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ATi Overclocking question/help (9700 pro)

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dfoolio

Registered
Joined
Apr 27, 2005
Location
Bakersfield, CA.
Hello to everyone at the OCforums, before I ask my question I would just like to state that everyone here has helped me a great deal with all of my problems/questions/overlclocking and concerns. Thank you, you are all very knowledgeable and I have learned tons.

On to the questioning..

I own an ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, awesome card and I love it. I was considering buying a new video card, but decided to wait and put one into my next rig I create. Also, after a lot of help with overclocking my CPU I finally want to enter the world of VGA overclocking. Here come the questions:

I recently purchased this fan:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835110123

It is the Jetart JACSH1 60mm VGA cooling kit.

Says it works for all nVIDIA and ATi cards, 3400rpm fan, and includes the fan, heatsink, 8 extra memory heatsinks, cable connector, thermal tape and thermal compound (already got my arctic silver 5 though ;) ).

Anyway, I realize that there are ways that would prolly help upping the voltage but I am horrible when it comes to soldering (really shaky hands, don't ever be an alcoholic, but hey im 8 months sober). Anyway, without any volt mods, how should I go about overclocking this awesome card? Basically my questions are concerning the mounting of the fan and heatsink on the GPU, the RAM heatsink mounting, and best software method of doing this. Links would be appreciated but i would prefer just a good detailed explanation which would be highly appreciated and understood for the time.

When it comes to overclocking I was a newbie, but since going through the help here, I have recently gotten my p4 2.8c to 3.5 ghz on air cooling, and thats with 2 ddr400 mushkin sticks with mismatched timings if you'd believe it. (3-3-3, 3-3-2). That problem will be alievated shortly (purchased a dual pack of 2-2-2 mushkin XP, and have a xp-120 heatsync, but thats for another forum section).

Anyway, any help would greatly be appreciated and I hope to take on this project sometime this week, using arctic silver 5 for the paste (btw this may be a dumb question) is that good for gpus as well as cpus?

Thank you again in advanced and I await all the info im sure will come through.
 
i had a 9700np(still do in another comp), but i had the clocks up to 390 core and 310(620) memory without voltmods or voltage increases, this got me around 18k in 3dmark01 with a 2400+ @ 225x11
 
I put AS5 on my 9800xt (with a Zalman cooler). Just be careful to not get it on anything but the core and things will be great. For mounting the RAM sinks, I would suggest you attach them with the tape and let it sit for 12+ hrs before you begin testing. That way they will be stuck on better and there will be less chance of a few falling off.

I'm sure voltage would help, but you really need to be sure that your temps are good before you increase the volts. My 9800xt doesn't give temps so I haven't touched the volts at all. I just used ATI tool and worked my way up slowly until I got artifacts (testing in 3DMark), then backed it down a bit to give it some head room. Just take it slowly and things will go well and you will be happy :).

EDIT: Forgot to mention the HSF install... After you get the stock cooler off, clean the core with some isoproply (sp?) alcohol and a Qtip. Then apply the Artic silver (I used a plastic sandwich bag to spread it) and be sure to follow the directions to install the new cooler. Be careful to not tighten it too much because you could crack the core, just make sure you have good contact and that it's not moving around. I think that's about all, if you have any more questions just ask ;)
 
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without a better cooler the core probably won't overclock very well, you'll likely get about 20-35Mhz extra out of it then you'll likely start getting artifacts from the heat. However just putting a big cheap quiet fan underneath it should make quite a difference. The memory should be 2.8 ns stuff which should be good for at least 350 (700) Mhz, and with that same big fan probably more.

I never had an actual 9700 Pro, but until recently I had a 9500 that had 2.8ns memory on :), and with the extra pipelines enabled it ran at about mid 350s core and 340ish memory.
 
awesome all sounds good, couple quick follow up questions though:

What do I change in BIOS? as of right now everything agp wise is pretty much default for an abit IS7, also my temps are nice and cool in my tower, I got about 25c at full load.. and between 20-23c at min load.. so the environment is great.. is ATi Tool the best tool to use? (I got it but am just curious), also I got 4 drives in my tower, which im taking out to put in a separate server and replacing with 1 raptor drive, so I know my temps will be even cooler in my tower.. is that gunna give me good head room to clock higher? ANything else I should know?

Thanks for all the help as of so far guys :)
 
You shouldn't change anything in the bios. I would say ati tool or ati tray tool is fine.
 
Ok I got the heatsink off and cleaned off the other paste (OMG what a pain in the neck), now i've read some places where they said to remove the shim.. should I do this or is it even necessary?
 
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Well I put on the heatsink fan, plugged it all in, and have been running atitool to scan for artifacts.. Haven't picked any up yet, im going to let that go for 10 minutes, and then run 3dmark while scanning for artifacts with ati tool.. because I have no way to read the temp monitoring on the card.. any other ideas to find out the max temp? and if I mounted the heatsink fan/paste incorrectly.. shouldnt I be getting artifacts by now? Thanks..
 
Well ok.. i've got everything done and installed.. and gotten my speeds up to 375 core, and 336 memory.. using atitool and the find max core find max mem, as well as scanning for artifacts through the 3d view.. can I do anything else to get better clocks?
 
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