I bought an XFX 7900GT (520/1500) and I'm really happy with it. Performance is SUPERB! Really great value for the price I paid for it. This card comes with the Samsung k4j55323qg-bc14 GDDR3 chip (1.4ns) that is supposed to run at 700MHz/1400MHz effective. http://www.samsung.com/Products/Sem.../GDDR3SDRAM/256Mbit/K4J55323QG/K4J55323QG.htm However, XFX has them running at 750MHz/1500MHz effective. Anyways, I started overclocking it and when I started raising the ram, it seemed like it just wouldn't stop going... At first I thought coolbits wasn't working or something but SysTool showed that the clocks were real. Well just look at what I've got. Now do keep in mind that there is nothing on the ram chips at all. It's on stock cooling and unmodded in any way shape or form. I will probably be able to push it higher with better cooling. The OC at the end of the day was 590MHz core 870/1740MHz ram. This is a stable OC (no artifacts or anything - tested by looping a variety of games.) I could go higher but I would get heat artifacts on the core and slight artifacts and mis rendering on the ram.) Note: 3dmark06 wouldn't run at any setting. Crashes on the HDR tests. Must be driver problems or something.
I've got myself a 7900GT factory o/c'd by Leadtek, it runs at 525/1430 out of the box, haven't checked for the type and latency of memory chips, actually haven't gotten around to O/C yet. However, I've got one q'--what are the temps like at that stable o/c you've achieved? Also--what drivers are you running? Have you tried 82.41 yet? I'm still running it on Leadtek drivers myself.
I'm running on the 84.21 drivers. Temps are pretty low. I don't have an exact number on the overclocked but its idling at 43C right now. Welcome to ARP forums btw....
Thanks for the welcome . Mine's idling at 48-51 C, depending on the ambient temperature, I don't know what it does under load, I guess RivaTuner could help there. Next step--82.41, check what it does. I'm more interested in stability than top performance, but I bought the oc'd version because it was the single 7900GT available in this country . So far it's been rock solid. Only mod I'm planning is to stick an Arctic Cooler on it ASAP, the stock one cools well, but it's rather noisy on full RPM.
Yea, I need to get better cooling for this card. It runs really cool and stuff but the heatsink is too small for my taste.. It's an awesome performer. The current RivaTuner doesnt recognize the 84.21 drivers yet.
Ok, I just picked up a Zalman VF900 and we'll see what I can get outta it. May think of some vmods as well. I will be interested in not only the OCing of this card but the difference in benching with the TCCDs and the UTTs (if I can get past the cold boot lololol )....
With some "assistance" it should do ok... Plus I'm not gonna do major vmods (couldn't solder if my life depended on it.)
Isn't 7900GT vmod the one that involves drawing a conductive line between 2 points on the PCB? Or am I confusing it with some other card... If it is then that should be fairly simple, even I would be game enough to do it
Be sure to let us know how your OC goes! Seems to me that a 70mhz core increase is pretty good It will be interesting to see how much further you can push it with the Zalman cooler
Yea, those are some of em. But there are vmods that involves soldering that I wont even try. But I will be up for the conductive ink ones...
I'm pretty happy with this heatsink... It really holds its own. Heck if it can't, my Tornado will back it up for bench sessions (assistance).... LOL!!!! I ran a Farcry bench looped 25 times and I looked at the temp and it was in the upper 40s celcius. It's happily idling at 38C right now. All of these is thru the NVIDIA drivers so... But it runs cool. RTHDRIBL running didnt change its temp. :\ Will try to bench more and see. Eager to compare the TCCDs and the UTTs...
I've been reading up on the possible volt mods for the 7900GT and all I can say is, WOW. Some people have gone over 700mhz!! Compared with the 500+ stock, that's crazy!! I'm just wondering (here I go again...), how long would the card last if it was volt modded? Plus, I feel that a modded Arctic Cooling silencer NV5 would somehow be better at cooling the 7900GT. What do you think psykhotik? We should eventually have a similar guide here at ARP!!!
I have the NV Silencer 5. The VF900 is better. I will be doing voltmods I guess but you gotta cool down the power regulatory chips coz they get toasty.. I have been having problems with it but now I slapped on some chipsinks on em. We'll see what I can squeeze out of em..
OH.. so this is the best place i can post.. I have been posting everywhere asking how to OC... it seeems that i have already found some answer.. hehe.. I am new... as you can see.. so few questions and some confirmation. 1. You can OC using the nvidia program rite.. the forceware? 2. wat is the artifact? how does it look like? how do i know when i see one? 3. how do i check the temp?? 4. The zalman you used.. read the review it states its not much different compare to stock is it correct? have you increased your OC using this cooler?? Thanks dude...
Sounds like you're off to a good start. However, you might consider getting an aftermarket VGA cooling solution like Zalman's VF900. It may give the extra oopphm without the artifacts. What are the idle and load temps of the card?
