chronicbucks

hey guys, thought i would pose a question i have been pondering in my head for a bit

so i just finished my first i7 build, got it perfectly overclocked to 3.8. Which was my target as i was told the 3.6-3.8 range is the best for fps. Anyway, so i have an EVGA GTX 275 896MB Superclocked edition. So far I have been very pleased with it, it does everything i want it to do, and i can run every game i own at the highest setting

i am wondering, would i notice any performance gains in overclocking it?? I have never overclocked a GPU before, and don't really know the benefits.

If I did overclock would i then have to buy an aftermarket cooler??

rather than just overclock should i wait and pick up another gtx 275 and SLI them??

and when doing SLI, do both graphics cards have to be identical

sorry, i just asked more than a few questions, but your help would be awesome!

Josh81

you'll get the most gains out of overclocking your GPU clock


its worth overclocking it if the heat doesn't get too excessive


its basically free frame rates

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sLowEnd

Overclock your shaders!
The stock cooler is good enough for a decent OC.

When SLI-ing, you need two GTS275's
They can be any brand though

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chronicbucks

ok, so wow, such quick responses, i love it, ok, so now a few more questions

i have the evga precision tool on my computer, which is how i adjust the fan when im in game and out

so currently my settings are

core clock: 648
shader clock: 1458
memory clock: 1188

core clock maxes out at 1040
shader clock maxes out at 2335
memory clock maxes out at 1900

what are good temps to try and hover around??
and also can anyone tell me how to find out the fps i am currently getting

<------------------NOOB

inthishour

anything lower than 60-65 is good. and you can download a program called fraps
http://www.fraps.com/


amazing for checking out fps

AMD+nVidia

No. Underclock it instead. That will give you better performance.

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SgtSpike

Overclocking will definitely give you better performance, but if you can already run all of your games at the highest settings without a problem, what's the point?

I managed about a 20% OC on mine, and it was definitely noticeable in some of my games, such as L4D and Crysis. You, on the other hand, with such a good GPU, I just don't see the point of OCing it right now. Unless you want to OC for the sake of OCing, which is not a bad reason at all...

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I_dalder_I

Oc to what you consider "max" and run crysis at max res with 16xQ aa. Even if its a slide show it will detect artifacts and unstable gpu oc's better and safer then furmark "just my opinion". Never failed me yet

brettjv

Welcome to Overclock.net. And please fill in your system specs, under USER CP near the top of the page. Hit 'add system' and fill in what you got so your sig line looks like the rest of ours. It's worth the time and energy if you wanna ask questions, otherwise you're gonna have to keep repeating yourself re: what gear you have.

Honestly, it's fairly rare for GPU's to actually have enough headroom for overclocking to make a significant change to your gaming experience. The GTX275 is already clocked pretty high, too.

I know this is Overclock.net and everything, but ... until and unless you actually start reaching a point where you're playing a game and finding your fps is just a SMIDGE lower than what you need for the game to feel 'right' to you (usually somewhere between 25 and 40fps, depending on the game) at the settings you have going ... I wouldn't worry about overclocking your card.

Overclocking, MOST of the time ... is mostly for us benchmarking geeks. It's 'practical usefulness' is fairly limited, esp. when it comes to cards that are already clocked close to their max (%-wise) right out of the box.

I know it sounds like blasphemy, but I've been doing this a long time, and it's honestly been very rare the occasions where overclocking my gfx card has caused my maximum playable settings to increase ... there's been a couple scenarios/cards where the OC'ing of the gpu allowed me to, say, bump AA up by a notch, or maybe bump shader quality a notch, and still remain playable vs. what the card could pull off stock. But again, it's been rare to see that happen over the years.

The present card I have happens to be one that's well worth overclocking ... part of why I like this card, actually

I can tack on up to 20% to my framerate at my max OC on this card. When you start talking 20%, the idea of OC'ing starts to hold some significant value. The difference between, say, 25 and 30fps average can be noticeable.

But the GTX275 is already close enough to it's max that you are unlikely to be able to coax > 10% of extra frames out of the card, and that'd be both a) if you get lucky on the particular card, and b) you get yourself pretty well skilled at the process of overclocking.

But then again, this IS Overclock.net, and OC'ing IS free, so ...

What the heck, if you have the time and motivation, you might as well try it.

Evga Precision is a nice program for overclocking ... has all the basic tools ... it's free ...

But I'm warning you now ... it can become an addiction ... and it can get expensive.

Next think you know you'll have the entire 3dMark06 and Vantage benchmarks permanently etched upon your brain.

And no, the vast majority of us OC'ers around here are running stock gpu coolers. Sometimes upgrading to an aftermarket cooler will give you a tiny bit of extra OC'ing headroom, but that is pretty rare. You don't 'need' AM cooling, it just helps in a very small % of instances to give you a tiny little extra bump, or it just gives you lower temps or noise in general.

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chronicbucks

i would love to OC just for the point of OC!

anyone wanna give me any advice on what exactly to raise the different levels too?