Overclocking & Test Rig

Overclocking
Before we dive into an extensive series of tests and benchmarks, we need to discuss overclocking. With most videocards, we can do some easy tricks to boost the overall performance a little. It's called overclocking the videocard. 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 would run at 300 MHz then I suggest you don't increase the frequency any higher than 330 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 go down 10 MHz and leave it at that. The core can be somewhat different. Usually when you are overclocking too hard, it'll start to show artifacts, empty polygons or it will even freeze. I recommend that you back down at least 15 MHz from the moment you notice an artifact. Look carefully and observe well.

All in all... do it at your own risk. Overclocking your card too far or constantly to its limit might damage your card and it's usually not covered by your warranty.

You will benefit from overclocking the most with a product that is limited or you may call it "tuned down." We know that this graphics core is often limited by tact frequency or bandwidth limitation, therefore by increasing the memory and core frequency we should be able to witness some higher performance results. A simple trick to get some more bang for your buck.

The GeForce 6800 GT at default clock speeds is doing 350 MHz core and 2x500 MHz memory (1000 effective).
overclocked it was capable of running of a 380 MHz core and 525 MHz (1050 effective) memory frequency. Now that is resaonable bang for your bucks as that is closing in on Ultra speeds. Memory was a tad disappointing but hey, can't blame NVIDIA there. Otherwise it would be competing with its own product. It seems that this PCI Express product was a tad less tweakable compared to it's AGP 8x version.

Proper cooling is of course essential for a good overclock. The single slot design for the GT is very efficient.

The Test System
We can now offer you an update in this article in which we handled quite a bunch of benchmarks, but first let me show you our test system.