Graphic Card OC'ing Lifespan?

[Combusted]

Hey people!

Got my XFX 8800GTX today, and it's freakin awesome

I was told (I think by Loadsa)
That it is quite overclockable,
I checked the overclocking forums, and there was no information on GPU Overclocking, was unsure whether to put this here or there... but here goes

First of all on average how much does OC'ing the GPU reduce lifespan by...? If we're talking half... i'm probably not interested in doing it...

Second of all, does anyone know some appropriate clocks to clock the XFX 8800GTX to without extra cooling/water cooling? (If at all)

Edit: I'm using Ntune as my Clocking Tool.

Thanks in advance, and sorry if i posted this in the wrong place...

 

[AgedIdiot]

As each chip (and build quality of a card)is a little different it is impossible to say with any certainty how much a particular card will overclock or how much such will shorten the life of the card.

Main side effect of overclocking is extra heat which if unchecked can be a killer. You obviously have to keep an eye on it.

Do not own a 8800GTX myself so cannot comment on what you might/could hope to get to.

 

[thegoonden]

Well BFG can ship them at 626/2000/1450 so that's a good aim point. (though the real values are a teeny bit lower, owing to multipliers).

As for lifespan....well I'd say a little OC'ing does no harm, BUT run it one notch down from the clock it fails at, and do so 24/7 then it's going for an early (or at least earlier) grave,
My GTS was clocked to something stupid on stock cooler for a year and never cared.

Still running happy for me bro too, but he's a pussy and won't clock it.

 

[Rroff]

I've run most of my graphic cards with very high clocks and none of them died before I retired them for a better card... I'd say most of these cards probably have a close to 10 year MFR and aslong as you keep the heat in control then they will probably still last 7+ years... in reality if your still running a graphic card 5 years down the line then you would be able to replace it with something more than twice as fast for £30.

Heat (and voltage if you vmod) is the real killer - if your running it at 90+C for long periods daily then it probably won't last more than 18-24 months.

 

[Combusted]

if your running it at 90+C for long periods daily then it probably won't last more than 18-24 months.

Well, that's a good number to know, Cheers
I did a little temperature test, and went on Crysis, all settings on high, 1280x1024, Tried AA on Off and 8xQ, didn't make much difference, and the highest i saw was 84C...
So if i overclocked it, how much is this likely to change? say if i took it up to the
BFG OC2 clocks. would that liekly to boost it to 90C+?
However, I'm unsure if the fans were at max %, because it auto adjusts, right? whenever it hit 84, it'd quite quickly go back down to 81/82

Thanks for the replies

 

[Rroff]

Make sure you have good air flow through the case and aslong as you aren't gaming 8+ hours a day every day then any moderate or even high overclock should last far beyond the useful life of the card.

 

[Combusted]

Ok, done some overclocking, and figured i'd post here rather than making a new thread.

Default is 600/1350/950 (Anyone tell me why the last number is halved...?)
I put it up to 626/1450/1000 And Average FPS went up by 2 in the Crysis Benchmark (All HIGH, no AA, 1280x1024)
I then put it up to 632/1551/1000 and the average FPS went down by 1 from the previous clock... and the minimum FPS dropped. Anyone know why it fell?
The temperatures are still as they were without clocking (81-84C).
I saw no discoloration... glitches etc in the crysis benchmark, So would this be considered a stable clock?

Thanks again for the helpful replies, glad i came here, you all know so much i could never

 

[Minstadave]

I've never managed to kill a graphics card, even when overclocked to the limit, but I always use aftermarket coolers to keep temps under controlled.

 

[Smoogels]

An old gtx won't be hitting 750 thats for sure.

 

[sulli]

Ok, done some overclocking, and figured i'd post here rather than making a new thread.

Default is 600/1350/950 (Anyone tell me why the last number is halved...?)
I put it up to 626/1450/1000 And Average FPS went up by 2 in the Crysis Benchmark (All HIGH, no AA, 1280x1024)
I then put it up to 632/1551/1000 and the average FPS went down by 1 from the previous clock... and the minimum FPS dropped. Anyone know why it fell?
The temperatures are still as they were without clocking (81-84C).
I saw no discoloration... glitches etc in the crysis benchmark, So would this be considered a stable clock?

Thanks again for the helpful replies, glad i came here, you all know so much i could never

some times a drop in fps at a higher clock means that its not stable.
Try overclocking one thing at a time, start with the shaders as they give the biggest performance boost then do the core clock then memory.
when clocking raise by 5mhz and test using the artifact scanner in ati tool run for at least ten mins if u get no artifacts raise the clock again and retest when you get artifacts drop the clock and retest, repeat proccess for shaders core and mem. Have fun

 

[Combusted]

some times a drop in fps at a higher clock means that its not stable.
Try overclocking one thing at a time, start with the shaders as they give the biggest performance boost then do the core clock then memory.
when clocking raise by 5mhz and test using the artifact scanner in ati tool run for at least ten mins if u get no artifacts raise the clock again and retest when you get artifacts drop the clock and retest, repeat proccess for shaders core and mem. Have fun

Thanks man, i went and got the ATI tool, but i'm unsure which slider to change... There's 3... 2D, 3D low power and 3D perf.
Which do i change?

When i tried to use find max core/memory it crashed after a few seconds for Core, and a minute for memory..

 

[Combusted]

Right, I've found the max for each Core and memory, now do i set them both to that? or like, half each...?

 

[thegoonden]

Not sure of ATItool, but rivatuner allows you to load the clock settings on boot.

However, it's not the smartest move to do so until you've run the card faultlessly for quite a while. Last thing you need is the card passing out on you before you can get to Rivatuner. There's one other complication with it, that I came accross. If you put another card in the machine, Rivatuner will apply the clock settings to it!
When I swapped my 6800pro with my bro's 5200le (machine was destined for no more games, so the better card was better off with him), rivatuner dutifully set it's clocks to 420 1150, which it was less than chuffed with, had to put the old card back, kill the overclock on boot option and try again, with great success.
Best move is to set the clocks with Rivatuner (unless of course, anyone knows better), then save the settings as a profile that you can recall when you need that extra Vavavoooom.

What did you get it stable at BTW? Mine goes loopy if I push it past the BFG defaults at all.