ocing radeon 8500, first timer

Today I oced my 8500 for the first time, I have never oc'd vid cards before. Right now its running at 290/580. Its a build by ati card, and my 3d mark is 9534 (http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5115866 ) atm. I want to try and reach 10k but the last thing I wanna do is really risk damaging it.

How far do you ppl think I could go without ramsinks and stock cooling, no vmods?

My friend told me to look for artifacts, as something like 3d mark will still go, if artifacts appear then I should back off a little. I have gotten no artfacts whatsoever yet, Im just wondering if I should keep using this as an indicator of when Im going to far.

Any info would be appretiated

Your on the right track, you can also feel the backside of the card when your running 3dmark, if its very hot consider putting a crystal orb on the GPU.

Remember if you see artifacts you should lower the speeds of the core and or memory.

Ignoring artifacts can cause your card an early death.

If you want a beefy cooler consider reading this

Awesome thanks for the link, should i feel right behind the gpu, or touch the memory modules?

Both areas dont seem to hot, ill check again

Maybe I look at

http://www.bigfootcomputers.com/Mer...foot&Product_Code=1425HSTT&Category_Code=0040

and

http://www.bigfootcomputers.com/Mer...foot&Product_Code=2252CGRS&Category_Code=0050

I dont have a prob spending the money, but I dont know how hard the stock gpu cooler will be to get off?

I guess ill use normal thermal tape to apply the stuff if i get it, but I am not sure whether to use the arctic silver alumnia, I hear that stuff is pretty much permant once its on

Excuse a newbie but what does an artifact look like?

I asked my friend the same question yesturday, he sent me this pic, i just uploaded.



The white dots, in some cases he said it can be less severe, but he said when running like 3d mark or testing your card after you overclock it to watch out for this type of stuff.

Great, thanks for the quick answer!

they also commonly show up as little black triangles

n/m found my answer. freezer method it is.

tada! its working great (hopefully hehe)

I like you're ram sinks. My ATI 8500 128mb looks like this: