Long term effect of overclocking on videocards

Hi, i have the card in my sig at the clockrates also stated in the sig. I want to push this baby as far as it will go on the stock cooling w/o artifacts, and i bet i can get this thing to 9700pro levels and i'll be happy. I have this thing at what i consider "stock" speeds since the ram is 3.3ns supporting up to 606mhz, which is what it's at right now. My question is, if i can get it up high without artifacting, am i significantly impacting the life of my card? All my voltages are stock and will stay stock as i won't mod this card.

TIA

PS: Is 9700 pro stock 325/620?

That is the correct speed for a stock 9700pro.

I haven't owned any video card longer than a year, so I can't attest to the effects of long-term OC'ing. However, I would recommend improving the cooling for the card, even if all you do is cut open the side panel of your computer case to add a 80mm+ fan....

I've always changed GPU heatisnk/fan and added ramsinks to my cards, just because I like having beefy hardware, especially in the video department.

i have plenty of case ventilation IMO. If i open the side panel, my temp drops by 1C, which means i have fairly good case ventilation. I think i'm gonna buy that zalman bracket thingy and have put 2 fans on it. one blowing on my r9500 and one on my proc.

if i go to r9700 pro speeds, that's only 4 mhz faster than what my ram is rated at, and i highly doubt i'd need extra cooling if that's what i'm shooting for. The core...i duno though.

The cores seem capable of much more than they are clocked at. And if there are no artifacts, go ahead and OC the ram a little more. So long as you have better than average-OEM-maker cooling, you card should be tough enough to take a little OC'ing.

all of you do understand the fact that silicon semiconductors do not deteriorate/break because of clocks/speed/hertz/whatever, but breaks/burns/dies/malfunctions/deteriorates because of HEAT right?

e.g. more voltage adds HEAT, HEAT needs cooling, and say if ur fans stops spinning/heatsink fell off, there is more HEAT

Yeah, it's implied that when you up the mhz you have more heat. My question is, would this increased heat due to such overclocks cause my card to be significantly reduced in lifespan.

Chowdy said:

i have plenty of case ventilation IMO. If i open the side panel, my temp drops by 1C, which means i have fairly good case ventilation.

Click to expand...

You know you're really good when opening the case RAISES the temps

Anyways, computer hardware is designed to last many many years - just think how many old Apple IIe's are still around. With decent hardware you should have five years or more of use out of it.

Overclocking conservatively will barely impact the life of the card - especially the core. Memory is more sensitive - much more sensitive from my experience. Memory overclocks are far less valuable than GPU anyway, so be safe with the mem. All my dead videocards have been from killing the memory.

For the GPU lifespan just don't go crazy. Once you find the max overclock don't just go 2 MHz under the artifact zone, go 10 or even 20 MHz under. That should be fine for the long haul.

--Illah

I had a Built by ATI rady 8500LE clocked at 275/275 for about a year and a half maybe more and the thing ran fine. I never had problems with it. I flashed the bios and everything.

Okay, that reminds me that i had a ti4200 clocked at 270/270 for almost 2 years. The fan finally died on it

Alright thanks for the advice, I'm not conifident that my hardware will last a while if i'm cautious. My ram'll go to only 610mhz, which is a very small OC, since it's 3.3ns ram. And i'll put my core up as far as it'll go and then drop it by 15mhz or so. I'll post back sometime

PS: If opening the case raises temps, then you've got a nice refrigeration unit for a computer

Will I have had my Geforce 3 ti 200 for about a year and a half now.. and I have had it clocked at 222/524 for that year and a half... and its stick rock solid except when my room eats up to like 90 degrees in the summer and I have to lower it like 2mhz