OC result - please advice

My specs are noted in the signature.

I've OC-ed my config to: 550 / 1150 / 800
The 'stock clocks' are: 475 / 950 / 702

Results when OC-ed:
5450 3dmarks => max. core temp: 73 degrees
Crysis => max. core temp: 76 degrees after 30min of playing

-There are no artefacts - not in 3dmark of in Crysis.

-The fans are a little noise though. In Crysis they run constantly. When OC-ed the core is about 3 to 4 degrees hotter in Crysis after 30mins, than in stock.

What do you guyz suggest? You think there's more 'safe' headroom left? Or am I already pushing it? I'm new to this game, so I'd like to hear some opinions

Thx in advance!

 

I think thats enough buddy

 

Haha really? Is this already pushing it? Because I've read stories about not going past 85 degrees and I'm way under that. Could you maybe explain a little more?

 

its not pushing it, but you are on the safe side right now, i think you can still squeeze 6k 3dmark06 if you are confident that your temps are great for your usage, and about the 85c temp, it varies from a card to another. for your card i'd say better stay under 80c just to be 100% sure that no damage is going to happen no matter what

 

You're right - I don't want to push my luck. I'll play Crysis tonight for about an hour. Then when temps are still max. 76 degrees, I might turn it up until I get a max. of 78 degrees after an hour of Crysis.

 

if you start seeing artifacts or your game crashes or windows crashes, you are pushing it too much and you have to take it back a notch.

you could keep going, but you probably won't be able to go much further, so you have already taken the bulk of the performance you are going to get OCing. i would call it done. 550 / 800 is already a lot faster than stock. unless you are really interested in getting like .25 fps more...

 

Thanks for your advice!

I've decided to take it to 78 degrees stressed, after half an hour of Crysis. The extra fps is really awesome - I'm totally amazed by the results!

Right now I run at: 575 / 1175 / 834 and get 76 degrees after 30min of Crysis and no artefacts. 3Dmark is 5630 now. I won't be taking it much further, but hey - 76 degrees isn't really hot yet. Let's check out how much faster it can go before it reaches 78 degrees..

thx again - appreciate it!

 

Well, I think I'm running at 600/1200 and 740 on the memory.. I was thinking about bumping it up to 800 on the memory.
I'm getting around 82 under load now, and around 71-73 idle. The DDR3 card runs hotter than the DDR2 card which is something to take into account. According to posts I've seen on this board, the card can handle temps up to 100. Although I definatly wouldn't push it that hard.
What I'm wondering is, are the gains really worth the OC? I've yet to make my decision.

 

I have 8600M GT with DDR2 and overclocked it to 675/1350/500(defaults 475/900/400) and it passed the 3DMark 06 with no artifacts or anything, although when testing with AtiTool, had a lot of artifacts on these freqs. GPU temps were up to 90C and then the fan would go to max and the temp would drop. So I guess you can go more with GPU if you like to push to the maximum.

 

well you could squeeze 5 more Frames from Grbac's clocks, its now your call

 

Alright - I've reached the 78 degrees steady after playing 50min of Crysis. Funny thing is; when I run a 3Dmark, it still won't go over 73degrees.. so I guess the only real benchmark is Crysis - it's a difference of 5 degrees!

My definitive settings are: 586 / 1188 / 846
3dmarks: 5666

And now I get a Crysis-framerate somewhere between 24 and 30 @ 1440x900 with textures low, shadows low, objects medium and everything else high. I'm happy - and won't be pushing it any further (yet)