Question about overheating gpu and ram

Say, for instance, I overclocked a video card's gpu and ram. Everything is stable. There are no artifacts. Should I be worried that something is overheating, or will there be artifacts/lockups before the gpu or ram overheats to any dangerous level?

I just want to know if there will always be a sign of instability before anything would overheat to a dangerous level.

I also read mention of someone touching the video card while the computer is on to check for heat. I don't know much about electronics, but is this safe? Could I receive a shock or damage the video card by touching it when the computer's on?

Thanks for the help.

You shouldn't be overly worried about overheating if there aren't any artifacts. Make sure you back down about 5MHz from the edge for safetey, but after that you should be fine. Heat causes instability, which causes arifacting. Too much heat and you'll immediatly see it


As for touching the video card while running, it's reletivly safe to do that as well. Video cards don't use any more than about 5V, and so there's no way you're going to be shocked. Also, if you allways keep a hand on something grounded (any unpainted part of the computer case) then you won't have to worry about giving it a nasty static discharge either.

The worst effect you'll probably have on a video card by touching it is decreasing the resistance between any two contacts you're (probably accidently) touching. However, since human skin has a resistance in the megaohms, it won't make enough of a difference to change anything.

JigPu