Acer5672 x1600 stock settings and overclocking - worth it?

I finally got my 5672 (with the x1600) after many complications.... but anyway, I was reading a lot of things about how the video card stock settings make it very underclocked.

My stock is reported by ATI Tool as 440/375. Most people with this video card on the Acer5672 are posting that their stock is 475/375, so it seems mine is even more underclocked.

My question is whether clocking it up to to the normal stock settings or higher will affect performance much at all, and whether it will affect the heat output by a lot or just a little. Basically, whether it's worth it to worry about it or just leave it at stock settings.

By the way, SpeedFan doesn't seem to show correct temperatures for me for some reason - it would stay at one temp that at one point was 69C and another time I reinstalled it, it showed 37. Running the "Scan for Artifacts" didn't change the reported heat (although I believe it was significantly warmer) in SpeedFan. Anyone have any ideas on that?

Thanks.

 

ok
#1 dont use speedfan its not compatable. use notebook hardware control, it monitors your processor temp and HDD temp. <<<<very reliable.
Note you must have Microsoft's .NET Framework Version 2.0 or newer installed. believe me it wont hurt anything when you do this.

#2 my original clocks are 438/370. but i usually have it underclocked at 135/135 with notebook hardware control.

it doent matter as it will not affect everyday things. but be careful when gaming with oc, it will get warm. but thats why you buy a cooler or a small fan that blows on the right side near the heatsink.
and if you dont have a small fan or cooler i would definitely invest in one. it helps.

#3 i do not overclock unless for nice gaming like oblivion, but with stock settings it is ok. but you can get the ATI tray tool which is very useful.
my max oc is 580/464 with no artifacts

 

Its possilbe that some people have the newer bios. I,ve heard some people saying that there gpu's frequency went down when they upgraded there bios. Mine is at 475/375 or around there. (not on laptop at the moment).

It's too bad the card has the 64-bit memory bus. Even if you overclock the memory, you wont get the same performance as the other ATI card with pure dedicated ram.

Im not planning on overclocking, b/c I think it gets hot enough at the heatsink at stock. I am using a laptop cooler, but that only helps alittle.

If you plan on overclocking, I would do what bugmenot9 said and place a "always-on" fan by that heatsink to keep that air moving outa there.