How to Overclock Your Video Card and Boost Your Gaming Performance

IfeHacker - While it won't likely mean your old card can magically run the latest games on ultra settings, overclocking your video card is a solid way to eke a bit of extra gaming performance out of your computer. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to do it properly.

[xtremexx]

been wanting to do this but if you overclock i think you void your warranty so im not going to do it unless i get lots of money lol

[T900]

Overclocking is relatively safe. I personally have GTX 580 in sli. The standard speed is 772 MHZ, i usually overclock mine to 900MHZ they run great and provide a decent performance boost.

[xtremexx]

:/ might try it and build some confidence when i get my ASUS gtx 560 ti

[malol]

You don't get that much of a boost when you overclock a graphics card
BUT
over clocking a CPU on the other hand is much more better since you WELL notice the difference and its safer in most of the times

so don't risk overclocking a graphics card
and just overclock your CPU

[dredgewalker]

@T900

Yep it's fairly safe but the most important thing to monitor is the temperature of the video card once it is overclocked. Heat is the number 1 killer of video cards. My older card is still kicking with 2 years of overclocking.

[T900]

@dredgewalker

I normally run my cards at stock setup. My screen resolution is 5760*1080 (meaning surround gaming on 3 screens). GTX 580sli is enough to run most games at that resolution at max settings.

Meanwhile my Msiafterburner utility is hotkeyed for multiple settings. Setting 1 does stock speeeds with 25% fanspeed for silent operation. Setting 2 does stock speed with 50% fanspeed for normal game play. Setting 3 does 900MHZ speed with 85% fanspeed and some overvolting.

All the above settings can be applied with a click of a hotkey while playing games. Hence if i do notice a game is stressing the gpus enough and dropping below 60fps, all i need to do is hit setting 3 and instantly a performance boost is availble. Since afterburner is running it reports all the temps on screen.

[dredgewalker]

@T900

Lol, that's cool. I used Rivatuner in conjunction with HWmonitor with my older card and I had to do lots of testing to get the most stable overclocking. I only use 1 setting cause I get artifacts and crashes beyond that.

[ninjahunter]

It pretty safe, But its reccomended that you are able to replace your video card. Just keep an eye on the temps, from my experience if you can keep the temps as close to 80*c as possible then there shouldn't be any notable risk. Of course there are the rare occasions where it will randomly combust but ive had about 7 GPUs, all extremely overclocked and i ended up upgrading before any of them died.

[ATi_Elite]

Overclocking your GPU is about as easy as brushing your teeth but don't take that ease for granted cause you can easily burn up your GPU and be left with a $400 paper weight.

*So use caution and if your not sure then don't do it*

Also only a few manufactures build their cards to with stand overclocking for everyday use. Some brands I would not BUY let alone overclock for fear of them burning up.

*Do your research on the brands and how they build their products.....Heatsinks that cover everything, Japanese Capacitors, triple layer boards, heavy duty solder, Durable Voltage regulators, blah blah blah!*

[digger18]

Whats the point in burning out your graphics card just to gain a few extra fps?

Just buy a new card =)

[Zechs34]

That's the point. We all don't have $350 when we just spent a couple hundred on the first GPU. Might as well maximize its use.