8800gtx

[Quakindude]

Your temps are outstanding for your overclock. I wouldn't worry about the temps at this point. The max for that CPU is 61.4C, so you're right where I'd expect you to be with a quality cooler like that one.

Your PCI-e bus should be at 100Mhz. Not 125. Overclocking your video card through the PCI-e bus does even less for you than using a third party program to overclock your card directly and can quickly lead to system instabilities while gaming.

In days past, significant performance increases from over clocking your video card used to be normal. However, video card manufacturers often place their own cooling solutions on their products and tweak the clocks from the factory. With the 8800 series of video cards, nVidia has already pushed the GPU pretty hard as it is. I wouldn't even be concerned about overclocking your video card. It should kick some serious ass in every single game out there as it is.

[Capper]

Bo, actually a lot has really changed in the card market since the 6XXX series. Gone are the days of the bundle really being the difference in price/value, now companies are forced to use overclocking as the main means of pushing their product over another, which is why you saw a huge return % on 7XXX cards, along with NVIDIA taking a hard line with companies overclocking their design.

And I don't think anyone is really saying there is no performance gains to be made....there are, just usually not enough to justify the risk....and usually not a big enough difference that you'll notice anywhere except when benchmarking

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by sbohdan

I have no idea why you people are allways saying that. as long as you keep the temperatures down (extra cooling), there should be no problem, providing you know what you doing and OC gradually, monitoring temps along the way.

I OC'd a lot of different video cards and never fried one. you just have to be carefull and KEEP THE TEMPS DOWN!!!
that's another misconception and I'm really tired of seeing it written down over and over.
just check out the article I wrote on the OC of my 6800LE and you will change this opinion:
6800LE cooling mod with Thermalright SI-97

I wouldnt call 108% increase in performance a waste of effort. Granted: not all video cards are good overclockers (the GF5700 and the ATI 700 were poor OC'ers ) but some have great potential and with much better cooling (and volt increase) you can make a beast out of a mouse sometimes.
on the other hand I see no reason right now to OC the 8800GTX, since all games would run on it just fine for now. you might consider some OC in the future as new games with more demanding graphics come in but be carefull, do some research on this before you do it

On the older cards, this used to be true. However, and I'm not new to overclocking either, the 7800's and above realize very little increase. Certainly not enough to risk overclocking your card. Since this guy hasn't stated that he has an after-market cooling solution, I'm doing the responsible thing by recommending he not overclock his very expensive hardware.

In taking this person's overclocking experience into consideration, he is fairly new to it, the last thing I want to see happen is this guy posting back here saying he has pushed his video card too far and fried it. Since you have some overclocking experience yourself, you should know how overclocking a video card vs. a CPU is bit more risky.

If this guy were to have posted that he has a vanilla 6800 or 7300, I would have given explicit instructions on how to go about overclocking. With the way things are now though, and considering his experience level vs. money invested, I stand by my recommendation.

[sbohdan]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

On the older cards, this used to be true. However, and I'm not new to overclocking either, the 7800's and above realize very little increase. Certainly not enough to risk overclocking your card. Since this guy hasn't stated that he has an after-market cooling solution, I'm doing the responsible thing by recommending he not overclock his very expensive hardware.

well, I have a 7900GT and I did push it over the GTX 's performance easily. I don't have any experience with the 8xxx series but you can probably push them too. I do agree that a 8800GTX has probably not much headroom left and it's obvious that he isn't familiar with VGA OC, that's why I said to be careful and educate himself before he tries anything. actually I will check MVKtech (they specialize on video cards - I learn't a lot from them) and see about the 8800 line. you guys made me curious. anyway, I will be building a new rig soon and will get a decent card with it and as allways: OC the crap out of it

[Quakindude]

My eVGA 7950GT has stock speeds of 550 core and 1400 memory. With a VF-900 cooler installed, I easily overclocked mine past...well, the only other card in its class, the Superclocked version. The SC version has 600 core and 1500 memory. I managed to get my 7950GT to 625/1585. The net result? No more than 10 FPS more in all the tests I ran at a resolution of 1024x76 on up to 1600x1200. The only place it made a difference worth mentioning was in benchmarks. I don't play benchmarks, I play games. So the extra 10 FPS when I was already getting in excess of 100 really isn't worth the potential shortening of my components service life.

But hey, to each their own. Whatever makes you happy. If this guy says he's determined to overclock and that will make him happy, as long as he has the wallet for it, and understands the possible negative results, I'll be more than happy to tell him how to do it.

[Pbirmingham1988]

I tried by testing out overclocking my 8800gtx through ntune... it failed each time so i don't care really care anymore really... i juts really wanted to get at least 600/2000... im at a low 575/1800... i shoulda juts spent that extra 40$!!!! If i return it i will have a 15% restocking fee. thats huge!

[Captain Crunch]

Originally Posted by Pbirmingham1988

I tried by testing out overclocking my 8800gtx through ntune... it failed each time so i don't care really care anymore really... i juts really wanted to get at least 600/2000... im at a low 575/1800... i shoulda juts spent that extra 40$!!!! If i return it i will have a 15% restocking fee. thats huge!

It's not worth it ......... you have a 8800GTX!!!!!!!!!
You'll never notice the difference anyway......... enjoy the monster of a card you have!!

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by Captain Crunch

It's not worth it ......... you have a 8800GTX!!!!!!!!!
You'll never notice the difference anyway......... enjoy the monster of a card you have!!

Very true - that $40 would be much better spent on a videogame, or taking the girl in your sig out to a good dinner and a movie, etc.

[Pbirmingham1988]

lol ya ill use that 40$ on my girl.. shes da best. she be gettin mad at me though cuz im always tryin to finish this oc business lol i love her though

[Jokerswild]

She's a beauty but obviously has eyesight problems.