Quick Question Regarding Coolbits

Mobius 1 · 3 Apr 2006 at 15:59

My system spec is in my signature. Here is a screenshot of the overclocking panel (i installed the coolbits reg key). My question is, do you guys overclock your card manually or do you put it on auto? Will i damage my card if i put it on auto? Or will i be ok? Thanks

tbz_ck · 3 Apr 2006 at 16:01

Run the "Detect Optimal Frequencies" from that button, and then set your card manually to just a smidgen under those values (to be on the safe side)

Dutch Guy · 3 Apr 2006 at 16:03

tbz_ck said:
Run the "Detect Optimal Frequencies" from that button, and then set your card manually to just a smidgen under those values (to be on the safe side)

Yes, I agree, after it is set to the overclocked speed, run some games and benchmarks and look for artifacts etc..

dual2max · 3 Apr 2006 at 16:04

1. click manual overclock
2. click optimize frequencies
3. click apply settings at start up

Reboot and overclock...

Mobius 1 · 3 Apr 2006 at 16:09

Thanks guys, i didn't wanna break my card as atm i cant afford another one. But this advice is good and i will take it

Gonna try it now

Mobius 1 · 4 Apr 2006 at 14:04

Sorry for the double post guys. But i had done what you said, put it on manual overclocking, then i clicked detect optimal frequencies. So i said apply changes on restart, I restarted. Everything went fine, it booted into windows. I then proceed to play oblivion. No problems there. I then have a go with day of defeat source. This is where i had problems, i got artifacting on a map, loads of colours etc. What should i do about it? Just set it back to default? I hope i havent broke it!

Dutch Guy · 4 Apr 2006 at 14:08

Set it back to default, see if that plays fine and just leave it at that.

It's not worth messing with if you really cannot afford to break the card, it is plenty fast at stock.

Mobius 1 · 4 Apr 2006 at 14:09

Dutch Guy said:
Set it back to default, see if that plays fine and just leave it at that.

It's not worth messing with if you really cannot afford to break the card, it is plenty fast at stock.

Yeh i think i'll leave it at default. Funny how it worked for one game but not the other, just wanted to have a play about as i havent overclocked anything yet, and that seemed the easiest part of the pc to overclock. Do you think i have damaged the card?

Emlyn_Dewar · 4 Apr 2006 at 14:11

Don't trust the optimal frequencies that coolbits detects, for my 6800GS it set the clocks WAY to high. Manual overclock all the way!

Mobius 1 · 4 Apr 2006 at 14:13

It detected mine at (i think) 490mhz and 130ghz :/

Dutch Guy · 4 Apr 2006 at 14:23

-Tauren- said:
Do you think i have damaged the card?

I don't think so, reset it to default and play the game and map where it last failed.

I also had to lower my overclock, auto overclock suggested 490Mhz on my 7800GT but that gave me corruption in F.E.A.R. so I had to lower it to 480Mhz but that gave me a lockup in TW2006 so now it's at 470Mhz

Mobius 1 · 4 Apr 2006 at 14:26

Dutch Guy said:
I don't think so, reset it to default and play the game and map where it last failed.

I also had to lower my overclock, auto overclock suggested 490Mhz on my 7800GT but that gave me corruption in F.E.A.R. so I had to lower it to 480Mhz but that gave me a lockup in TW2006 so now it's at 470Mhz

Thanks for the advice.. to be honest, even if i did lower the clock settings say, 10mhz or something (from optimum frequencies). Would that even give a noticeable boost to how fast the games play? :-/

Edit: Retried the same map on DoD:S and it seems to be fine.

Dutch Guy · 4 Apr 2006 at 15:22

-Tauren- said:
Thanks for the advice.. to be honest, even if i did lower the clock settings say, 10mhz or something (from optimum frequencies). Would that even give a noticeable boost to how fast the games play? :-/

Edit: Retried the same map on DoD:S and it seems to be fine.

Have a look at these clockspeed scaling articles:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2494&p=3
http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/leadtek/7800r/index.php?p=17

There are several clockspeed increases that are important and the increase in speed isn't linear.

PoliticallyCorrect · 4 Apr 2006 at 15:36

with coolbits it's a good idea to bring the clocks down by at let 20MHz when it's found the optimum ones, even tho it's unlucky to break the card, the coolbits test isn't very relevant to games (no artifact testing). Also u don't wana completely destroy the life of the chip.

sorry to chance the subject, but that's a really kool windows theme. What's it called and where did you get it from ?

Mobius 1 · 4 Apr 2006 at 17:51

Dutch Guy said:
Have a look at these clockspeed scaling articles:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2494&p=3
http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/leadtek/7800r/index.php?p=17

There are several clockspeed increases that are important and the increase in speed isn't linear.

Those charts are pointing towards positive effects? Will it also reduce the life of the card?

In reply to Slenpree. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/25017488/

Its a port of Blue curve. But looks nicer.

Dutch Guy · 4 Apr 2006 at 18:51

-Tauren- said:
Those charts are pointing towards positive effects? Will it also reduce the life of the card?

Yes, overclocking makes the card faster, what I meant by it is that the increase isn't linear, there is no increase in speed between ~450Mhz and ~472Mhz or between 475Mhz and nearly 500Mhz.

So your aim should be 450Mhz or 475Mhz

Mobius 1 · 4 Apr 2006 at 19:01

Dutch Guy said:
Yes, overclocking makes the card faster, what I meant by it is that the increase isn't linear, there is no increase in speed between ~450Mhz and ~472Mhz or between 475Mhz and nearly 500Mhz.

So your aim should be 450Mhz or 475Mhz

Ah thankyou, you've cleared that up for me, I was a bit stumped tbh. Lol.

Will the life of my card be reduced a lot if i turn the core clock up to 450mhz? Also, what about the memory clock? leave that the same i assume

Dutch Guy · 4 Apr 2006 at 19:47

-Tauren- said:
Will the life of my card be reduced a lot if i turn the core clock up to 450mhz? Also, what about the memory clock? leave that the same i assume

Ihave never had a videocard fail on me and I had a 6800NU card overclocked and unlocked for well well over a year, main thing is as soon as you see graphical distorsions and sparklies you reduce the overclock.

I can't possibly tell you what is best for your card as all cards are diffferent.

What are the stock clockspeeds of your card?

Mobius 1 · 4 Apr 2006 at 20:08

Dutch Guy said:
Ihave never had a videocard fail on me and I had a 6800NU card overclocked and unlocked for well well over a year, main thing is as soon as you see graphical distorsions and sparklies you reduce the overclock.

I can't possibly tell you what is best for your card as all cards are diffferent.

What are the stock clockspeeds of your card?

I see.. so my card could differ from another card with the same speeds etc? I am at 430mhz and 1.20ghz.

HangTime · 5 Apr 2006 at 00:40

Dutch Guy said:
Yes, overclocking makes the card faster, what I meant by it is that the increase isn't linear, there is no increase in speed between ~450Mhz and ~472Mhz or between 475Mhz and nearly 500Mhz.

So your aim should be 450Mhz or 475Mhz

If you look at the scaling on the left handside of that Anand test, it's slightly misleading in that the scale on the left starts at 60 so the jumps are exaggerated.

Also, just because the PS performance doesn't benefit greatly from certain overclocking, the VS performance does. According to that article, Vertex performance increases linearly with clockspeed, so there is still a gain from 472mhz over 450 and 495 over 475.