I was gonna post this in the Overclocking board, but that would have been pointless.  Of course everyone in that board overclocks!

Yeah, Everytime i run FS, just pop open ATI-Tool and set it to my profile..


and it wont Cook your card..
If you do it by the book and run the 'find max core' or 'find max mem'..

I think the program is gaurentied to not cook your card.. 

I overclock to get the best of the best.

For many of you, you have an option to upgrade to a better CPU, vid card, etc.

I don't (unless you can sneak me a athlon64 X2 5000 or somthing), and so I must use what I have to get better performence.

The 7800 gtx i have use single slot cooling solutions. Plus, all my cases are full ATX towers. The two opterons rest in an extended atx case.

And yes, I could buy a car, but what would I do with it. I can't drive...legally.

whats that Card like you have Paul...Will it make a BIG improvement from the Geforce FX5200 128mb do you think, thats the card i currently have.
I was thinking of buying the EXACT same card the other day, but i wasn't sure.
Happy to know what its like.

Cheers

James

Our Dan ... LOL....Is he around...i need to get his verdict as well.
Cheers Foz

James

The BFG overclock is barely more than a marketing gimmick though, as the overclock is so slight. I dare say any 6600GT would overclock stably at BFG's speed.

Just pointing this out in case the BFG card is carrying a price premium.

Another example is the standard Leadtek PX6600GT TDH as compared to the Extreme Edition of that card. My "normal" PX6600GT overclocks beyond the Extreme's default clockrate with no problems at 550/1150mhz and I have no idea how fast it will go...... yet.
I did find out that my Leadtek 6600GT has .2ns infineon ram chips fitted and not the faster Samsung .16ns chips, so I'm chuffed by the performance considering it has the cheaper ram.

Video card overclocking should be treated with caution however, until you really know what you are doing.

Overclockability of video cards depends on the genre of the card (like a 6000 series), the quality of the particular GPU chip on the card and the quality of the RAM on the card.

GPU's and video ram are speed binned after production the same as CPU's, and marked and sold at their respective quality and rated speed's.

The best overclocking results are obtained when quality high speed components are binned, marked and sold as lesser products due to demand or other reasons. This is why overclocking results vary considerably on the "same" hardware and no hard and fast rules or methods can be truly outlined for overclocking.

If you are an overclocking fanatic, you might go so far as to seek out known batches or serial numbers on certain components to increase your chances of obtaining the maximum speeds possible. Or, if you have access to the component prior to purchase, you can visually inspect the fitted ram chips to see if they are the ones you researched or an inferior type. Other than that, it's really a matter of pot luck as to how far you can push your hardware.

I absolutely overclock. I've spent less than half the money for the performance I get vs. buying a computer that runs the same as mine. Plus, it is fun. I'm a mechanic, I like messin' with things, and seeing if I can get more out of it.

I used to have to change my clockspeed on my old computer all the time, because I wanted max speed out of the CPU. Whenever it got warmer out, I'd have to slow it down, and when it got colder out, it went faster.

I had my XP2100+ (1733 MHz, got it for 100 bucks) running at 2450 MHz (about, 250 MHz faster than the fastest CPU AMD made at the time, the 3200+ @ 2200 MHz, a $275 CPU at the time).

I have my $150 A64 running at the speeds of a $400 CPU current, a $800 CPU at the time I first got it.

Overclocking is fun.