Just did my 1st overclock and I got some questions

[p.boy]

Hello All,

I have a radeon 9800 and I've been working with Rage 3D tweak (My 1st Overclock!). For heat precautions I installed an Vantec Iceberq pro heatsink on the core as well as some Tweakmaster monster ramsinks on the memory. I managed to get my 3D mark 03' score from 4669 to 5443.

Got a few questions:

When overclocking the core, I got it from the default 324mhz to 432mhz (+33%) without any artifacts. But when I even upped the memory just from 290mhz to 301mhz (just +3%), artifacts were showing or the CPU would just reboot!!

Is this common??

Also, could anybody give me details on what artifacts are? I know they are graphical glitches (I was experiencing white dots) but should you just overclock and if you dont see any artifacts immediateley you're in the clear or is the test more long term?

When you experience artifacts is it too late and the damage is done?

Just need some insight on the ABC's of Videocard overclocking.

Thanx in advance!


:cheers:

[Soulburner]

No damage should be done, just bump it back down some.

The GPU will give off a lot of heat at that speed and heat up your ram chips, the heat could be causing them to produce artifacts.

Just a thought.

[PersianImmortal]

If you overclock with artifacts for a long period of time the artifacts can become permanent.

Also, your card's RAM may simply not be rated to do much higher than stock speeds. Each card manufacturer uses different brands and speeds of RAM, and these have different tolerances. Generally the more expensive and well-known the brand, the better the RAM.

If you can't overclock the RAM much more even with more cooling then just let it be. Not worth risking permanent damage.