Overclocking the GeForce FX

Of course with most videocards we can do some easy tricks to boost the overall performance a little. It's called overclocking the videocard and by increasing the frequency of the videocards memory and gpu we can make the videocard increase it's 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 that frequency any higher then 5-10% of the core and memory clock. Example, if your card would run at 100 MHz then I suggest you don't increase that frequency any higher than 110 MHz.

More advanced users push that frequency often way higher. Usually when memory starts to show white dots 'snow' you should go down 10 MHz and leave it at that. The core can be somewhat different. Usually when you are clocking to hard it'll start to show artifacts, empty polygons or it will even freeze. I recommend that you back down at least 10-15 MHz from the moment you notice an artifact.

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

You will benefit from overclocking the most with product that is limited or you may called it 'tuned down'. Now then, we know that this graphics core is likely more powerful then it's memory can handle. Therefore by increasing the memory frequency we should be able to witness some good results.

GeForce4 Ti 4200 front side view - Special Design Copper GPU cooling.

As I stated in the beginning of this review, the core of the Ti 4200 graphics card is normally clocked at 250 MHz. Memory in total is 128 MB DDR memory and clocked at 2x 276(553) MHz which normally would have been ~500 MHz and even lower for the standard 128 MB model. So here we have this videocard with faster memory standard than can be clocked ever  faster. But can we boost it a lot then ?

Of course .., the card was able to be pushed extremely far. The results (while remaining stability and image quality) was 305 MHz for the core and 730 MHz for the memory, both core and memory are beyond GeForce4 Ti 4600 specification. Let's take a look a graph at default and overclocked.

Well, although it's hard to see in the graph as it does not reflect the increase well enough. In 1600x1200 you are able to gain ~27 frames more out of the card which definitely is a very good result, this card craves the need for speed and overclocking just that gives it what it wants. It passes the GeForce4 Ti 4600, but it's a bit of a paradox as the Ti 4600 can be overclocked also ;)

The 3,6ns BGA memory is responsible for achieving good results.

BGA stands for Ball Grid Array, it means that the solder connection points joining the memory chips to the module board are spaced over a grid rather than is a straight line (like the traditional memory chips).

This design feature reduces the cross talk of signal information and allows for better routing of the traces. The net result is a memory that is more stable, runs cooler and works better with high speed GPUs.