HIS Radeon HD 7850 4GB iPower IceQ Turbo review

Posted by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 02/18/2013 09:03 AM [ 9 comment(s) ]

Overclocking the graphics card

Overclocking the graphics card

As most of you know, with most video cards you can apply a simple series of tricks to boost the overall performance a little. Typically you can tweak on core clock frequencies and voltages.

What do we need?
One of the best tools for overclocking NVIDIA and ATI videocards is our own AfterBurner which will work with 90% of the graphics cards out there. We can really recommend it, download here.

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 than a few minutes. I always tend to recommend to novice users and beginners, to not increase the frequency any higher than 5% on the core and memory clock. Example: If your card runs at 600 MHz (which is pretty common these days) then I suggest that you don't increase the frequency any higher than 30 to 50 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. Look carefully and observe well. I really wouldn't know why you need to overclock today's tested card anyway, but we'll still show it.

All in all... do it at your own risk.

Original	This sample	Overclocked
Core Clock: 860MHz	Core Clock: 1000MHz	Core Clock: 1050MHz
Boost Clock: 860MHz	Boost Clock: 1000MHz	Boost Clock: 1050MHz
Memory Clock: 4800MHz	Memory Clock: 4800MHz	Memory Clock: 5800MHz

Unfortunately the card has been BIOS locked at a maximum of 1050 MHz so overclockign wise you can't easily take it any further. However use that, increase Power Limit to +20% and apply 1450 MHz (quad data rate = x4) on the memory clock and you'll be in for another 5% to 10% extra performance treat.

Have a peek at the results when overclocked.

Above, Sleeping Dogs, same maxed out image quality settings as before yet now with added overclock results. DX11 High Quality mode in-game AA enabled in-game AF enabled.

Above, 3DMark. As you can see, there is an additional bump in this very GPU limited software, lovely but totally not needed.

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