How to Overclock your GPU(video card)! Guide.

NeXuS1

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This is a little guide I made on how to OC your GPU.

As you know, you can OC your video card to get that extra juice from it. Both ATI and NVIDIA cards can be overclocked with neat programs; the most popular ones are RivaTuner for NVIDIA chipsets and the ATI Tool for ATI chipsets( And can also be used for NVIDIA card which I used on my 8800GTS). They also have various other tools like setting fan speed of your card if it has one. There other programs like Ntune from NVIDIA or some of those programs come with the video cards you buy.

You can download RivaTuner here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163
And ATI Tool here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=725

First ill show you how to OC your card with ATI Tool.

Here is the main window it should display the ATI Tool. You should see your temperature, your current clocks and other stuff shown below.

ATItool1.jpg


“Set Clock” This will set the clocks from the ones you move on the sliders.
“Default” sets your video card clock to as they were when it was stock.
“Find Max Core” Finds max core for your GPU
“Find Max Mem” Finds max memory for your GPU
“Scan for artifacts” Tests your video card for errors, this tool is used to check if you over clocked the video card to much, and it will show like yellow squares at the fuzzy cube shown.
“Show 3d view” This will also show the fuzzy cube but it will test how much FPS are you getting and the average, this could be used if your OC made a difference.
The sliders should show 2D, 3D low power, and 3D perf.
The New, Load, Save, Delete is for managing profiles.
“Settings” are the options

First you should create a profile you going to use to save the clocks of the overclock. Click the new button were the default profile is. It will prompt you for a name lets call it OCed since that's going to be the profile used to keep the stable Oced clocks of your video card.

Once you have your profile ready, make sure your video card is at idle temperature let it warm up. Click on Scan for Artifacts to make sure your video card is not getting any errors leave it 30 sec you should not get any errors or color dots on the fuzzy cube. Check your FPS on show 3D view to get an idea if there is an improvement in your performance. Click on load, so it sets your OCed profile we are going to modify.

Were not going to modify the core clock on the 2D sliders we only want to modify its memory and the core and memory from the 3D sliders on the right. We want to increase the core clock of 3D low power and 3D perf. 2-4Mhz(Don't increase the core clock on 2D!!), memory for all three sliders about 5Mhz. ALSO SOME VIDEO CARDS WILL JUST SHOW CORE AND MEMORY CLOCK. Once you do this step your “Set Clock” button should be able to be clicked, click it and you will notice your current clocks on the top will change. You successfully overclocked your GPU, now we got to check if this doesn't get any errors, click “Scan for Errors” that should bring up the fuzzy cube and it will have a timer saying “No errors for “the time you leave it””, leave it runing for 1-2 min make sure you don't get any errors or yellow dots or chucks of yellow stuff on the fuzzy cube they are called “Artifacts”.

An example is shown here:
305119662_e15c4b1365_o.jpg


After successfully not getting any errors click save, to save the stable clock on your OCed profile. Click on show 3D cube to see if its any difference FPS should go a bit up. Test a game make sure you don't get any artifacts on it you shouldn't get any. If you do go back to default clocks.
After click on the ATI Tool on your tool bars or click a shortcut. When you open it up click on settings.
ATItool2.jpg


Go to the startup options. Check the Everytime ATI Tool is loaded to load your OCed profile, also check to load ATI tool on windows startup, and select Start Menu (current user). Click back you should be set, you can continue increasing your clocks just repeat the steps I told you, don't forget to save your profile test, if you get an error at artifacts just go back to the clock you had before each increase on your GPU's clocks.

Ill post the how to on RivaTuner later but ATI Tool works with NVIDIA card to and it's a bit better for me.

Ok now with Riva tuner. When you first run it will detect your drivers, after it loads here is what the main menu looks like.
Rivatunermainmenu.jpg


In the image that has a chip with a magnifying glass is used to read the video cards temperatures and clocks. In low level system tweaks you can adjust your fan speed as desired shown in the picture below. Click on Fixed and then adjust the % you wish to run, and then check Apply fan settings when windows starts.
In system tweaks you will find the clocks 3D performance, when you click the slider it should show Low power 3D, and Standard 2D.

riva.jpg


Create an Overclock profile name is OCed that's were you will be saving the stable clocks. As I told you on ATI Tool you only need to modify the core clocks on 3D performance and low power 3D, and modify memory on all three things. Remember don't OC the core clock on 2D. Check the apply box so OC settings load each time windows startup. On core do 2-5Mhz jump on memory do a 5-10Mhz jump, and test a game each time you increase the clocks to make sure you don't get any artifacts.

You might need ATI Tool for artifact scanning that's why I prefer this program because it works for both NVIDIA and ATI and works great reading temps, OC and testing your card.
 
Very nice guide. Easy to read, and good explanations. Well deserving of a sticky.
 
That was quick, i was gonna suggest making it a sticky lol:)

Lol I'm just good like that.

Nexus, I know you plan on adding RivaTuner to this, but any way you could do Coolbits as well? If you don't want to I could give it a run, but I would need time to play around with it (as it would be my fist GPU OC).
 
Yeah I forgot that program to, if you want you can add I am not that familiar with the program but it should be easy to use. Thanks for the replys guys, ill modify the guid later to make it more easy.
 
I'm not to familiar with it either, but if i get the time before you do, I'll mess around with it.

[edit] Looking online, and coolbits seems way outa my league. Starts with registry changes (which I'm not real comfortable doing), and from there it's just not as easy as ATI-tool looks.
 
Maybe the messing with the reigistry, was that it doesnt have to load a profile to apply the new clocks at startup. Maybe it changes the clocks and saves them into the GPU.
 
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