Newbie vid card overclocking questions.

[MysticX23]

Hi. I've overclocked CPU's in the past and know more about them. But when it comes to video cards, its an unknown territory. So here's my questions:

1. Whats the difference between overclocking core versus memory? Where would I see a difference?

2. If I overclock the core too much, it freezes up. If I overclock the memory too much (a bit more than stable), I should see artifacts. Is this correct?

3. What kinda "errors" should I watch out for besides freeze-ups and artifacts? Are there programs to detect artifacts or do I have to manually watch out for them?

4. In OC'ing CPU's, there isn't a rise in temps if you don't increase your vcore. However, is this the case with vid cards? Will temps increase with overclocking since there is no vcore or vmem for vid cards? (w/o voltmodding)

5. Whats the best way to test out if your OC is stable? For CPU's, there's prime95 which you can run for a long time, but for vid cards, is there a program to stress the vid card for a long time while detecting errors like artifacts?

Hopefully after some answers, I"ll start experimenting =D.

 

[bojangles]

1. I'm pretty sure core handles shaders and memory stores the textures. Both equal speed.
2. You see different kinds of artifacts, sorry but I don't remember the differances. Something with dots and little errors in the pixels where as memory is errors in the texturs like lines across the screen. I have found that with too high of an over clock in Far Cry, sone textures look transparent.
3. uhhhhhh watch out for flaming/smoking video cars. ATI tool for ati cars detects artifacts i believe (never used it) but for you, you need to manually look for them.
4. You need to voltmod to raise the vcore on videocards.....
5. I repeatedly run 3dmark03 to test my videocard. If it is really high, sometimes the monitor will go black on reboot (I called dell and asked them for a new card, I know I know unethical but the customer service they gave me last time meant they deserved it, any way when i was talking to Support they asked me to turn the comp on and it worked. I was like uhhhhhhhhhhhh and hung up.) Anyway if your overclock is too high 3dmark03 won't run past 2-3 tests and you will either blue screen or crash to desktop. No biggie.

Overclocking a videocard is pretty easy actually and I learned to OC vid cards first. It's not like you have to worry about vcores, fsbs and multipliers.

 

[Z YA LTR]

1. I dont really understand whats being asked

2. Thats not completly true. I can overclock my core too much and I just get artifacts but never freezes. I think too much on the memory gives you tears and stuff like that and too much on core gives you checker board type artifacts. That might not be totally true though.

3. Thats all. ATI Tool has a really good artifact tester. But usually after it dectects artifacts you can go a little bit higher before you see them with your own eyes. BUT you have an nvidia card do you will have to check them with your eyes.

4. Yes the temps will rise just by overclocking your card.

5. You could loop 3dmark03 or aquamark to test for stability.

Hope that helps.

--Josh