Is this a "safe" overclock for GTX 260M?

Hi everyone, I am new to laptop gpu overclocking and is trying to find the maximum stable speed for my GTX 260M.

I have achieved a pretty significant overclock and is able to play games without the laptop crashing at 650/1000/1650 (stock 550/950/1350). The max temp. is 69 degrees when playing Crysis at 99% gpu load (based on gpu-z, although I'm not sure if it's accurate). Will this significantly shorten the gpu's life and if it eventully fails will it be covered by the warranty? And also, does anyone run their gtx 260m at even higher clocks?

So far I think the gtx 260m is a great card in terms of overclocking and I'm very impressed. I basically OC it to beyond gtx 280m specs and games are a lot smoother from the benefits of the higher clocks =D. Even though the architecture is based on G92 it is pretty amazing to see a mobile gpu running at speeds beyond a desktop 9800gt.

Feel free to share your gtx 260m OC experience/advice.

update: my bad I thought crysis 99% is at 69 degrees, after playing for 15 minutes I quit the game and the max temp recorded is 77 degrees! If someone can advice if that's a safe temp to game at it's greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

I could OC my dual GTX 260M to just about the same clock as you but despite of archiving a lot higher scores in benchies I find its unstable in games especially Crysis (dropping FPS sometimes). I tried 600/1000/1600 and its stable.

Its definitely a great card

 

What did you use to OC your card? I too have a single 260 and id like to OC

 

Here you go mate:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.02.html

 

I use anywhere from 650-700/1000-1100/1650 on my GTX260ms, and they run wonderfully. I am using a NZXT Cryo LX laptop cooler in a cold room too, though (if you don't have a laptop cooler, I suggest you get one). I have a 5 year warranty on this thing, I'll just replace it with the 4th or 5th revision of the M17x or something when the cards finally die (even though that's pretty unlikely, these are GREAT cards).

 

Yes the 260m is by far the best overclocking card I've own, a 20%+ overclock on the core and shader is amazing.

Btw, whenever I open Nvidia Performance and try to exit the program a blank pop up window will come up and ask me "yes" or "no", does anyone know what that does?

After further testing I've reached a stable overclock of 680/1050/1700 Crysis runs very smoothly at 1440 x 900 resolution, rarely dipping below 30fps and avg is around 40-50fps.

 

The blank pop-up should not be blank and its actually "Do you want to load this profile on startup, benchmarker?"

 

would this not be better?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.05.html


6.05 seems to be the latest.

 

i wouldn't past 600/1500/1000.
why are you overclocking?
you should be able to max out 90% of games with that card @1920*1200...

 

Mine stable at 650/1100/1600. Max temp around 72-73C. That only when i play crysis and l4d. If i play any other game it around 63C.

 

77C is well within the safe zone. To put it into perspective, my GPUs can run at 80C-85C during an intensive gaming session and they haven't burnt out yet

Of course, lower is still better. Check temps at stock clocks and see how much of a performance increase you actually get out of it. If you get a nice increase then leave it at that.

It probably will shorten the life, but only by very very little.

 

Oh I see, thanks Sillyhoney for clearing that up, for some reason it shows up as blank to me lol...

And I overclock because I can see a noticeable difference between stock and overclock speeds. For example when I play NBA 2K10 on stock it avg. at 52-55fps according to FRAPS, when I run it with 650/1000/1650 the avg fps is boost to 59-60fps, making the game much smoother and enjoyable so that's why I tend to overclock. If I OC to an even higher speed the game will maintain a steady 60fps which is even better.

Also if anyone's interested I was doing some benchmarks yesterday using Far Cry 2 and here is the result:

Very High Settings at 1440 x 900, 0AA, DX9
stock gtx 260m - AVG: 41fps, Max: 62fps
gtx260m @ 680/1050/1700 - AVG. 45fps, Max: 68fps

The increase is not dramatic, some may argue you can't even see the difference, but the benefit is there. I think my cpu (p8600) is limiting the gpu though, because in the GTA IV benchmark my CPU is 100% used whereas my gpu is only around 50%, settings is set to high for GTA IV as well.

 

yeah your cpu is holding you back.

run it in dx10 mode and see whats up...

 

I used a similar process on my old laptop with a 8600GS - first used Nvidia Systools and then flashed the new settings to the card.

Actually the best performance I got was by keeping the memory and core clocks the same but upping the shader clock. It went from 1000 to 1500 without issues and games ran much faster.

Not sure how the 260M will OC yet, gonna play around. Just wanted to mention that OCing the Shader clock only might be interesting to try.

 

Is PCMark Vantage a good way to test the results?

Anyway I've done some overclocking on my GTX260M and got these numbers from PCMark Vantage (Gaming Suite):

600/1000/1650- 4288
650/1000/1650- 4297
680/1000/1700- 4301
550/800/1700- 4322 (This is what surprises me, only shader was OCed but it got better average FPS than 680/1000/1700; nearly twice)

 

well that's weird! :O
The score is not much better, but there is indeed a difference, you should try benchmarking with 3dmark[06/vantage]..!

 

Which GPU driver and bios u guys using? Mine is 197.31 (the lastest) with A03 bios, and i got freeze - crash @ around 600/1050/1450 even while idle

 

I'm very new to laptop/PC gaming. I have an i7 @ 720, with a GeForce GT 240M on my M15x system.

How do I go about overclocking, and how do I make sure that it won't decrease the life of my system? I would really like this thing to last atleast 4 more years, but I'm getting subpar performance in games like Mirror's Edge and Shattered Horizon, Team Fortress 2, Just Cause 2, etc.

Can anyone help a newbie out, or should I make a new thread for this?

 

Overclocking shouldn't shorten the life of your card unless you're getting ridiculously high temps.

 

What are ridiculously high temps? Again, I've never used this before. Also, which of the three sections do I overclock for gaming?

 

I would really like some assistance in this .

 

Your card will probably go boom at 105 C. People feel safe around 85 and under. Any higher and people get paranoid.

 

Maxamilus: +1.
iGrendei: The M15x should be able to handle the temps as long as you don't go overboard with the clocks.
You can try raising the shader clock first, for starters.
If you want to raise the core clock, best results are achieved when the core:shader ratio is 1:2.5
Just in from my playing around with the GTX 260M: 625/1050/1650 seems to work well for me.