I have an Asus V6600 Pure - 5.5ns SDRAM GeForce. It was one of the first generation GeForce cards and as such runs hotter than the newer generations. It also doesn't have any of the fangled on board hardware monitoring and regulating that later models have. This means looking after it is up to me.
Even today, there are plenty of card manufacturers, I would say most, who have no onboard hardware monitoring or regulating features, and at best come with software that allows you change the clock and memory speeds with ranges that they (the manufacturer) has deemed acceptable.
For starters, no one tells me how high I can overclock MY hardware. Secondly, those programs all chew up resources I could be using on getting a few extra FPS, and time (manipulating the software) I should be using enjoying the splendors of the GeForce.
This article assumes you are familiar with overclocking your video card and know its limits. It also assumes you know how to find registry entried using Registry Editor. Overclocking can fubar your stuff, so don't say I didn't warn you. There are plenty of sites out there for the overclocking newbie. This is not one of them, sorry.
Ever since my TNT I have been using a small and trusty overclocking program
known as TNTClk. You can get TNTClk
here. Of all the normal ways overclocking
your card, this has got to be one of the simplest and later I'll be showing you
how to set clock and memory speeds with it in split seconds.
Traditionally, you start the program, set the clock and memory speeds you want and hit apply. I'm not going to teach you all to suck eggs, I'm sure you can figure it out, it's pretty simple. Of course you can get it to apply a certain clock/mem speed on startup, more on this later.
Why change the clock and memory speeds anyway?
Well to be honest I never used to concern my self with it either, until I fitted a thermistor to my GeForce HSF (see my GeForce mod page). All of sudden I realised an overclocked GeForce gets really HOT! Now my case is very well cooled, so this heat is really just a product of the GPU's design, we have to live with it, or do we... ?
Here are some figures for you to ponder over, taken with a constant room temp:
Clock speed |
State | Case Fans | Temp |
| 160/209 | GAMING | OFF | 50oC |
| 160/209 | DESKTOP | OFF | 47oC |
| 100/100 | DESKTOP | OFF | 38oC |
| 160/209 | GAMING | ON | 43oC |
| 160/209 | DESKTOP | ON | 38oC |
| 100/100 | DESKTOP | ON | 29oC |
Of course I didn't test 100/100 gaming, that would be pretty stupid.
From this table you can see that UNDERCLOCKING your GeForce when you are potting around the desktop, surfing or whatever is definitely the way to go! Generally the GPU runs 9oC hotter when overclocked. I also noticed that after heavy gaming the GPU takes a lot longer to cool down to it's idle desktop temp when left overclocked, however if you underclock it straight away it cools down much faster.
Incase you're wondering about 2D performance, I used WinTune to test it:
 | 160/209 Clock/Mem speed = 77.29396 MPixels/s |
| 100/100 Clock/Mem speed = 63.17683 MPixels/s |
Yeah that's a hole 18% speed decrease, whoopty-friggin-do. In terms of real world performance, the 2D capabilities of the Geforce far exceed what we need today anyway. I can't notice any change at 100/100.
One more thing to consider, my GeForce is really well cooled, and still gets pretty damn hot, if you just got stock cooling on your card, whatever it is, you might be even more keen to underclock it when you're not gaming and extend it's life that little bit longer.
Now,
here's the good bit! Follow these steps and you'll be able to create shortcuts
like those on the right which will instantly set clock and memory speeds when
run without loading anything into memory or wasting your valuable time!
| Open TNTClk |
| Set the speeds you want |
| Unclick and reclick the "apply on startup checkbox" so that figures there match what you have set above |
| Open Regedit and go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\" |
| Here you should find an entry like the one shown below, the Core:xxxxx and Mem:xxxxx mean nothing to me, but trust me they do correspond to the settings you asked TNTClk to apply at startup. This example is Core 100 / Mem 100 |
| Right click as shown and choose "modify" |
| You should get a window similar to the one below, copy the text from this window, DO NOT ALTER IT |
| Now just create a shortcut and paste that line into it as the command line |
| Repeat from step 1 for any additional speeds you would like instant shortcuts to |
| DONE! |
There now wasn't that easy? Now all you have to do it remember to run the shortcut for the speed you want before you play any games, and slow it down afterwards to cool your card. I have copies of the shortcuts in my Quick Launch bar for one click application. If you think that's laborious you can create a batch file for your most popular games that automates the process.
As usual, any emails on the subject are welcome, but don't, I repeat DON'T whinge to me if you fry your card or hose your registry!