With most videocards, we can do some easy tricks to boost the overall performance a little. You can do this at two levels, namely tweaking by enabling registry or BIOS hacks, or even tamper with Image Quality. And then there is overclocking, which will give you the best possible results by far.
What do we need? One of the best tool for overclocking NVIDIA and ATI videocards is our own Rivatuner that you can download here. If you own an ATI or NVIDIA graphics card then the manufacturer actually has very nice built in options for you that can be found in the display driver properties.
Where should we go ? Overclocking: By increasing the frequency of the videocard's memory and GPU, we can make the videocard increase its calculation clock cycles per second. It sounds hard but it really can be done in less then a few minutes. I always tend to recommend to novice users and beginners not to increase the frequency any higher then 5-10% of the core and memory clock. Example: If your card runs at 500 MHz then I suggest you don't increase the frequency any higher than 550 MHz.
More advanced users push the frequency often way higher. Usually when your 3D graphics start to show artifacts such as white dots ("snow"), you should back down 10-15 MHz and leave it at that.
Usually when you are overclocking too hard, it'll start to show artifacts, empty polygons or it will even freeze. Carefully find that limit and then back down at least 20 MHz from the moment you notice an artifact or any weird behaviour. Look carefully and observe well. I really wouldn't know why you need to overclock today's high-end cards anyway but we'll show it none the less.
All in all... do it at your own risk.
Reference Clocks
Default on this card
Maximum overclock
Core Clock Speed 3D
625 MHz
625 MHz
690 MHz
Memory Clock Speed
725 MHz(x2)
725 MHz (x2)
800MHz (effective)
The HiS X1900 XT despite its nice high clocks is still a very nice card to overclock even further. However, the more complex cards are getting the less difference a small overclock will make and the results show that. At one point there will be complex games released that'll be extremely difficult for this card. That's the point where overclocking will really matter.
We were able to push the card easily towards 690 MHz on the main core clock and we settled the memory at 800 MHz. The core & memory could probably go even faster yet we had to overclock with ATI's overdrive which capped our OC at this maximum (Rivatuner is still in development for overclocking).
So this overclock was done with no sweat at all .. and that promises a lot :) VERY good results.
Our overclocking results are never a guarantee for your home grown results. Manufacturers' choices in components differ often per batch and so will the end-result. This however is a good indication of what is (or isn't) possible.
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