OMG, this CAN'T be possible!!!

Ok, quick background: a few months back my mobo died and took most of my system with it. While I'm waiting on my power supply I'm running a Dell mobo with a PII-550 and my replaced GeForce3... this is about that replaced GeForce3.


I had upped the voltage on my original GF3 (IO-Voltage) and watercooled the gpu-core. With that I managed the respectable 215Mhz Core/515Mhz ram (stock is 200/460).

This is the part that's so freaky... I just finished 3DMark2001 with my new GF3 at a clock of 240Mhz/560Mhz!!! IS THAT POSSIBLE??? At first I thought it wasn't actually overclocking the board (I only gained 10fps from stock settings, but I'm pretty sure this PII-550 is limiting the hell out of it), but running the ram at 575Mhz caused it to crash (after about 2 minutes) and a core setting of 250Mhz cause a crash within 5 seconds.

This isn't the result of insane cooling either... the only mod I did to the board was replacing the default thermal grease with Artic Silver... still using the stock VisionTek cooling setup. Could it be the 21.80 drivers?

I'm having trouble believing this is real. Maybe it's not overclocking it as far as it says... I mean 560Mhz without even showing artifacts?... that's faster than the cpu! Has anyone else seen a card doing something odd like this?

its probly the drivers

Mac42 said:

Ok, quick background: a few months back my mobo died and took most of my system with it. While I'm waiting on my power supply I'm running a Dell mobo with a PII-550 and my replaced GeForce3... this is about that replaced GeForce3.


I had upped the voltage on my original GF3 (IO-Voltage) and watercooled the gpu-core. With that I managed the respectable 215Mhz Core/515Mhz ram (stock is 200/460).

This is the part that's so freaky... I just finished 3DMark2001 with my new GF3 at a clock of 240Mhz/560Mhz!!! IS THAT POSSIBLE??? At first I thought it wasn't actually overclocking the board (I only gained 10fps from stock settings, but I'm pretty sure this PII-550 is limiting the hell out of it), but running the ram at 575Mhz caused it to crash (after about 2 minutes) and a core setting of 250Mhz cause a crash within 5 seconds.

This isn't the result of insane cooling either... the only mod I did to the board was replacing the default thermal grease with Artic Silver... still using the stock VisionTek cooling setup. Could it be the 21.80 drivers?

I'm having trouble believing this is real. Maybe it's not overclocking it as far as it says... I mean 560Mhz without even showing artifacts?... that's faster than the cpu! Has anyone else seen a card doing something odd like this?

Click to expand...

No offense, but those "impossible" clock speeds are rather sad. My GeForce2 Ultra can get up to 290 core, 585 mem, with artifacts, but no crashes, and up to 273 / 522 with no artifacts whatsoever (Thats where I have it now, just for the sake of eliminating artifacts).

I would have though a GeForce3 would be capable of FAR more then that. I WAS going to buy a GF3. I guess I'll save my $330 for something important, like a new 700W bandpass w/ dual Mack Daddy 12's.

well a gf2ultra doesnt have a default speed of 200Mhz core
and a gf3 is faster then an ultra at default speed.

yes i hav also acheived what some say are "impossible speeds" i have a GeForce 2 Pro64 DDR, and its default spee is 200/400. Get this I have and contine to have it running at 350/465.

Yes 350 , 150mhz over stock speed onthe CORE, and 465 mem and get no artifacts. I didnt think it was real but i got over 300fps in 3dmark2000, and only 198 fps in eh same test at default speed. Also my 3dmark2000/2001 score did inprove after the OC. Also i posted like 4 screenshots of the Overclock, showing the speeds before and after being applied

Yea, it wasn't so much the speeds as the fact I achieved them with stock cooling and no modding... I can't wait to throw my waterblock back on the core... I already tested the core out at 245 with no problems... I'm betting I'll hit 260Mhz pretty soon.

I've got a GeForce 2 MX (no 200 or 400, just clean, old MX)
I think these numbers are insane:
core: 175MHz @ 243MHz
mem: 166MHz @ 210MHz
Especially the core. I've hardly seen any MX's overclocked this far.
It has run without tearing or flickering for many weeks now.
The most incredible thing is this: I only use passive cooling! That's right, the little rib that followed the card when I bought it.
(I wonder what I could get with a fan)

Have any of you seen anything like that before?
I suddenly get 6535 points in 3DMark 2000! With MX!

That's not bad. Did you happen to buy this chip recently. If the newer gpu's are overclocking that much more then we might have to start keeping up with NVidia week numbers.

I'm sorry to say that I bought the MX early this summer.
I didn't try to overclock it at first, but after a while I tried.
And I got 143MHz on the core!
I guess I'm just lucky. I wonder what I could get with a fan and some ramsinks.