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Good Reason to NOT Mod your video card!!!

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Pinky

Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2001
Location
Las Vegas, NV
[rant]

Spent 2 hours with an overclocking buddy (and member) Thundr7 modding my GF4 Ti4600.

We ripped off the old heatsink, cleaned up the GPU, made some ram sinks from a couple old Pentium heatsinks, lapped them, lapped an older P3 retail heatsink (and fan), and attached them all using arctic alumina (strong stuff I must say).

Stock overclock was 315/735

New overclock is 325/735

I have said time and time again that these modifications (on air at least) are a waste of time. I'm worth more than 2 hours time for 10mhz gain on the gpu. To add insult to injury the ramsinks didn't improve the overclock one bit. Although I secretly hoped to gain a little something more than 10mhz by spending the time doing it, I instead ended up proving my own point.

The good news is that it only cost Thundr7 a little of his arctic alumina and a few pieces of skin. There are those among us that spend $20-35 to get an equivelent heatsink/fan and ramsinks from an online overclocking store or radio shack. For the 3% gain I say "No Thanks!"

[/rant]
 
Humm...that suck, and yes with the ramsink I would expect at least 10MHz increase on the memory too:eh?:
 
Even though I had great success moding my graphics card I have to agree with you.For most people the pain and hassle isnt worth the reward.I however enjoyed the thrill of moding a $300 card call me crazy :D
 
Geez, Pinky! I was thinking about doing it, now I won't! My ram is already OCed from 550 to 665 without ramsinks, and I was already in doubt if sinks would get me any higher. I'll leave it like this and keep my warranty...
 
The BGA memory run relatively cool anyways, so I'm not surprised there... but the core only 10mhz more with a really nice air cooling setup tells me it's probably a voltage issue and not a heat one...
 
Dang Pinky, i'm sorry you're dissapointed. I did my best for ya. I'm not too impressed with my card's mods either. Those giant ramsinks i added are ok, but the gpu cooler isn't really giving me the speed i wanted from the gpu. No matter what i do, i can't get passed 315/560. Maybe these Visontek cards aren't what they're cracked up to be :(

Look on the bright side, we had a great time doin the mods :)

Hey guyz, he makes a mean chicken with potatoes !

:D
 
well if the mod helped in the cooling area... maybe what the card needs is alittle more voltage??? just a guess, but if heat aint the issue then what is ;)

AZN
 
nevertheless .... it looks good, right?

nevertheless .... the VGA looks good, right? Very macho looking with oversize heatsinks.

My GF4 Ti4200 looks like a madmax machine. It has a Intel Celeron 1.1A HSF, 8 small heatsinks for each DDR modules, and another 2 small HSF for 2 voltage generator chips. I wish I have a digital camera so I can share a picture with you guys.

About overclocking, 320/570 is this okay? The DDR module sucks, eventhough they are Samsung "211" with TC40 number on it.
 
an extra 10mhz on that is pretty damn good if you ask me, that's like squeezing another 60+mhz out a 2ghz chip. As it's been stated a couple times (even by yourself) you simply need more voltage, you already have excellent cooling, but people with promethia's and the like arn't running thier chips on stock voltage to get em to really high speeds.

If your trying to mod a 200+ dollor video card for practicle reasons your frickin crazy. It's all about the crastmanship and time you put into your system, if you want something that runs and don't want a hassle, buy a Dell.
 
I know someone willing to do the volt mod for me (has some soldering skilz). Anyone with linkage? (I forget what ohm resister goes where :rolleyes: )
 
Volt mods GOOD!
:D

Maybe I should look for some for my antique GF2 MX 400 ;)

Then I might be able to play UT at something better than 640x480 res:D (besides- video is about the only thing in that rig that is NOT volt-modded!)
 
Found some pics on madonion.com that explain it all...

gf4-volt-mods-jpg.jpg
 
For the VR, how many cycle you have to turn? And I guess you have to test/check the new voltage with some kind of device or program?
 
I tell people over and over that modding a video card isn't worth it. Heck, I don't even overclock video cards, I see very little difference. The main difference is clock speed to help the GPU. It also has short term benefits to not kill the card and which I can RMA since I never overclocked the video card. I feel for yah that you wasted 2 hours of your life on very little gain.

Yodums
 
Yodums said:
I tell people over and over that modding a video card isn't worth it. Heck, I don't even overclock video cards, I see very little difference. The main difference is clock speed to help the GPU. It also has short term benefits to not kill the card and which I can RMA since I never overclocked the video card. I feel for yah that you wasted 2 hours of your life on very little gain.

Yodums

he knows that , he said what you say all along, however Pinky sounds like he may give volt mod a whirl now!!

Lets see what that turns up!!

cisco KId
 
ATC9001 said:
If your trying to mod a 200+ dollor video card for practicle reasons your frickin crazy. It's all about the crastmanship and time you put into your system, if you want something that runs and don't want a hassle, buy a Dell.

Buy a dell? What the heck are you doing on this forum? Ya must work for them, either that or you never had a good PC to begin with!
 
Yodums said:
I tell people over and over that modding a video card isn't worth it. Heck, I don't even overclock video cards, I see very little difference. The main difference is clock speed to help the GPU. It also has short term benefits to not kill the card and which I can RMA since I never overclocked the video card. I feel for yah that you wasted 2 hours of your life on very little gain.

Yodums
comon yodums its only 2 hrs I dont think he will jump off a bridge for that. besides, i think he needs more voltage and he should run alittle faster. shouldnt be to different from CPU right? higher clocks alittle more voltage ;)
I dont go nutz and try to turn my ti4400 into a TI5000 but it is running at TI4600 and im happy with that. and yes it doest make a difference ;) I can see better FPS and i dont think i've stressed the card to the point of meltdown.

radadman said:


Buy a dell? What the heck are you doing on this forum? Ya must work for them, either that or you never had a good PC to begin with!
whats wrong with dell??? i think they make the best laptops and desktop for manufactured stuff. I would never buy a manufactured PC cuzz i build my own but if i had to it would be from dell ;) and dont tell me alienware is the bomb, cuzz they are charging u triple the cost of parts.

AZN
 
Well I added a Golden (heh) Orb and alpha ramsinks with AS adhesive to my VT Ti4400 and it only got me 5mhz on the core and NOTHING on the memory. This backs up the fact that heat is not a factor in memory oc, you either get a dog or a gem to begin with.
 
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