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Help to OC a Nvidia 9400GT 1GB

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Workingpapi

Registered
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Well, I am pretty much a Noob on the OCing world and am looking for some help on how to squeeze some better performance out of my 9400GT 1GB (needless to say.. I know it's kinda' crappy but it's what I've got for now..) I have tried Riva Tuner and EVGA Precision and I have gotten some higher numbers than stock but NO noticeable improvement whatsoever while playing games like COD4,6 or Crysis. My system's Config is:

Celeron Dual Core E3200 2.4Ghz OC' 3.2Ghz
RAM 2.25GB / running at 444Mhz
GPU Nvidia 9400GT 1GB PCI-e

Stock Speeds are:

- 550 MHz GPU core
- 16 Processing Cores
- 400 MHz RAMDAC
Memory:
- 1024 MB, 128 bit DDR2
- 800 MHz (effective)
- 12.8 GB/s Memory Bandwidth

I was able to push it to 614Mhz Core / 440Mhz Memory .. yeah, kind of ****ty.. after any of this numbers it will start artifacting.. I also tried increasing the PCIe freq in BIOS from 100 to 110 since I read somewhere it may help, however it didn't do any difference.. what's worst is that for some reason I perceived it would run better at stock speeds than when overclocked.. and as mentioned while playing I wasn't able to notice any improvement at all. Can anyone help me out? BTW it is an EVGA card and I haven't done any voltmodding as i honestly have no idea how to mess with that.. Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
You only had a ~10% overclock, so probably won't feel any difference.

I have a 9600 GT overclocked from 650mhz to 825mhz, and I barely feel any difference.

10% OC will give you, for example, 22fps vs 20fps. Probably won't be noticeable unless you have very good eyes.

Voltmodding is dangerous, and will give you minimal improvement unless you go for (expensive) aftermarket cooling. But then you might as well just get a better video card and get a lot better performance. Dead cards after voltmodding is common.

Unfortunately there is really not much you can do besides getting a better video card (assuming the one you have is not satisfactory, and you are not just pushing it for fun).
 
I hardly notice the overclock on my card, though on some games it can mean the difference of dipping to around 15fps where with the overclock I don't go below 25, mainly depends on the game.
 
well the 9400 isn't really a gaming card to begin with, you probably will not be able to get enough power out of that card to play the games much better than you already are.. even with the 10%oc you wouldn't see enough of a diff that is noticeable to you..if your system isnt a stock dell or something you could try to oc the CPU some, which in some games helps out more than ocing the card..if you're nvidia chip based (athlon etc) try using NVIDIA N-Tune, it lets you bump up the FSB a little bit
 
Thanks! but yeh, I have overclocked my processor from 2.4Ghz to 3.2Ghz so I was trying to get some more out of my evga card.. since I have seen in many forums it can go up to e.g from 500 core to 765 core and memory from 400 to 490 or around.. and that is a good overcloking! but for some reason mine gets as far as I mentioned above.. :(

But you know what I just realized? that i may be missing some power from the PSU as well and probably that is why is not achieving higher overcloks.. since I have this crappy pseudo PSU, I'll probably buy a branded one and see about it afterwards.. but thank you anyway! I was starting to think no one would answer .. Thanks!!
 
Overclocking the CPU doesn't usually give you noticeable difference in gaming, because almost all modern games are limited by GPU.

You have probably figured this out by now, but all GPUs (or any kind of digital circuits) overclock differently. Manufacturers only gauarantee that they will run at the stock speed. Anything higher you should consider yourself lucky.

A good PSU probably won't allow you to overclock it higher, but is a very good idea in general, for your computer and your house's safety, as well as stability.
 
Its true, the 9400 is not good at all. It's hardly worth overclocking this card IMO. You could pick up the GTS 250/260 quite cheap now I think.
 
i got my 9400 gt up to 800 core and 650 memory using ntune. the 196.21 drivers don't allow overclocking through, so it might be a bad idea to get them :)

in crysis i noticed a bump from ~30 to ~38 FPS on all low 1440x900. BUT, after i go above ~725core,~615mem it starts artifacting.

EDIT: whats your video card stepping, find out using gpu-z. if you don't have it its here
give a screenshot of it.
 
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My old 9400gt 1gb was only able to get to about the same clocks, a hair over 600 core clock. But no it won't help much.

They aren't meant to be used for gaming. A 9600gt should be a minimum for gaming at any decent resolution. You can get 9600gt's for cheap second hand.
 
My old 9400gt 1gb was only able to get to about the same clocks, a hair over 600 core clock. But no it won't help much.

They aren't meant to be used for gaming. A 9600gt should be a minimum for gaming at any decent resolution. You can get 9600gt's for cheap second hand.


Thank you! but... I just got rid of that card, instead I got a 8600GTS I know it's not big deal but it really works better, now I can play COD6 on high settings and textures in EXTRA and it will not lag at all! crysis will run at 12-16fps with all settings on high (unplayable of course.. but my point is I couldn't even get it to run like that on the 9400gt) and 35-40 with high textures and medium map.. which is a great leap.

And even W7 likes it, it went from 4.2 with the 9400gt all the way to 5.1 with the 8600gts!!

Again, I know that card's not a big deal but still it's got me pretty happy.
 
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