Overclocking a graphics card

what is your default speeds? what i did with my card is moved it up by 10mhz each time and gamed on it for a few hours to make sure it does not over heat

Right, you gotta go up gradually. 10mhz is a good increment. As a reference, here's the 8800GT Info Thread. People have posted their results with the 8800GT there. Gives you a point to work toward. Keep in mind that if you're using stock cooling, your results won't be as good as with AM cooling. Good luck!

Well what I did was with my Radeon X1300 256mb, I upped the core and mem to a 2:1 ratio and then gave up on that. I then tried to find my max mem (450) and tested for stability and then upped the core till it got unstable and crashed. Not the best way to do that but it got me one of the best clocks... The card is now dead though as it was running at 97c constantly, what a beast!, playing games. But I don't really believe in overclocking VCards as whenever I played, the FPS was higher but the glitches and lines and stuff made the game unplayable. (Probably because it was close to 100c)

The only reason I see to OC a videocard is either to bench, or to make a game playable if your VC can't play it, BUT it's probably because that was the one and only card that I overclocked.

As long as you have time to waist and patience then you should be fine. Take it slow and bench and screen it! Post back with your results! Hope you get what your expect out of it.

Oh, and a general tip: I would use RivaTuner for overclocking, and ATITool for checking for artifacts. Good luck!