory Bus is 900MHz and I want to overclock my graphics card. How much should I overclock it to?


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## 2pistolpacker (Dec 3, 2007)

Hi Zilchary, its usually safe to assume 10% overclock if you keep it properly cooled. But every card is different, it takes time and small mhz increases and testing stability to find your cards maximum stable oc. It differs for each card, just test for artifacts and heat with ATI Tool. The question is, do you even need to overclock your expensive, already fast, card? Mike


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## magistr (Feb 25, 2008)

I also have an 8800gt. I don 't know anything about overclocking other than the article I read in a magazine that explains how to use rivatuner. I have overclocked my card quite a bit with stock cooling and it performs fine, I was wondering if I am missing something. Here is my setup.

Core 2 Duo e8400 3ghz
4gb PC2-6400 DDR2 ram (Corsair XMS2)
750watt psu
memory and processor are not overclocked.

my video card is a geforce 8800gt (BFG Tech, stock cooling)
I have a dualboot system.

In windows xp I don't have any overclocking settings turned on, the card runs at stock clock speeds and stock fan speeds.

in windows vista, I use rivatuner and the fan runs at 100% and the core is clocked at 720mhz, the shaders are clocked at 1800mhz and the memory is clocked at 1100mhz.

The stock settings for the card's core is 625mhz, the shaders are 1566mhz and the memory is 900mhz. Interestingly these settings are very close to the reference design settings.

As you can see I have ratcheted things up quite a bit and haven't had any problems yet.

My computer uses a 110mm fan on the processor @2600rpm and 2 case fans (front, inlet and rear, outlet) both @1000rpm

Gaming performance is very satisfying with these settings, I play cod4, unreal tournament 3, gears of war (not that much) and crysis. That being said crysis runs very well on high settings (not very high). I run the games at 1920x1200 resolution with 32bit color depth.

So I guess in the end my question is should I stop at these settings?...Or should I keep going to the point of instability and then back the settings down until it becomes stable?...Or is there something else I am not doing that I should be doing? gpuz reports the overclocked speeds correctly. Thanks for the advice.

Brian


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## 2pistolpacker (Dec 3, 2007)

Your OC looks good, just keep the fan at 100% all the time and don't let the temp get above 80C, you should be fine. Zalman make a very nice gpu cooler for those who want to push it.

Zalman VF1000


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## magistr (Feb 25, 2008)

The fan does stay at 100%. The only time it slows is when I boot to windows xp and it goes back to stock speeds, but the clocks run at stock too. Vista is where the overclocking settings kick in. I figure since the computer spends most of it's time in xp when idling it would be better for the card. Am I correct on this? Also, I have looked at zalman coolers like that one, I am very interested but a little scared to take apart a video card. :4-dontkno How difficult is it? (I feel so stupid asking this because I built the whole computer myself but I'm afraid of a video card and a little heat sink!) And there was that time I took apart a macbook pro to replace a cdrom drive, that was fun...lol


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## 2pistolpacker (Dec 3, 2007)

Here's a step by step on an older gpu. Be aware the warrenty is void after you alter the card. The first thing I do after I prove the video card reliable is remove the fan and thermal paste and replace the paste with AS5, then reinstall the stock fan.

Heatsink removal


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## Jtsou (Jul 13, 2007)

MAGISTR you should definately overclock that already fast E8400, i got it to 3.6 without raising voltages.


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## magistr (Feb 25, 2008)

Jtsou said:


> MAGISTR you should definately overclock that already fast E8400, i got it to 3.6 without raising voltages.


Well maybe when I'm ready to upgrade because unfortunatly I didn't buy an overclockable motherboard. But it leaves room for an upgrade :grin:


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