9600M GS 1GB DDR2 overclocks like crazy.

I picked up the retail version of Asus' N80 line, the X83Vm-X2 at Best Buy the other night and finally got a chance to really play with it. While I'm still not a huge fan of Nvidia's 32-shader parts as gaming hardware, the overclock I got on the 9600M GS is unbelievable.

At stock speeds it ran at 430MHz on the core, 1025MHz on the shaders, and 400MHz on the memory (1GB of DDR2). I used Tech Report's Quake Wars benchmark and scored ~42fps.

After overclocking, it ran at 650MHz on the core, 1600MHz on the shaders, and 510MHz on the memory. With this massive overclock, Quake Wars shot up to ~56fps. Temperatures top out at 75C. At these clocks, the 9600M GS is actually running FASTER than the 9650M GT in the N80 (which also "enjoys" 1GB of DDR2).

Provided you don't enable AA or VSync, every game I've tested so far has run playably maxed out at 1280x800. Mass Effect, Left 4 Dead, Unreal Tournament 3, the FEAR 2 demo, the aforementioned Quake Wars...obviously Crysis won't, but that's Crysis.

RivaTuner didn't recognize it or the drivers (using Nvidia's beta notebook GPU drivers) and wouldn't overclock, but Nvidia's System Utility did the trick and works like a charm, so hopefully someone Googling will find that information useful to them, because trying to find information on overclocking the 9 series is somewhat rough.

 

Very nice! What is your 3Dmark06 score?

 

Hi.

Try "DOX Optimized 185.20" my 3dmark06demo score when from an overclocked 2888 to 2940 with 750core 950mem.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22943

John.

 

aint it dead yet?

 

i stopped overclocking my card it started to artifact last night, no mattter what driver i used. D:

 

fluffboy, maybe thats because you added another 50% of power to it? did you really expect it NOT to fry? im amazed you dont have a pile of ash infront of you.

 

The 9600 OC's pretty well, I've had my GT from 500/1250/400 to 660/1650/575 for 4 months now with no problems. No artifacting, overheating etc, temps top at 60C on my cooler. I wonder how the 9650 with its 55nm fabrication does?

 

the 9650 does pretty amazingly. I got a 33% overclock on my N50. I got it OCed from 550/1375/400 stock to 735/1838/525. The 55nm helps ALOT.

 

I want one

 

Nice OC avanish! What are the temps on that?

 

I still don't know why Nvidia continues to sell GPUs with DDR2 memory, especially the 9600s. I'd rather have the extra bandwidth GDDR3 provides, thanks.

EDIT: Actually gonna see if I can poke up my OC a little bit more. Probably tweak the shaders...

 

If I had DDR3 I'd be breaking 6500 3dmarks at 1280x1024 ~_~

 

It hovers right around 70 degrees Celsius. Without the OC, it's around 65, so there isn't a huge difference.

Same here

 

that's not nvidias prob, it's up to individual venders to decide which type of memory to use.
afaik nvidia/ati only design the pcb and make the chips.

 

Technically, it IS nVidia's problem, because they decide which RAM types are usable and which aren't. See any 9800's with DDR2? Exactly.

 

Yeah, but Nvidia's trying to make this stuff affordable, too, and they're not alone. Everything but ATI's high end comes in DDR2 flavors, too.

Anyway, I ran 3DMark06 at 1024x768 and scored 5906 on my overclocked 9600M GS. This puts it about on par with a stock-clocked 9600M GT GDDR3. Before overclock, it's at 4611.

 

Technically, it is YOUR problem because you decide which notebook your going to buy

Yeah, I would have liked GDDR3 instead of DDR2 as well.

 

Considering GPU overclocking possibly help to kill my old HP quickly (and probably the bad saudering as I've heard), I'm refraining from overclocking my Asus until it becomes absolutely necessary.

 

Dang, all these 9600M users catching up to a 9700M GT's scores.

Is really slack that nVidia System Tools doesn't work on my system somehow and RivaTuner won't detect my card, otherwise I would have overclocked heaps.

 

Seeing as how you're running a 9800M GS at 1366x768, I don't see that in your immediate future.

 

9600GT at that resolution will score higher.

 

I actually have a 9600M GT GDDR3 on hand in a review unit. It scored about 6081, so not too far off from where my 9600M GS is.

 

Some people have cracked 6000 points at 1280 x 1024 reso with 8600M GT's ! The DDR3 version. Overclocking midrange ddr3 cards brings big numbers...

 

and shorter lifespans! woot!

 

You have a good point there

 

I have pushed similar numbers to avanish with my n80 9650gt DDR2. Stock clocks of 550/400 (not sure about shaders) and clocked it up to 708/519. There is still room to O/C the core, but memory is maxed out. 3Dmark06 @ 1280x800 saw an increase from ~4600 to 5870.

It is noticeably faster in games, with an fps increase of about 20%. Temps have increased from about 65C max to more like 70C. Still well within acceptable range as the cooling on the Asus N-series is fantastic (55nm tech helps as well).

Where are you in PA avanish, I'm typing out of Philadelphia.

 

I had to back off my overclock after a lockup in Oblivion. It was happy in Quake Wars and ATITool, but Oblivion crashed after the video driver stopped responding. Down to 625/475/1550. Still substantial (basically 9700M GT clocks), but probably a bit better for the GPU.

The dismal memory bandwidth of the DDR2 is really the performance killer, though.

 

very true...

 

Gettysburg. The ghost town

I have a higher Overclock than you, and yet I only get 5701 in 3Dmark06 at 1280x800. Which CPU do you have? I have the T5800, and I suspect that has something to do with it.

 

yep, I have the p8600. That is a ghost town literally and figuratively...

 

Ah ok. I'm thinking of upgrading to a P9500 later on, because the CPU is pretty weak.

 

I just got the same laptop, x83vm-x2. I have tried rivatuner, evga precicsion, ntuner(latest version of nvidia system utility. All of them failed to recognize my driver and teh card. I wonder what version of system nvivida utility did you use? And which driver version are you using?

Thanks in advance!!

 

Intensive overclock wont burn the graphic card???
even it doesnt burn it tat quickly i guess the graphic card wil be spoil faster than normal...
I heard tat the higher temperature(compared to normal/standard) of an electric application, the faster it spoil...
but 1GB ddr2 is impressive.... bcz my frenz only own 512MB ddr2/ddr3(forgot which 1) and he dun dare overclock XD!

 

As long as you monitor temps, OCing is fine. Some GPUs are luckier in that they can OC further than others, the clock speed generally doesn't mean it will burn out faster.

 

The 9600M GS is basically a 8600M GT.

 

Really??? I dont think so...
bcz 9500MGS is actually 8600MGT...
dey both hav same chipset G84-A2...
jz 9500MGS smaller than 8600MGT...
9600MGS is superior than 8600MGT/9600MGS....

 

The 9600M GS only has a 13% shader clock increase.