Earliest overclockable GPU?

[Culbrelai]

What is the earliest overclockable GPU? I know that particular term is rather new. Graphics, video card, what have you. Could I overclock my 1981 IBM CGA card? What about a circa 2000 ATI Rage 128 XPert? What about those 3d accelerators like a Diamond Monster 3d and so on?

 

[Mr.Scott]

Great question.

No ISA bus cards can be overclocked by software.
All PCI, AGP, and PCie cards can......to some extent. As you know, some are better than others.
Everything you listed after the IBM card absolutely can be....with the right software.

 

[Automata]

Talking just hardware, every graphics card ever gets timing from somewhere (either an on board crystal or from another device) and possibly even a multiplier. So for a generic question of "what is the earliest GPU you can overclock" the answer is "all of them", in theory. In practice, it may be difficult or impossible due to card design.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Talking just hardware, every graphics card ever gets timing from somewhere (either an on board crystal or from another device) and possibly even a multiplier. So for a generic question of "what is the earliest GPU you can overclock" the answer is "all of them", in theory. In practice, it be difficult or impossible due to card design.

Totally agree. Depends on how much effort you want to put into it.

 

[Culbrelai]

Fascinating. I figured for the earlier ones I’d have to get the soldering iron out lol

 

[Woomack]

As long as you can overclock ISA/PCI bus then you can overclock first cards. I don't remember what about ISA but PCI for sure can be overclocked when the motherboard has PCI bus frequency jumpers.
Typically you should be able to go up to ~40MHz without issues on 33MHz PCI cards, some cards won't like more than 37MHz. I remember that I burned S3 Trio or something similar at 41MHz. Its clock was tied with the PCI bus.

 

[Ben333]

Download Riva Tuner.... that's what I used to use. Pretty sure you can OC a PCI TNT2 with that

The site MajorGeeks should host a copy.

 

[JLK03F150]

Coolbits was my go to with my Geforce 2 GTS and Gf4 Ti4400.

 

[Kenrou]

I used to be able to overclock my S3 trio 2mb (Compaq Presario with AMD-K6 200mhz) with Rivatuner or ATITool if memory serves.