- Joined
- Jan 18, 2005
- Location
- Texas, U.S.A.
OK, I have a Radeon 9000 64MB DDR, non-pro, with a Vantec cooler on it. I run ATITool to find out my maximum core speed and RAM speed. My defaults are 250 MHz for the core and 200(400) MHz for the RAM. First I do the core. It climbs and climbs, higher than I've ever overclocked it before. I watch in amazement as it passes 300 MHz, which I was SURE would produce artifacts. But no, nothing. I finally begin seeing artifacts at around 320 MHz, so ATITool starts backing down. It goes back down to 250, and still there are artifacts. 200 comes and goes, with just as many artifacts as 320! I finally got sick of waiting after about 30 mins, and aborted, still seeing artifacts with my core UNDERclocked to less than 100 MHz!!! I reboot, which takes maybe 20 seconds, tops, and run ATITool again. This time I stop it after 285, and have not seen an artifact since.
Next, I do the same thing with the RAM. It climbs to about 240, which is WAY higher than it should be capable of, before producing any artifacts. Sure enough, the same crap happens again, even with the RAM running below stock specs. I reboot, fire up Powerstrip, and change back to 285/215, and start running 3DMark01. Absolutely nothing wrong, again, after rebooting.
Is this normal? Has anyone else had a similar experience? I can understand the card still being a little hot from being run so high, even with the cooling, but after 30 mins, running below stock specs, I think that little ******* has cooled down plenty. ATITool seems to think there is still a problem, though. This program is garbage as far as I'm concerned. With as long as it took, I could have manually adjusted my clocks and tested them just as fast. And it doesn't take me 4 seconds after an artifact appears to realize that it's there, unlike ATITools. What do you guys think about ATITools? Is it garbage, or am I doing something wrong here that I don't know about?
Next, I do the same thing with the RAM. It climbs to about 240, which is WAY higher than it should be capable of, before producing any artifacts. Sure enough, the same crap happens again, even with the RAM running below stock specs. I reboot, fire up Powerstrip, and change back to 285/215, and start running 3DMark01. Absolutely nothing wrong, again, after rebooting.
Is this normal? Has anyone else had a similar experience? I can understand the card still being a little hot from being run so high, even with the cooling, but after 30 mins, running below stock specs, I think that little ******* has cooled down plenty. ATITool seems to think there is still a problem, though. This program is garbage as far as I'm concerned. With as long as it took, I could have manually adjusted my clocks and tested them just as fast. And it doesn't take me 4 seconds after an artifact appears to realize that it's there, unlike ATITools. What do you guys think about ATITools? Is it garbage, or am I doing something wrong here that I don't know about?