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Overclocking Graphics Cards

Are there some current guides on overclocking current graphics cards?  I see some stuff on graphics cards but it's old and I'm not sure if applies to current models.  If you have experience doing this, please explain the overall in's & out's.

I suppose overclocking would be defined as decreasing the safety margin between the actual clock speed and the point where instability begins to occur (cranking up clock speed).  To allow for production variations, this is probably set to a wider margin in mass-produced stuff than what could be done on an individually tuned case-by-case basis.  But anyway the amount of possible increase would seem modest?  I wonder if it's even worth the trouble.

I wonder why nvidia 6800 ultra clock speed is so much slower than ATI X850 (540mhz).  You see a lot of nvidia cards pre-OC'd from the supplier.
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sciwriter

It is easier to overclock CPUs than it is for graphics cards -- CPUs (AMD at least) have jumpers to short, graphics cards rarely do.  They will usually only work at ONE bus speed and that is it.  YOu can try setting the AGP bus to 8x (if the card is 4x) see if it can handle it -- but you will likely find it cannot.  So you have 2 choices --

1. buy a faster bus graphics card, only if the MB will take advantage of it, or
2.  Live with the bus speed you have, and plan your next system purchase now....
GinEric,

>Overclocking a video can be worse, it can damage the CRT.  There have been instances of overclocking the video which have resulted in the "implosion" of the monitor, as this is one of the results of feeding frequencies to the high voltage circuits post Vertical amplifier and post horizontal amplifier causing the high voltage multipliers to resonate at an asymptotic frequency resulting in implosion.

I think you have the two effects mixed up - overclocking is independent of what frequency you set you video refresh rate to.  I agree that you can damage a CRT with improper signals, but an overclocked video card can use the same refresh rate as an non-overclocked card, eliminating overclocking as a cause of damaging CRTs.