NBR ATI Overclocking Team thread

I think I like the Omega 6.9's better than the ATI 6.10's which dropped my frames from 100+ on dust2 to ~40. I might consider trying the 6.11's, but the 6.9's are working fine now so someone would have to show a big overclock difference on an X1xx card for me to try it.

 

Hey Gator,

I really advice you not to use any other driver if the Omega 6.9 is working good for you. The 6.11 Catalyst have lowered my 3dmark05 scores (see page 9). I am also planning to go back to the Omega drivers.

I had great experiences with Omega drivers for a long time, until a few months ago. I was getting BSOD with America's Army and also in Windows. After 3 times reinstalling Windows it fixed this weird bug. I think Omega was the problem. So I am actually a bit afraid to go back to Omega drivers.

But this is my experience. Other people may have other experiences. But I think I will just stick with the Catalyst 6.11.

Charlie

 

Says Guru3D. So it is not disabling hypermemory, but in some way it works for you. Strange. Because my ATT reports 128MB. And I guess it can share this knowledge with 3dmark (or maybe it shares only what it says above).

I will have to check this out more thoroughly.

Ivan

 

Charlie, you asked me about overclocked CPU on my comp - well I did a test and the difference is in fact very small - 3193 3dmark05.

So CPU speed (and FSB and main memory in fact) don't have a big impact on 3dmark05. It has on some other things like calculations in games, AI and so on. Temp difference is also very small. A degree or two at most. It is a small price for better CPU/MEM benchmarks.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Thanks for the advice. No problems with Omega 6.9 so I'll probably stick with em for awhile.

 

The Radeon Omega 6.9 drivers are excellent as far as I can tell; with the latest version of ATI Tray Tools, I have had no problems overclocking my X700. Anyone who has been staying with an older driver set (such as 6.3, like I had), and is wanting to upgrade, then go for it. Just be sure to follow the updating video card driver guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64910

 

Hey Chaz, seeing as how we're using the same driver/tool to OC I was wondering: how do you know when it's safe to stay at a particular OC level? I mean, I do it until I get artifact detections in ATI Tray Tools, but even backing what I consider to be a reasonable margin may be damaging to the video card as I do not really have a way to gauge how safe it is. The general rule seems to be "no artifacts/corruption no problem", but seeing as how this isn't a desktop so I can't just pop the hood and wave my hand over the card to kind of get a feel for where I am in the red zone, maybe you have some advice.

 

The first thing I do is check the desktop version of the video card that I have, simply to see what sort of clocks it has. There is a decent chance that I won't be able to reach those levels, but it is nice to have a relative limit (the memory speeds may be different if the memory type is different. ex: DDR, GDDR3, so make sure you are comparing with a desktop card that has the same type of memory that you do).

I then start overclocking the card by raising the Core and Memory, one at a time, in 5-10MHz increments (usually 10MHz increments at first because there is a good amount of headroom from the stock clocks), and then applying it. I let the machine sit there for a couple of seconds to see if anything bad happens (sometimes the VGA signal can be lost, or the screen will become artifacted), then start the 3D Renderer in ATI Tray Tools. Let that run for 10 seconds or so and scan for artifacts. If there are none, then I bump up the clocks some more.

One thing that a lot of overclockers overlook is keeping the memory and core clocks relatively in sync with each other - you don't want the core to be too fast for the memory, or vice versa. So, I try to keep the ratio of the core:mem equal. Example: my X700 has stock clocks of 351:331. If I took the core clock to 410MHz, then I would want to keep the memory around 387MHz give or take a few megahertz; 351/331 = 410/387. I use the stock clocks as a rule of thumb for ratios.

So, how do I know if a particular level is safe to stay at? Watch your temperatures; log what your stock temperatures are when running 3DMark05/06, then overclock to your maximum levels and measure the temperatures there. If your GPU has no temperature sensor, then feel the laptop. Always have a cooling pad. I honestly do not think that the cards with 128-bit buses get much hotter with overclocking.
As long as the card is stable at your desired clocks and the temperatures are fine, then I would say it is "safe" - safe in quotes because the only guranteed "safe" setting is stock.

That's probably a lot of information you didn't need, but hopefully it was somewhat helpful and just post again if you want to know something more specific.

 

Hey guys, I can't seem to overclock my ati laptop card, but your thread says 'NBR ATI overclocking team thread', it doesn't say 'NBR ATI overclocking laptop team thread'... My x1900xt is at 600 core... 700 memory clock... could I join?

 

I'll take any advice or factual affirmation that I can get; I'll definitely keep a closer eye on the original stock core/mem speed ratios. Thanks a lot, I'll update with any news on the overclocking.

P.S. I would aim for 5000 in 3DMark 05 as mentioned earlier in the thread by Notebook Solutions, but I just love my baby too much to go through that kind of risk

 

Well in case that this is a notebook forum I would think no, but I am not sure at all. Just ask Ivan and Chaz, they should know better.

Gator a good advice for you:

I have overclocked my X700 also to brake the 2600 barrier and it did (stock was around 2200). I overclocked my mem by 11% and core by 7%. So if you are overclocking under 10% you are safe I would say.
But I am overclocking with a notebook cooler! It really brings down the temps of my CPU and HD. Unfortunately I cannot see my GPU temps So I really advice you to go to the Accesoires thread and take a look at notebook coolers. Chaz, Vampire and I own a Spire Pacific Breeze Cooler. It is pretty loud and it may not fit perfectly under a 15.4" notebook (14" should be much better) but it cools very good.

Charlie

 

To zellio and other people who want to join:

All of us here actually do something people don't usually do - overclocking notebook gpu cards (ati namely). Any experience in overclocking is welcome, and there is absolutely no problems with that. People should decide for themselves if they are part of NBR OC TEAM or not - it's not a club or a association - we just stick together and immediately recognize our sigs when posting. We share info and the goal is better score in tests and games. If someone sees your sig with NBR OC TEAM logo and asks you the question that needs an answer like Chaz just did a while ago and you don't know anything about it, then it is quite silly to put that sig down there. At least it is how I see it. I am not a moderator or have any power over who can or can't join the NOT (NBR OC TEAM).

Share your knowledge, post your findings, OC settings and scores and community will immediately see if you know what are you talking about or not. Don't feel bad if you cannot overclock at all. Post your problem and maybe we can solve it together. That is surely enough to be in our team.

I hope this helps,

Ivan

 

I use a very cheap plastic JustCooler and it brings down the temperature quite good.

AS5 is also very good thing to apply.

And guys do you know anything about solving a problem of applying AS5 on my MXM card and heatsink cannot actually reach the GPU and memory chips without thermal pads? Copper pads perhaps?

Ivan

 

For MR X1800 overclocking:

Powerstrip seems to be the only program that works. I have tried AtiTool, Ati Tray Tools and Rivatuner without success. Clocks reset to defaults after running 3D application. For other 3D settings and profiles I still use Ati Tray Tools. I overclocked my card from stock clocks (core:398, mem:468) to ATIs default MR X1800 clocks (450, 500). Here are my 3DMark results with Catalyst 6.11 before and after overclocking.

3DMark05: 5660, 6260, difference 600 points
3DMark06: 2960, 3280, difference 320 points

I tried FEAR and Oblivion with the new clocks and the difference is noticeable. FEAR still stutters if I use Maximum Textures because I have only 1GB ram. So I have to settle to Medium Textures, everything else still at Max. There's minor FPS boost and smoother gameplay in both games. In Oblivion I rode with my black horse (very fast) through the whole Cyrodiil, without a crash, which wasn't possible before oc. Of course I got heavy stuttering becouse of the speed of the horse but I think that was quite good test for the stability.

 

ronkotus did you try a low level or driver level OC with ATI Tray Tools? Mine will reset too if I do driver level, but will not if I use low level.

 

It didn't even allow me to set the clocks at driver level. They only stick with low level until I started 3D app. But, hey I'm fine with Powerstrip, it's not a huge resource hog.

 

Well, I have had some OC success, on my X1400, namely a ~20% in my glxgears fps. Went up from 1800FPS to around 2250FPS. Unfortunately, the fans were blasting whilst it was running at 560/445, so I'm not to sure on the stability of the setup. But it did run FF7 for about 10 minutes. Have since sets clocks back to default for now. Will think about overclocking again if I get a cooler.

 

I'm playing CSS and HL2 maxed out with HDR and 2xAA and 2xAF on my X1600 256mb.

Runs buttery smooth at STOCK clocks, guess I wont need to OC for HL2 or CSS.

 

That is an overclock of 13% for the core and 7% for the memory and you have a boost of 600 3dmark05 points. That is nice, but how are the temperatures?

I have always wanted to apply cooling paste for my CPU and GPU but I am too noobie for that I am afraid

Charlie

 

Just a question, how is it overclocking when your just returning it to original stock clocks?

 

There's no temperature sensor in my X1800 so I don't know it's temperatures. I use Coolermaster W1 for cooling. At heavy load (gaming) processor temp seems to max at 67C. Before oc it maxed at about 65C. And that is after about 4 hours of Oblivion.

 

I have never owned a Core (2) Duo so I am not very common with the temperatures of those machines but 67 degrees seems pretty high for a notebook.

My maximum temperature was 61 degrees ( without my notebook cooler) after 2 hours of gaming. I guess dual core machines run pretty hoy.

Charlie

 

Mine runs super cool once I got my heating pad. I hardly feel heat

 

Well, CPU idles at 51C which, i think, is not so hot. In normal use it stays far under 60C. Oblivion pushes the whole system to it's limits and when you play it for hours, I think those temps are ok. Actually, what I have red from other posts, these kind of temps are normal for Amilo Xi 1546.

 

Actually, those don't seem to bad. My Pentium M used to get into the 70s when I would play demanding games at high setting for extended periods of time. I have AS5 applied to both GPU and CPU now, and use a cooling pad so my temps ton't get too bad.

 

I have my Pentium M 1.86GHz undervolted and with Arctic Silver 5 applied, and the laptop is on a Pacific Breeze cooling pad. With maximum fans (in the laptop, not the cooler), my CPU temperature at 100% load is 44*C. With regular fan usage, it hovers around 52-55*C.
The overclocked X700 video card does not add a lot of heat; it has its own fan so it generally stays cool (at least from what I can tell by touching the surface above/below it).

 

Wow Chaz those are some great temperatures! My 1.73 GHz is not undervolted or overclocked, running at full load at 1.73 GHz Full performance (Spire Pacific Breeze cooler running at full) gives me a temperature of 51 degrees Celsius. After a few hours of gaming it goes up to 53-54 degrees.

Not using the cooler gives me temperatures of 61-62 degrees Celsius at full load and running at full 1.73 GHz.

Too bad I cannot see my GPU temperatures

Sorry for the off-topic reply.

Charlie

 

Clocking 'the beast' up to 459MHz for an extended period to test how stable it is. I might try 513Mhz next but that'll be more controlled as I think my gpu heats up, it certainly gets a bit tardy.

Sims 2 results @ 459MHz coming up shortly.

 

My Portege 4010 used to go over that regularly, of course that was when the cpu was taking up the slack from the stunted trident cyberblade graphics.

All cpus have mobile versions these days which generally are designed to handle a lot more heat. My PIII ULV in the Portege was designed to not start degrading until 100 degrees C, so NHC would alarm at 75 (hit 74 a cpl times but never 75) and switch off the laptop automatically at 95. Most mobile cpus are designed to take very high temperatures for a short amount of time so in the 60s shouldn't be a problem. My Celeron-M can hit 67 in intense gaming.

 

I guess that 80 is still OK if you have your GPU under the same heatsink - don't forget that it heats CPU in gaming!

 

Hi, I was just wondering if Sims 2 could be properly played on a 1.8ghz Pentium-M 745 with 1gb ram and a 64mb ATi radeon 9600? With or without overclocking.

 

Ok sims 2 results:

AT 459MHz I get 39fps with low settings at 1024*768 under normal conditions, i.e. 3 or 4 person family in a medium sized house. Once you get to parties with 8 or so people that goes down to about 23, and when you scroll around it briefly pops down to 12fps or so. I can't help thinking a 7200rpm drive would help in this game.

Hi again Johnny.

I would imagine your 9600 would be ok on the sims 2, but I have no experience of that card. I had a 9700 with 128mb which was fine but that is a more powerful card. My guess is it'd be ok but not fantastic. You may notice some symptoms I have, i.e. slowing down when the laptop has to plot a lot of characters etc. Do you know what hard drive this laptop has and how fast it spins?

 

I believe it is a 60gb SATA 5400rpm.

 

The 9600 should play great. Overclocking sure helps with those videocards. I once owned a 9600, great card if you ask me. Overclocking can give you a nice boost. And by the way your harddisk is just fine for these games.

Charlie

 

Excellent. Thank you.
NotebookSolutions, do you know of any articles or tutorials that I could read as an OC n00b? I'm interested.

 

No problem Johnny,

Ivan (topic starter and one of our best overclockers on this forum) has some great articles and posts when it comes to overclocking.

Here are some links:

Overclocking (the basics)
Heat control
Pushing to the limits!

You can also search the forum for 'Overclocking'. It should give you some good results.

By the way, if you want good performance with your 9600 install the best drivers. Not the latest drivers (those are optimased for newer videocards and will perform worse on your notebook). Falling back on the 5.xx Catalyst should work great on your notebook.

Note: I recommend a notebook cooler if you are planning overclocking. By the way: I am not responsible for any damage done to your computer/notebook.

Charlie

 

War Rock results at 459MHz:

Medium settings, 25-49fps, usually up around 40fps. Playable pretty well on high settings but a bit more fluid on medium and still looks great. Top game too, this one's staying installed!

 

Is it possible to undervolt a Core2? NHC doesn't detect anything on the CPU voltage tab. Also, wouldn't the undervolt level depend on the exact number and wattage of un-powered USB devices connected? I have USB powered external speakers that suck up most if not all of the juice of one of my USB ports (it'll stutter at max volume, indicating it wants even more), so undervolting would be a problem with it connected. Anyways, would be interesting to hear anyone who can report a successful CPU undervolt+ GPU overclock on a Core2 notebook.

 

I use RMClock to undervolt my Core Duo. I couldn't imagine it being much difference to a Core 2 Duo. I had my X1400 overclocked and my T2400 undervolted to 1.1V at load. (At idle, the Core Duos go to .950v, and they can't go lower than that.)

And, AFAIK, undervolting the CPU only lowers the available power going to the CPU itself, not other buses. In any case, I ran all my USB gadgets fine.

 

RMClock works well to undervolt Core series chips. Supposedly NHC has been tweaked somehow to allow undervolt them too, but I'm not sure.

 

Ideally undervolting should only affect the CPU, but a lot of people have problems when they connect power sucking devices to their IO ports---a 2.5" unpowered external HDD for example. I'll try RMClock though and see if it'll let me undervolt, NHC (unregistered version) won't let me.

 

Gator have you installed the latest patch of NHC?
It is a patch for Core (2) Duo systems. Maybe that will fix the bug.

Lucky me, I have an integrated downclock function in my notebook so called 'Silent Modus'. On Full Performance it clocks itself down from 1.73 to 1.43 GHz and on Battery modus from 800 MHz to 660 MHz. I tell you, it is a big difference in temperature!

Especially the last one, when going to 660 MHz the temps go down from 40* to 34*!

Ah guys we are to off-topic here

Post us some screenies of overclock results!

Charlie

 

Aww sweet, I'll try this then.

 

Don't worry about that guys - as long as the discussion is hardware-related, feel free to post what you want. This is our "Team" thread, after all.

I have been running an undervolted processor for a long time now with zero problems. My Pentium M 750 is undervolted to .780V/1.100V. Undervolting helps keep the heat down at idle, although at full tilt, the fans are not always on as high of a speed as they are with normal voltage, and thus the heat from the other components (video card, and so on) is not dissipated as fast, which can actually cause the notebook to get hotter. This is solved by putting the fans on max however. More info can be found in the cooling guide.

 

Hey guys, I have no experience with core 2 duo undervolting, but there are some issues with usb and the very lowest voltages of the cpu. Namely if you undervolt to the lowest possible setting, and run tests for hours, without anything connected to usbs, no optical drive activity or anything - it can work flawlessly. Then plug in your external drive that draws 5V from the usb port. It will most probably crash that second. I can undervolt my PM at the lowest multiplier below 0,716 V (Default is 0,988 V), and it works. but if I want to be sure, my lowest is 0,732 V. I think that I have explained that in one of my articles.

Charlie - that S button is great - did you notice that it changes the multiplier BELOW the lowest factory locked multiplier? That is absolutely awesome. My brother gets 1,5 hours longer battery time that way. in his case 1,86 GHz Pentium M 750 with the lowest 6x multiplier works at 4x! I think it must be a hardware trick with Fsb.

What I actually would like to do is undervolting the GPU! I understand that in the new ATT you can do it on cards that support overdrive. x700 is not among those.

So guys with x1xx cards may try and see what happens. If the overdrive is greyed out, you can try and force it in advanced registry settings in Att.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

No luck on the patched NHC undervolting. Hmm maybe I'm overlooking something obvious.

 

Will overclocking voild warrenties?

 

Yes, it usually does but its dificult to prove.

 

As long as you are not volt modding, overclocking is hard to prove.

Charlie

 

Ah the joys of Volt moding. Oh, how I miss having a desktop to do that to