Dell studio 17 and ATI mobility HD 3650 underclocked?

Hi am new to this forum have been reading it for a little while. I'm sure most of you with a Dell studio 17 with a ati mobility hd 3650 graphics card have noticed that the core is underclocked to 450mhz. 150mhz lower then the stock.

However I noticed that a few people have "overclocked" it back to the stock and a few people have actually overclocked it more than this. I have played with powerstrip to get it back to stock and it does perform better with seemingly only a few degrees (5) rise in temp of the graphics card when playing games.

I was wondering if anyone actually knows why dell have underclocked this card and also if simply overclocking it back to the stock 600mhz can damage it.

Also I use HWmonitor to monitor the temperature of the different components. I was wondering if anyone knows how accurate this is as different software gives me different temperates as I've seen with the cores (ie RMclock, HWmonitor, coretemp).

(PS. I have my own little theory that dell want to make a bigger difference between studio and studio XPS hence the underclocking of the graphics card making it seem as if the studio xps is a lot better for gaming )
Sorry for the longish post.

 

The short answer to this is download ATiTool and overclock. Watch your temps and run the artifact tester. Don't forget to actually watch it, sometimes the test misses small ones.

Every chip is different and all overclocking involves some degree of risk. I'd say you're probably safe, but I can't guarantee anything.

 

Thanks for the reply but it didn't really answer my questions. Also Atitool doesn't really work for this card although some people have got it to wok by downgrading the drivers etc but that woz at least 6 months ago I think so there have been a few new releases of drivers after this and even with downgrading the drivers it is still a lengthy and somewhat confusing process as Atitool doesn't really support it yet.

 

You're right, I can only answer the one question, I don't have that specific model and I haven't done any research on it. There's a good chance you're right, but it's also possible they're just using lower binned chips at a discount.

For the overclocking though, you just use ATiTool to check for artifacts. Use powerstrip or whatever program you're using now to actually overclock the card. I use it on my rig.

 

Ok I tried overclocking with this amd gpu clock tool. I worked out that you have to switch off powerplay in the catalyst control settings for it to work. I tried 600mhz (ie back to stock) overclock which seemed fine. The temperature went up around 7/8 degrees to 61C. I then thought I'd try 700mhz overclock which worked and only gave me a similar 61C temperature reading when playing games. I have not tried to check for artifacts or anything however. I imagine under extended gameplay the temperature may rise to around 65C for the GPU. I think this is ok as most people say that GPUs can handle about 90C. I have only checked the stability by actually trying out a game, is this dangerous??
I'm new to overclocking etc so i'm not sure of the correct steps to take. I use HWMonitor and everest to monitor the temperatures.

 

different manufacturers put out slightly different versions of the same card, ddr2 vs ddr3, different clocks speeds, etc, so its natural that yours in particular is lower clocked than mine 600,500 ddr2 it could be that way for a number or reasons.

also to overclock amd gpu tool is only tool that works with the 3650 right now and also dont go past the 8.10 catalysts cuz they dont allow overclocking. the best are 8.9 and 8.10. use atitool to just check for artifacts and everest to monitor temps. the 3650 is pretty good with temps if u have good airflow in ur laptop so it shouldnt make a big difference there. i can do 800core, 600mem stable on ddr2 but i prefer to do 750 and 550.

also powerplay doesnt have to be off, if u set set your clocks manually with amdgputool they stay at those rates. also id reccommend that you apply overclocks when playing intensive games that u need the boost in and run in powerplay downclocked mode while use the laptop for general use. this will really help your laptop out in the long by it not constantly running at a overclock

bottom line is those orginal clocks are the manufacturers stock clocks which are safe and anything higher is risky but as long as you know what your doing in regards to safe temps and stablity testing you shouldnt run into too many problems