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I am not responsible for the modification
or damage that may come to you or your video card.
Overclocking basically means
running a device at faster speeds than intended by the
manufacturer. This has been done for years, but as of
now - it's one of the easier "boosts" you
can do to your PC. If you own a Geforce 3 and up, you
came to the right place.
All parts we will need:
-Nvidia
Geforce 3 and up graphics card
-The
latest Nvidia driver (XP)
-Coolbits
registry patch
-Arctic
Silver V (Optional)
(or your choice of thermal compound)
-Rubbing Alcohol, fingernail polish or Windex
-Needle nose pliers or hemostats
This is pretty easy, I just
seem to get a lot of questions on how to overclock a
GeForce. So, here we go~
First of all, make sure you
have the latest Nvidia driver installed in Windows XP.
To verify what version of driver you have go to: start,
run type: dxdiag , hit enter.
Once the Diagnostic Tool runs, go to the display
tab at the top. Where it says drivers/version,
it should end in 7134. If this
number is lower, it's time to update. Download the latest
Nvidia driver
and also download Driver
Cleaner. This little tool will fully clean out the
old driver so there is no conflicts with the new one.
Just read the readme.txt on how to run it.
Also, make sure you have
DirectX 9.0b installed. Even if your graphics card does
not support DX 9, get it anyway's (windows update).
If you want to find out what version of DirectX you
have go : start, run
type: dxdiag , hit enter.
Once both of these are done,
it is now time to grab coolbits.
Coolbits just adds itself to the registry, so it can
give you an extra tab in the Nvidia driver itself. Just
double-click on it, say yes to the pop-up box then throw
it away.
Now that all software is
done and ready to go, we can start overclocking.
To get to where we need to
go, : right-click the desktop, properties,
settings, advanced,
Geforce tab. Here is another spot you can see
what driver version your running (*.*.*.7134).
Look at the list on the left. Coolbits has added "Clock
Frequencies". Click on this. Depending on what
video card you have, you will see something like this:
Now with some earlier cards
you will have to check a little box "allow",
then reboot (then come back). With the FX cards you
will have put Settings to Performance
(3D). Here is my stock settings. Not too bad
but we can do better.
Go ahead and grab the sliders
and increase both Core and Memory.
Do this a little bit at a time.
All graphic cards will overclock differently. Take it
slowly. A good rule of thumb : try 10 increments
at a time, for both core and memory. You can even use
the arrow keys on your keyboard to reach increments
of "1" (it's hard with the mouse). I have
now brought mine up to 420/875. (i know how far I can
push mine).
Once you move it to a safe
level, hit Test settings. It will run
a diagnostics to make sure there is no data corruption.
If the test goes through and the levels stay where you
put them, hit apply.
Now that we bumped it just
a little, we need to really test the card. If you have
an FX card, get 3DMark
2003. Run its benchmark. If you have an earlier
Geforce grab 3DMark
2001 SE . Basically, you will run this each time
you make an adjustment to the frequencies. What your
looking for is "artifacts".. or "tearing".
You will not see any issues if your card can handle
the settings you put them on. What I do is slowly bump
the frequencies and benchmark with every change. Keep
going until you see artifacts or tearing. Once you start
seeing these issues, bump it down just a bit. After
you play a game for a long time, you'll know then too.
Be sure to check "Apply settings at startup"
After you "discover"
a safe level for yourself, you can leave it alone. Ah,
but some of us want more...
Now that software is done,
we can move on to hardware.
The only modification (that
I will discuss here) we are interested in, is getting
better cooling for the card itself. Better cooling =
higher clock frequencies. There are many ways to acquire
better cooling for a graphics card.
The problem is when you purchase
a video card and it has a fan/heatsink on it, it will
come with a "thermal pad" or very generic
thermal paste in between the heatsink and GPU (core).
This is "ok" for people who don't overclock,
but your here for a reason. We must remove this generic
paste and add aftermarket thermal compound.
Depending on the series of
card and manufacturer you will have some sort of heatsink/fan
combo. The pictures here show an FX 5900. However the
same rules apply to any of them with a heatsink.
First we must remove the
heatsink. Again depending on the card, this can be done
several ways. Most newer cards have a "spring loaded
pin" type holder, like this one.
Just squeeze the pins on
the back, while pushing them out. Be very careful while
doing this.
These things will pop off.
They are spring loaded, be careful not to loose them.
Once the sink is removed,
you will find the generic pad or thermal paste. This
next few pictures show this on a TNT 2. So now just
grab your cleaner (windex is what I used). Place some
on a cloth, and get rid of that "cheep'O stuff".
Also do this on the sink
that was pulled off as well. Now that the card and sink
are cleaned, I will be putting on Arctic Silver V. Just
place a "tad" in the middle, and smear it
into a thin layer.
Once smoothed over, put it
all back together. Again, just be careful.
If your video card does not
use the "spring clip" type of holder, and
just has a heatsink on the GPU, we can still remove
it. All you need to do to remove that type of sink is
to benchmark or play heavy games for a while. Get that
card good and hot. Then remove the card and 'twist'
the heatsink back and forth. It will come loose. Now
to re-secure it back on after you remove the generic
paste, you are going to either have to buy "Arctic
Silver Adhesive", or use super glue. What I
personally do is use standard ASV except for on the
outer four corners. Then use very tiny drops of super
glue on the four corners.
This is safe, and it wont
go anywhere.
This of course is how you
fix a card that never came with a heatsink at all. You
can do this with the RAM chips as well. Remember- the
cooler, the more you are going to be able to overclock
it!
Also take into consideration
the cooling throughout your case. Since these are heatsinks,
they need airflow. Make sure your case is breathing
well.
Once you get done with the
hardware modifications, go back into "coolbits"
and bump up the levels some more. Again, with each change,
run a benchmark. You get artifacts or tearing? Back
it down.
If you have a GeForce 4 Ti
series, I recommend the ThermalTake
Copper cooler.
Related Links:
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101
Chipset
Mod
Burke~
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