Question for you Vid Overclockers

[GravY]

Ok, I just had my 8500 poop out on me and die.. I had it hardware voltmodded (not the crappy pencil mod) it was a crappy oc'er when I bought it and even after volt mod, new fan and ramsinks I could get it only up to 297/300..
but the question is, for those that overclock their vid cards, do you leave it overclocked all the time or just when playing games??

I just purchased a MSI TI-4200-TD64, and I am extremely happy with it.. I have been slowly inchin it up with out any mods or extra cooling to see how far it will go.. stock speeds are 250/513 for this card.. I now have it up to 300/600 without a hiccup.. no artifacts or tearing.. so I am still wondering on question above, is leaving it oc'd all the time good bad or doesn't matter..


Thanks for your time..

[Maxvla]

as long as you leave it about 5% lower than absolute limits it should be ok. but yeah i only o/c when benching. i have yet to find a game that needs o/cing.

to get better o/c's run your video looped in 3dmark at that 5% lower than limits to get it burned in... you might get an extra mhz here or there.

[GravY]

will do, I am going to get some Ramsinks on there, I have a side fan that blows across the Vid card so I hope to get around 610+ out of the ram and from the review at Hardocp.com they got the core to 305 on stock cooling, but I don't want to mess with replacing the fan.. too much of a hassle for a few more Mhz..

How long do you let it run to burn it in?

[Maxvla]

a day is best, but 12 hours should be ok. i have yet to do this to mine however.