Overclocking 330m vaio z - Results

Hi everyone,

Sorry for making a new thread yet I feel this is sort important.

As many of you know a while back I posted some overclocking settings for the 330m that I had found very stable and a lot of you guys reported back that they worked really well for you too.

So today I "might" have found something interesting as I succefully ran a 3dmark06 with a lot higher clock settings than I have been able to before!

The old settings were:

core: 618 / shader: 1360 (linked) / memory: 815

And with those I scored around 6880 to 6905 in 3dmark06 depending on day and drivers and all.

New clocks are:

core: 630 / shader: 1386 (linked) / memory: 840

And I just scored 7021 !!

Proof:
Result

How ever!!! This is not a brag post or a post for people to start debating wether 3dmark means or not. we all know its useless yet it gives A NUMBER to actually compare to thats why im using it.

Long story short!

I think the reason for this is because I have DISABLED the Intel gpu via the hacked bios. I have no actual knowlegde about the power supplied to the gpu's are devided like that or how it works, so for now its just a theory!

But I am super excited to have reached the 7000 mark for the first time I thought it deserved a post haha

On a more serious note this could be (be aware of any risks and so on) something other people want to try and experiement with as we all know the only thing holding our Vaio Z back is the Nvidia gpu.

Cheers.
- Thomas

 

What are your default clocks?

 

default clocks are:

475 / 1045 / 700

 

Mine 330M is on VAIO F series laptop and it's default clocks are higher. I believe that it was downclocked because this small laptop can not manage with overheating as bigger series. So I believe it will be stable OCed even higher if temps will let it.
Mine OCed GPPU is 730/948/1606 but it is the highest profile which I do not use playing Crysis 2 because of overheating on this game.

PS I was going to download that program before I figured out that it is somehow huge! (500MB+). I suggest you use FurMark on custom resolution 1600x900 for example (or little less)

 

Just out of curiosity, what is your 330M's voltage when under full load? (You can use HWMonitor for checking)

 

0,95 if not mistaken. I use GPU-z for that

 

I'm not sure how much of a difference hacking the Intel GPU off really makes, I still have mine as an option and going with the speeds you did I get 7010 in 3dMark06 with 260.63 drivers.

I ran several stress tests with 3dMarkVantage earlier in the year and if I get up in those ranges though my gpu drivers stop responding for a second for about 1/6 benchmarks. I can go higher with the core, its the memory clock that causes issues over 830 in my case.

I've been happily running 620/1364/830 for a while now and its completely stable for me and my temps don't go above 86

 

FYI - With 285.62 drivers and the 330m clocked to 630 core 1386 Shader, and 840 Memory, I hit 7474 in 3dmark06. GPU temp maxed at 75c. This is in a very cold room however (Winter here and the computer room is sitting at about 16-18c). Using hacked bios for static graphics selection. Will continue to play with the clock speeds a bit to see how much higher I can get it. Also going to move the laptop into a normal ambient temperature room to test once I get home (running tests remotely from work) and see how the max temps go then.

Vaio Z VPCZ122GX i5 2.5ghz, 8gb HyperX Ram, 2x64gb SDD Raid 0, 128gb OCZ Vertex 3 Extreme IOPS SSD.

 

I suggest you to check if you can OC Memory to the max. It gives great improvent in perdormance for GDDR3 while not making as big influence on stability like other 2

 

With the 330m set to 645/1419/875, I managed to get 7736 in 3dmark 06. Not certain that the 645/1419 setting is stable however, still looking into this. Will scale this back a little and start testing the memory more.

 

Results so far, a clock speed of and above 645 and linked shader of 1419 appears to cause instability. 642 is the closest I have been able to get so far while maintaining basic stability. I could attempt to put more voltage into it, but the temps are hitting 83c maxed out when benchmark testing, and I would prefer to go no higher than that.

Memory appears to be linked to clock/shader speeds for its stability. For instance, at 642 clock, memory will top out at ~ 925-930 for stability, beyond that, intermittent instability.
Clocking GPU back down to 640 will then allow me to put the memory a little higher with stability, netting me 960+ mem speeds.

The CPU scores annoyingly change slightly, probably due to random processes and the turbo. The test results can vary the as much as 40+/- points in 3dmark because of this. After I started noticing this, I started recording the individual scores so as to be able to more accurately judge the results without the CPU score skewing the tests. The results I am posting are averages for each setting, I ran 6 benchmark tests for each setting to ensure basic stability and ensure it wasn't a glitch. After running half the tests for each GPU setting, I would restart the computer and run the last three sets tests for accuracy.

3DMark06 - V1.2 Default settings - Resolution 1280x845 (screen can only do up to 900 width)

GPU Shader Mem Score
635 / 1397 / 875 - 7680 - 3187 SM2 - 3075 HDR - 2775 CPU
635 /1397 /900 -7745 - 3223 SM2 - 3105 HDR - 2771 CPU
640 /1408 /900 -7784 - 3237 SM2 - 3127 HDR - 2777 CPU
640 /1408 /920 -7886 - 3280 SM2 - 3169 HDR - 2808 CPU
640 /1408 /940 -7880 - 3285 SM2 - 3166 HDR - 2792 CPU
640 /1408 /945 -7923 - 3299 SM2 - 3180 HDR - 2824 CPU
640 /1408 /950 -7942 - 3302 SM2 - 3199 HDR - 2822 CPU
640 /1408 /960 -7973 - 3328 SM2 - 3207 HDR - 2807 CPU <-Best so far
642 /1412 /920 -7900 - 3293 SM2 - 3162 HDR - 2823 CPU
642 /1412 /930 -7905 - 3302 SM2 - 3167 HDR - 2806 CPU
642 /1419 /940 -7938 - Only managed to get one test out of 8 to pass, unstable at 940mem/642clock
645 /1419 /875 -7736 - Appears unstable due to clock at 645/1419


I will probably be setting my card to 640/1408/920 for gaming sessions, slightly lower than what I can run at max stable. I may look into a slight voltage increase later on when I tear the unit apart to replace thermal paste for CPU and figure out the best option for GPU cooling since they use a thermal pad, and look into new pads for the memory modules.

Will be away from home for Christmas and SWTOR just came out, so beefing up this laptop as much as possible to use it to play on while away from my gaming rig.

Will do more tests either this weekend or next week when I have time, looking to see if I cant break 8k on 3dmark06.

 

+rep!
As I told here before the main thing to increase is memory!
So why did you choose to stay with only 920 Mhz for memory???

 

I might increase what I use as my default memory speed here based on how high the tests go, but generally speaking, memory is a easy thing to burn out quickly when overclocking. I don't have any good solutions to ensure it stays cool either, so hesitant to keep it too high since if it goes, I have to replace the whole motherboard in there. So being a little cautious here

Been doing my next round of testing here, great results thus far, mem clocked at 1000 now and counting, broke the 8k goal for 3dmark as well. Going to start doing a couple tests just to see if the core clock will take a little increase now with the memory that high or if its still limited to 640 stable range.

 

Latest round of testing:

640/1408/970 - 7971 - 3321 SM2 - 3216 HDR - 2800 CPU
640/1408/975 - 8004 - 3329 SM2 - 3231 HDR - 2820 CPU
640/1408/980 - 8014 - 3339 SM2 - 3221 HDR - 2839 CPU *Note that around here GPU temp reaches 84c max
640/1408/1000 - 8085 - 3374 SM2 - 3264 HDR - 2822 CPU
640/1408/1040 - 8154 - 3396 SM2 - 3319 HDR - 2807 CPU
640/1408/1050 - Unstable
641/1410/1000 - 8096 - 3379 SM2 - 3279 HDR - 2807 CPU
641/1410/1040 - 8153 - 3418 SM2 - 3302 HDR - 2796 CPU
641/1410/1050 - Unstable
641/1410/1060 - Unstable
642/1410/1000 - Unstable

Could attempt to drop the core clock down to 630 or so then see if the memory would ramp up more, but will save that for the future. Looking like 640/1408/1040 is the highest clock I can do currently. Will do some extended tests on this.

 

What you said about memory is true, it is dangerous.
I can't OC memory so high. I don't remember if I have DDR3 OR GDDR3. The highest I can reach using Nvidia Tool is 904 I guess.

 

Holy crap! To think I was happy getting mine up to 620/1364/910.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/8130678-post4.html

 

If you would see the ridiculous thermal conductive sheets that get pushed down on the the VGA memory chips with the keyboard, you won't run your MEM clocks so high. I would advise to get a copper plate fit on the VGA ram that takes care of the heat better.

 

Ive seen it. They had some of those thick rubber type thermal pads on the chips which then touches the metal backing for the keyboard to dissipate heat. One of the modules didnt even have a pad on it. I put new thermal pads on all of them, Phobya XT's. I agree though, a copper shim would be better for them. Going to take some time after the holidays to measure up what is needed for the memory and the GPU itself since they have a crappy thermal pad on it as well.