How to improve my 260 (216 cores) OC?

[TB303]

Hi People,
I'm getting used to my new Rig and today POCed my XFX 216 (260 Cores) for the first time.

I achieved a fairly stable 720Mhz GPU, 1552Mhz Shader and 1200Mhz on the memory - this amounts to a 3D mark Vantage score of 12705 (GPU 10314, CPU 41727 - respectable?). avarage core temp while gaming was around 60c peaking briefly at 65c (GPU fan at 60%),

I'm saying its fairly stabkle because after an hour of playing GTA4 (in all its glory, may I add) I did notice some very mild artifects, lkike once in 5 minutes one texture woudl be out of place for a second. It didn't look like 'proper' artifects I have witnessed before. I feel I could go further on the core perhaps also the memory, but I also want to get rid of the artifects. Is there anything I can do? Perhaps incease voltage to the card? Anythign else? Please share yoru thoughts,

Thanks!

Spec:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (400x9 3.6Ghz - 1.36Vcore)
Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro
4GB Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2 Dominator, PC2-8500(1066)
XFX GTX 260 (216 Cores)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P iP45
Coolermaster RealPower 700W
Antec 300 Three Hundred Case

[Eliminator]

well if youre getting artifacts then you went too far... volt modding the GTX 280/260 doesnt help as much as having water cooling

[kaptkarl]

Originally Posted by TB303

Hi People,
I'm getting used to my new Rig and today POCed my XFX 216 (260 Cores) for the first time.

I achieved a fairly stable 720Mhz GPU, 1552Mhz Shader and 1200Mhz on the memory - this amounts to a 3D mark Vantage score of 12705 (GPU 10314, CPU 41727 - respectable?). avarage core temp while gaming was around 60c peaking briefly at 65c (GPU fan at 60%),

I'm saying its fairly stabkle because after an hour of playing GTA4 (in all its glory, may I add) I did notice some very mild artifects, lkike once in 5 minutes one texture woudl be out of place for a second. It didn't look like 'proper' artifects I have witnessed before. I feel I could go further on the core perhaps also the memory, but I also want to get rid of the artifects. Is there anything I can do? Perhaps incease voltage to the card? Anythign else? Please share yoru thoughts,

Thanks!


Spec:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (400x9 3.6Ghz - 1.36Vcore)
Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro
4GB Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2 Dominator, PC2-8500(1066)
XFX GTX 260 (216 Cores)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P iP45
Coolermaster RealPower 700W
Antec 300 Three Hundred Case

Seeing artifacts tells me you need to back down on the OC abit. Might I suggest backing off the shader clock first. BTW, what are you stock speeds? And I would go to a water cooling setup before attempting a voltage mod.....don't want to fry the card.

Why are you wanting to push it anyway? Are you having trouble running any games maxed out? My EVGA 216 core runs everything I throw at it full bore @ 1920x1200. Although I did OC mine abit also (see sig).


Kapt

[Feyy]

Try with GPU fan at 80% with the same overclock and see if you still get artifacts.

[john19055]

Try turning your shaders down a little and see if that helps you don'nt gain that much with them that high,just taking a chace of messing up your card.If you were running your card that high ,I would log my tempertures and see how hot it gets with a heavy GPU dependent game ,I bet at just 60% with the fan it gets hotter then 65c,thats probally why you are seeing artifacts.

[TB303]

Hi People,
I added another fan and sorted some air flow issues in the case (who needs a sound card that doesn't work in Vista anyway? ;-)
and now reached:
Core 780Mhz/Shader 1570Mhz/1150Mhz memory - which is rock stable at Fan running 60% and I'm playign GTA for hours. I'm sure I can go a bit further but can clearly see it's the shader that drags me down, you can unlike them in Riva Tuner but there can only be a certain gap (400Mhz?) that above it you have to increase one to increase the other. I think the memory can go further.

Please share your thoughts,

Here is my GTA4 Bench result:

Statistics
Average FPS: 58.03
Duration: 37.09 sec
CPU Usage: 71%
System memory usage: 65%
Video memory usage: 96%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Very High
View Distance: 32
Detail Distance: 70

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Ultimate
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (780Mhz/ Shader 1570Mhz/1150Mhz memory)
Video Driver version: 180.84
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 3.60GHz

[mailman2]

I doubt thats really stable, try running Furmark for a bit.

[jcrox]

Originally Posted by john19055

Try turning your shaders down a little and see if that helps you don'nt gain that much with them that high,just taking a chace of messing up your card.If you were running your card that high ,I would log my tempertures and see how hot it gets with a heavy GPU dependent game ,I bet at just 60% with the fan it gets hotter then 65c,thats probally why you are seeing artifacts.

65c would not make one of these cards artifact... not even close.

[TB303]

Originally Posted by mailman2

I doubt thats really stable, try running Furmark for a bit.

Thanks,
Furmark really does crash the card in minutes. What should I reduce? Is it memory? Should I crank up the fan?

Because in real games (Crysis, GTA4) I can play for hours...

[john19055]

Thats why I was saying turn down your shader clock .that is useally the first thing to start crashing.

[Revs]

TB303, you look to have pretty much reached the OC limits or your card. There is much more to be gained by upping your FSB anyway. 450x8 on your CPU would give a nice gain over 400x9. Messing with the GPU OC any more will only gain you a % or two in terms of performance and will really be straining you card.

Just my opinion

EDIT: If you still want to get more out of your card, try dropping the core a little (700mhz ish) and raising the memory OC.

[TB303]

Originally Posted by Revs

TB303, you look to have pretty much reached the OC limits or your card. There is much more to be gained by upping your FSB anyway. 450x8 on your CPU would give a nice gain over 400x9. Messing with the GPU OC any more will only gain you a % or two in terms of performance and will really be straining you card.

Just my opinion

EDIT: If you still want to get more out of your card, try dropping the core a little (700mhz ish) and raising the memory OC.

Thanks People great advice! Will try 450*8

Regarding lowering the Shader clock, they seem to be linked, the more I lower the shader the more I have to Lower the core clock, even if I use Riva Tuner's 'Unlink frequencies'. - Am I missing something?