How far to go

[shadowarmy75]

Well I feel like overclocking my Nvidia GeForce 2 MX since I'm getting a new cpu once cheaper DX10 cards come out. I have tested some configurations with 3dmark and I have seen improvement by increasing from 120 in memory clock and core clock to 129. I was using a version of 3dmark that was a bit too advanced for my card but I got a 56 on the dry run and 65 on the overclock. I was wondering how far I could go without burning the card out too fast. Since my CPU isn't too hot either I was wondering at which point would the overclock outstrip the CPU and bottleneck the performance anyway. My processor is a P4 1.9. And I have 512 of PC133 RAM. It's in two sticks if that helps.

[PyrrhusIV]

Well, if you have fairly competent coolers, and a good understanding of computers, you could push it pretty far....

It all depends on how decent your motherboard is, your knowledge of computers, and the cooling of your computer parts...

[shadowarmy75]

My house isn't that hot during winter but I know that there is definitely some dust in my case. Last time I cleaned it out, you could plug holes in walls with that stuff. That being said, it runs pretty cool and because the card is so old, I have no sensors(that I can find) and no fans on the card but the rest of my system runs in the mid 30s. But my case is huge for what's inside it and that should help. I am using an Intel motherboard that I just recently flashed so it should be ok.

[PyrrhusIV]

Well, if your serious about OC'ing, atleast clean out the case with the dust. Taking out the dust will lower temperatures, let your hardware perform better, and let you truly OC.

Now, you have no fans in your case? Or atleast on your card? Well, no need to spend money on a fan for the card if it is that old and your planning on buying a new card soon... it's passive heatsink should do well for awhile....

The only fan I would buy for that card is This: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ubCategory=573

They all do the same thing, suck in alot of air (In your case, heat) or if you modify them, blow plenty of air on something, in this case, your card. It doesnt matter which, but i'm guessing sucking the heat would be more benificial.....

It really depends, are you just OC'ing this for fun, and willing to spend the money on a new card really soon? if you are, might as well have a little fun on it.....

[shadowarmy75]

Yeah, I'm planing on redoing my whole CPU so I don't really care if I fry it. I looked at the fans and just to let you know it's AGP though I'm not going to get a fan anyway. I just opened it up and it's a lot cleaner than I expected not much dust. Do you know when it will start bottlenecking?

[belson]

Just a small note: overclocking your graphics card will not fry your cpu (processor.) If you meant that you're planning on getting a whole new computer, then proceed as planned.

You'll be hard pressed to find the information about bottlenecking anywhere. It should actually be pretty easy to identify yourself. Just continue to overclock the graphics card until you either see artifacts(errors rendering the 3d images) or the 3dmark scores don't go up anymore. And make sure to keep good notes and go slowly. If you see the artifacts, then you're not bottlenecked at all. If the benchmark numbers start to level off, the you've found your bottleneck and you can reset the graphics card to where the benchmarks first started to level off.

And if I were you I'd run more than one version of 3dmark so you can get a more complete picture. I think theres an 01, 03, 05, and 06 version out there for you.

One more thing, you may be already doing this, but I would overclock the core speed and then the memory speed individually. Leave one at stock and find the others max, then switch.