What a difference a little voltage makes...

[HangTime]

Nothing too spectacular I'm afraid, but I just thought I'd mention this for anyone else seeking to extend the life of older cards.

I've got a Leadtek 6800GT, and one of the things which has had me somewhat baffled is the fact that the memory didn't like being overclocked AT ALL. It didn't even like 1020mhz. The core wasn't too bad, clocking up to ultra speeds, but still not as good as others have acheived. This was my biggest frustation, seeing plenty of others running GTs at above ultra speeds while my memory was stuck at default.

So anyway, today I did a bit of research into BIOS modifications and it seems it wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be... no need to go trawling about with a hex editor, I didn't realise there were these utilities out there to basically do it for you.

So anyway, I whacked up the 3d voltage and my card now seems ok to run at 416/1151... an extra 15mhz on the core (nothing special but might be able to push a bit more out of it) and a whopping 150mhz on the RAM! Temps have increased slightly, and in all likelihood it will reduce the lifespan of my card - but who cares, in a years time it probably won't be fast enough to run the latest games well anyway

 

[amdnv]

Its simple and even helps the ram too funny enough, though 1.55v is max you will get without hardware mod, If you set it to 1.6v, you can measure card with multimeter and see its 1.55v as of limitation of protection, this is for agp and I think pc-e's are same for 6800 range.

 

[benjo]

Hmm, interesting. My X800XT-PE doesnt like having the ram altered at all....

Its at 560, i move it 2mhz and i get artifacts.

Do you reckon its the same thing?

 

[amdnv]

No idea, but it was the core he pumped up volts on, you cant do ram without a hardware mod, but it does help the ram as I said even though its the core your adding to, but I cant say for ati.

Best bet is visit :

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

 

[fireblade900]

Have you tested the card with 3DMark05? Everytime I upped the voltage on my old XFX 6800GT it would display corruption. I had the same issues as you, it wouldn't clock anywhere near Ultra speeds and the memeory didn't like being clocked at all.

 

[amdnv]

As I said earlier today about GT's and ram, does your card have 2.0ns or 1.6ns same as Ultra ?

 

[Aidoscuz]

Hmm, interesting. My X800XT-PE doesnt like having the ram altered at all....

Its at 560, i move it 2mhz and i get artifacts.

Do you reckon its the same thing?

I've got the same thing - the memory won't budge on my X800XT PE without giving me artifacts. It was really annoying me at the start but I've just ignored it for a while now.

Anyone know how dangerous a small voltmod like the OP's is? I might give it a go if not going to fry my card instantly...

 

[HangTime]

Have you tested the card with 3DMark05? Everytime I upped the voltage on my old XFX 6800GT it would display corruption. I had the same issues as you, it wouldn't clock anywhere near Ultra speeds and the memeory didn't like being clocked at all.

I tested in 3dmark2006 as I haven't run that before and wanted to see what it looks like. Kinda annoying having to run those lengthy (0-1fps) CPU tests all the time though so I might go back to my tried and tested 3dmark03 Nature test.

Also been playing a bit of Chrome tonight - about 2.5 years old now but looks fantastic for it's age in terms of the outdoor environments. Managed to spot a few artifacts so have dropped to 410/1140 and will have a look at improving my cooling sometime - think the hs/fan is a bit bunged up with dust by the looks of things.

 

[amdnv]

Ya Chrome was a PC raper, I played on new ti4600, the follow up Spec Force is also nice.

You need Pro versions of 3dmark to choose what tests to run.

 

[Vegeta]

Hmm that really weird your memory clock increased lol but i'm sure you'll take it.
One warning however mate - sometimes running the card above the normal voltage can make it seriously unstable and show artifacts.
My leadtek 6800gt overclocks to 410/1130 on normal volts, I tried to up the voltage after a few minutes even on stock frequencies it crashes with artifacts.
Saying this however I used to run my Leadtek 6800nu (Yeah I do seem to like leadtek lol) at 440/810 with a 1.4vcore - obviously the memory isnt amazing but the core I reckon is one of the best surely for a 6800nu core.

 

[Logsi]

Hmm, interesting. My X800XT-PE doesnt like having the ram altered at all....

Its at 560, i move it 2mhz and i get artifacts.

Do you reckon its the same thing?

My Ram on mines at 587, and thats atitool safe, think i upped the voltage in the BIOS one notch though, give it a try mate!