MSI Radeon 6850 Cyclone Power review

Posted by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 12/23/2010 02:00 PM [ 0 comment(s) ]

Overclocking the graphics card

Overclocking The Graphics Card

As most of you know, with most videocards you can apply a simple series of tricks to boost the overall performance a little. You can do this at two levels, namely tweaking by enabling registry or BIOS hacks, or very simply to 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 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: 775MHz	Core Clock: 860MHz	Core Clock: 1017MHz
Shader Clock: 775MHz	Shader Clock:860MHz	Shader Clock: 1017MHz
Memory Clock: 4000MHz	Memory Clock:4400MHz	Memory Clock: 4800MHz

Now we increased the fan RPM control to 75% which is not too noise but audible. We do this as we'll be voltage tweaking the graphics card. We reached a very nice overclock showing a bump in overall performance.

Voltage tweaking was done with AfterBurner (download here), we applied 1250MMv on the core. Our stable end result was 1017 MHz on the core and 4800 MHz on the memory. The temps did increase, but remained stead at roughly 65 Degrees C only. DBA levels go up towards 42~43 DBa if you use roughly 75% fan RPM. All acceptable.

Here's what that does towards overall game performance.

Above Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, maxed out image quality settings as before with 4xAA 16xAF

Above Battlefield Bad Company 2, maxed out image quality settings as before with 8xAA 16xAF

Above we can see 3DMark 11 - the Performance mode is applied here. Compared over a reference R6850 we gain 20 to 25% performance and roughly 10% from the MSI factory clocks. Pretty impressive stuff alright.

22 pages « < 19 20 21 22

MSI Radeon HD 7790 TurboDuo OC review
We test and review the MSI Radeon HD 7790 OC edition, also known under SKU code R7790-1GD5-OC incl FCAT Frametimes. The new graphics card is intended to boost a little more performance into entry-level gaming.

MSI Radeon HD 7770 Power Edition review
We review the MSI Radeon HD 7770 Power Edition. MSI recently released an updated Radeon HD 7770 1GHz edition with their own 1.1 GHz custom model. They use their own custom 4-layer PCB and equipped it with a dual cooling solution. I say dual here as you get an extra fan that you can pop onto the card for extra cooling. MSI also opened up the voltages for Aux, GPU and memory making the card very tweakable.

MSI Radeon HD 7850 Power Edition OC review
We review the MSI Radeon HD 7850 Power Edition OC with that all new TwinFrozr IV cooler. The updated cooler has much better looks and MSIs proprietary TwinFrozr IV cooling system that packs 8mm thick nickel-plated copper heatpipes to convey heat drawn directly from the GPU to a large aluminum fin array, ventilated by two 80 mm fans. These fans are based on the new dust removal technology, which means that the 1st 30- seconds they'll spin backwards in an attempt to remove any residual dust that can build up over time.

MSI Radeon HD 7870 TwinFrozr III OC review
MSI releases their Radeon HD 7870 TwinFrozer III OC series, a factory overclocked (50 MHz higher at 1050 MHz) Radeon HD 7870 solution with room for even higher tweaks. As its name implies the graphics card utilizes MSIs proprietary TwinFrozr III cooling system that packs 8mm thick nickel-plated copper heatpipes to convey heat drawn directly from the GPU to a large aluminum fin array, ventilated by two 80 mm fans.