gpu overclocking

I never, ever, thought I'd find myself overclocking my GPU, not after my 8600m gt experience. But after getting my temps in a really happy range (furmark 75c max w/oc, then fan kicks in and brings it down to about 69c. unfortunately it cools too much and kicks off again) I decided to give it a go, and now I'm feeling like I can't live without it. 5-6fps increase basically.

I've got an asus g50vt-x5, with a geforce 9800m gs. I'm overclocking using ntune to the 9800m gt clocks (600/800/1500). It's running on stock voltages, with 182.1 drivers. Again, max temp is 75c while overclocking, which is about 15c cooler than I was maxing before I did my mods (copper mod, cooler, etc) on stock temps. Before, when the fan would kick on and NOT bring temps down drastically, I only noticed a 1c temp rise with the overclock.

Now my question is, will overclocking, in my situation, negatively impact the lifespan of my card? I know for cpu's it doesn't unless you raise voltages, and while it does wear slightly more it's something like 2 months on a 10 year period. Which is of course, fine. Is the 9800m gs basically a down-clocked 9800m gt? If so, it shouldn't make any difference, especially with my cooling.

I want to keep this my gaming notebook for a good while, I don't upgrade very often, which is why I went through great lengths to get my temps down.

If anyone has some good solid fact on this issue, please inform me.

Thanks!

 

9800M GS is a downclocked 9800M GTS, 9800M GT is a totally different card with higher amount of shaders(96 versus 64 of 9800M GTS/GS) and lower clocks.

If your OC runs stable at default 9800M GS voltage and stays cool as you stated, there ain't much you need to worry about. Many 9800M GS users run the card at 9800M GTS speed.

 

Ah I see, my mistake. So if it's running stable and cool, it shouldn't make much of an impact on my what I'm hoping to be at least 3 year run with this thing? Might be longer, idk.

voltages are the same
temps are really cool
but card is working harder

Plenty of people OC all the time without any long term issues right? I just know laptop GPUS fail a lot...but I guess that's because of heat, and I've got that under control.

 

Well, if you plan to keep your laptop for 3 years or longer, than you might want to reconsider the risk of your OC, perhaps only OC in certain games in which the 9800M GS struggles, keep your card running at default speed when running not so demanding games(this is what I have been doing also).

High temp is one thing that can could damage your card in the long run, but there are definitely other factors that could potentially be detrimental to your system. I have seen quite a lot of people here on the forum got great temp with their video cards while OCing but still ended up frying their cards, simply because they pushed their cards beyond the limit the cards can take, the damage may not occur immediately, but in the long term the life span of the cards are guaranteed to be shortened.

Then again, you should be okay if you just running the card at GTS speed in certain games instead of all the games you play, constantly watch the temp and don't push the card further, then you might as well stop worrying.

 

Well after hearing that I probably wont OC...I had no idea. I always thought it was relatively safe as long as it was kept cool and voltages weren't increased. I knew it shortened lifespan by a small amount, like i mentioned before, but if it effect it in a 3 year period I wont bother.

I only OC in games that need it, and not all the time or during movies/less demanding games. But still, I don't think I want to take any chances.

 

The problem is no one can tell you how much negative effect the OC will put out on your card, if you are very protective of your card and want it to last more than 3 years, then stopping OCing your card sounds very reasonable to me.

May I ask in what games do you OC your video card?

 

I only started the other day. So far I've done it in mass effect and borderlands.

It doesn't raise temps at all actually, and I get a solid 5+ additional fps out of it. The difference between smooth and acceptable.