How to Overclock NVIDIA Graphic Cards

msi_nvidia_graphics_video_card_nx8400gs_td256e
Overclocking a Nvidia graphics card is not difficult at all, and it’s a great way to improve performance in gaming. The reason why it’s not that difficult is because there are several programs that help in overclocking the card. But BIOS overclocking can be difficult and it can have its consequences, as well as finding the right range to overclock may be difficult as well. When overclocking your GPU, you have to watch the temperature of the card so it does not overheat and burn out, and also you have to run some graphic tests, to make sure there are no artifacts, if you see artifacts, quickly lower your GPU overclock card settings. Also when testing temperature make note to test it under stress such as in gaming, keep a close watch on it. Also the programs will have fan speed control, I suggest adjusting that as well, this will greatly help in overclocking the card, some people who are serious about overclocking, even buy bigger replacement fans for the cards so they an overclock higher, because heat is a major factor, if you get too much heat, it will overheat and become unstable. Also a note, to get stable speeds that people are overclocking on there GPU’s, you can simply go to http://www.overclock.net/ or do a simple search in google with the terms for example 8800GT overclock, and you will find some settings that are confirmed working well with that card. Firstly I will describe the way to overclock a Nvidia graphics card with programs, the easiest way and safest, and then through BIOS, only recommended for people who are more experienced, since recovering from a bad BIOS flash is virtually impossible. First of all before starting, make sure your graphics card is up to date, go to http://www.nvidia.com/

For software overclocking, I have used 3 programs, 2 of them are generic, they work on all Nvidia cards, and the last one only works on EVGA cards. Nvidia has its own overclocking tool, called Ntune, but now integrated with a package called NVIDIA System Tools with ESA Support, you can grab it here at http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.03.html With this program it is fairly easy to overclock with it, you open up the program, and you basically will see about 4 slide bars, move these slide bars to increase core clock, shader clock, memory clock, and fan speed. It will also display temperatures. The next program to use is called RivaTuner and it can be downloaded here http://downloads.guru3d.com/RivaTuner-v2.11-download-163.html This is the same basic idea, its a bit different of course, and it has a bit more functions, but you use it the same as the Ntune software. The 3rd one I use personally, which is for EVGA card is EVGA Precision which can be downloaded here, if you have a EVGA graphics card http://www.evga.com/PRecision/ I personally like this one better, because I can see my temps in games, and it works well with my graphics card, it has the same settings as the other programs mentioned. Basically all these programs do the same thing, its just a personal preference of which one you like better. As I said before to figure out what values to put in, look it up in google, each card is different, also what I like to do is for example say I have the 8800GT, I take a look at the 8800GT superclocked edition and see that card’s settings, and try that, then if its stable, I look at the 8800GTS, and try that, and so on. Sometimes you can upgrade a card to a different card, its that easy. Or you can increase by increments of 10mhz and see how it operates, just make sure you don’t raise the settings to high, go slow, overclocking takes patience. Also note that RivaTurner is easier to save the settings, you just select apply at startup and it automatically applies the overclock settings, with ntune its a bit more tricky.

The next method is the BIOS method, which will store all the information on the card, default, no programs will be needed anymore, also note that this should only be done after doing extensive testing with the programs mentioned above, since its easy to go back, or even better do not even go this far. But if you are serious about it, and think you got it right, or have a old card and nothing to loose go ahead. For this you will want to use the Nvidia BIOS editor which can be downloaded herehttp://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Video-Tweak/NVIDIA-BIOS-Editor.shtml After using the other software programs, this will become not difficult at all, you will know what settings to put into each box. To apply this you will need to run this on a floppy disc, and run it on DOS, this is because the graphics card and drivers have to be not in use, and in DOS no graphics is in use. As I said before this is risky, so take care of doing this.

I hope you enjoyed this information on overclocking your NVIDIA graphics card, also note that the software way of overclocking is a lot safer than flashing the BIOS. If you are using Ntune I would not recommend using the auto-tune and if your motherboard supports ntune it would try adjust things like FSB etc, and most likely it will cause your system to lockup, since it does it in a stupid way. So only use Ntune to manually adjust your GPU settings. Another thing to note, it varies from GPU to GPU but try to keep your load temps below 80 degrees C. I take no responsibility over anything that happens, when you try to overclock your graphics card.