ATi encourages overclocking ?

check this out, I was just looking at the 9800's devlopers demo page, i clicked on the tools link - note the 2nd link from the bottom .

Powerstrip doesnt just overclock...it does a lot more then that, and it does have many tools that would be useful for a developer. Of course we only use it to overclock

Maybe they finally realized "resistance is futile!"

Evnas said:

Powerstrip doesnt just overclock...it does a lot more then that, and it does have many tools that would be useful for a developer. Of course we only use it to overclock

Click to expand...

Iknow, but if a devloper see's that of course they are gonna OC it

I doubt (and this is personal opinion) too many developers overclock. When a developer's system crashes, he doesn't lose a game, he loses money and maybe a job.

Obviously I realise there are developers here and I'll bet they overclock, but before they respond I ask them if they are the dominant majority... like does almost everybody they deal with do it?

*sigh*
Mabe they will unlco kmy 9000 non pro, so i can get some REAL speed out of it

I've never owned an ATI card (yet) and so i dunno anythying about the software they hand out but the Det. drivers from Nvidia have always had an overclock feature built right into it...

I agree, Powerstris is so much more than just overclocking.

Now when they start posting links to Arctic Silver 3 and various heatsink/waterblock/peltier sources......then I'd believe it.

Lets not forget we are talking about the company that has locked the overclocking ability of the majority of its most recent cards here.

yeah, yeah ok.. get the point its used for other stuff that overclocking this is what it says above the links heh

"Various tools to help speed your developments:"

changing your coplor isnt gonna speed up your devlopments, maybe ur refreshrate ... anyways...bah

DDR-PIII said:

yeah, yeah ok.. get the point its used for other stuff that overclocking this is what it says above the links heh

"Various tools to help speed your developments:"

changing your coplor isnt gonna speed up your devlopments, maybe ur refreshrate ... anyways...bah

Click to expand...

That line doesnt mean they meant actually speed up the card, but the development process of what they are doing.

DaddyB said:

Lets not forget we are talking about the company that has locked the overclocking ability of the majority of its most recent cards here.

Click to expand...

well that i was unaware of ;-)

Everyone knows that game developers must support everyone's hardare in almost every configuration. This can be tough to do. Tools like powerstrip make this easier to do because you don't need every possible product around to test compatibilty, you only need single product from a family of GPUs. This makes development fast and cheaper. This is from entech's page:

"PowerStrip 3.30 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest SiS Xabre and Radeon 9700. It is in fact the only program of its type to support multiple graphics cards from multiple chipset vendors, simultaneously, under every Windows operating system from Windows 95 to XP . A simple menu that pops up from the system tray provides access to some 500 controls over your display hardware, including sophisticated color correction tools, period level adjustments over screen geometry, and driver independent clock controls. A powerful application profiler can detect when programs are launched and respond by activating specific display settings, gamma adjustments, performance switches and even clock speeds - returning everything to normal when the program closes . In-game gamma hotkeys let you light up the darkest hallways during game play, and hardware control over refresh rates - with floating point precision - ensure you're never stuck at just 60Hz no matter what OS you're using. A quick setup wizard gets you up and running with minimal fuss, extensive context-sensitive help is available for all controls, and live updates are supported to ensure you're always running the latest release. Finally, an assortment of system and productivity tools - among them, extensive diagnostics, AGP device configuration, desktop icon management, a system idle thread, Windows resource monitoring, physical memory optimization, an on-screen display, and the most advanced monitor support in the industry - round out the compact 600kb package."

With locked bioses on the 9000, 9100 and 9500 Pro, I don't think ATI support overclocking, you don't see any Nvidia cards locked!

Evnas said:

Powerstrip doesnt just overclock...it does a lot more then that, and it does have many tools that would be useful for a developer. Of course we only use it to overclock

Click to expand...

so true, i use it in one of the machines here in the cyber because the monitor look all yellow, and with powerstrip i turn the temperature (of the color) all way down and force it directly to the DAC and it looks like nothing is wrong, hehe only things black look a little yellow but no one notice this, also i use it to overclock my monitor, ya can fine tune the refresh rate and friend bought a 21" Mac (trinitron) he has a PC but the controls only work with mac OS (yes its wierd but true) but with powerstrip he can at least fix some of the things, he is lucky because his partner has a G4 next to it now but before that he has to rely on powerstrip, well those are some examples but is a really complete program, you guys should take a look to all the functions

(and NO i don´t work for them )

because ATI has to compete with so many card manufacters of NVidia in the market... you know Gainward for instance has encouraged customers for quite sometime now to overclock their cards. that's a strong reason to get NVidias instead of ATIs - for the average Joe at least. the average and powerful Joe!

There was an article in MaximumPC or CPU about Alienware systems (and/or other mfgrs) shipping rigs with overclocked ATI cards in them.

The journalists got a quote from a senior official from ATI who basically said:

"Any overclocking voids the warranty, and the cards cannot be rma'd - and we WILL know if the card has been overclocked."

No, I think ATI is pretty much pulling an Intel wrt overclocking.

Actualy the 9000's are locked in the driver not the BIOS.

InThrees said:

"Any overclocking voids the warranty, and the cards cannot be rma'd - and we WILL know if the card has been overclocked."

Click to expand...

How would they know? Unless you put your new speeds into the BIOS, they can't really tell, can they? If you have a locked card, all you have to do is flash the original BIOS before you return it.

I read that exact same interview and at the time I couldn't figure out how they could tell if you overclocked the card. It must either be like what Stonhart said; In order to overclock the card you have to flash it to a different BIOS to 'unlock' the overclocking ability - therefore if you kill the card you can't flash the BIOS back...

Or...

Maybe the BIOS thing didn't turn out the way they expected, maybe they were trying to be sneaky and make it so that if you did overclock the card it would change that one hex value without your knowledge so they could tell if you did. I don't know that this would even be possible but it sure would suck if they did that.