Tech Reaction

Well as I seem to be one of the very few who still hangs on to the classics. Yep you heard me, I said classics! The 8800GT was ahead of its time and absolutely dominated anything you through at it. It was such a beast I would not sell it when the next generation of cards came out. Heck, i still own it now so that is a few more generations it has stuck with me. It still plays all the games I want it to, Modern Warefare 1 & 2, Counter Strike Source, Team Fortress 2. Yes, I do realize it wont play them with all the amazing amped up graphic options but for the average joe who needs that? We just need something that will play the game.

So today I set out to overclock this once dominant card to see what all it has left in it.

well so far I’ve OCed a a little bit just to check it out and look at temps and everything as it is still running with air cooling.

So far it’s looking good I could not find any artifacts while running 3dmark. I saw the temperature at its highest around 60C, but i messed with the temps because my fan was only at 80% through it all. So now i got it set up so when it gets that high (60c) it will set my fan to 100% (Through RivaTuner). So i will play with it some more and see what i come up with.

What do ya’ll think of it so far for the first try? I was excited it didnt crash

// rule of thumb \\ Do one then the other … ie. do core first ( leave mem stock ) up 3 check for artifacts etc. etc. etc. continue. If you see artifacts or it locks up on you, back off by 5. Then do memory same exact way. The shader will clock up with the core speed as well, but after memory and core been maxed then mess with it.
….. This is a very tedious way of doing it, but it has never failed me. Some people look online and see what others are getting in their GFX card overclock and stick the memory and core speed to just below that to test it for themselves. This is also fine if you want to do that, but I am stuck in my own ways

Later on in the day I have come to this point. After a long day of overclocking and a few thrown pens across the room later. I have found the about area of the max overclock for this card.

I was running it through the tests and noticed artifacts popping up. Whether this was due to heat issues or just hitting the max the card could handle I will never know since I have no urge to put this card under a water cooled system. (however if you would like to send me the VGA block for the 8800GT that is another story)

The final product ended up at this …

I tried 720/1008 and it locked up on me so as of right now 713ish is about as high as my core can go.
When I had 1022MHz on the memory I got just a couple artifacts so I backed it down.

I think without water cooling or something greater than air I have hit my wall. So even now when this cards crown has been taken away by the cards we have today. It still had some fight in it and put up a good show for me, at least. I will take my …
GPU Clock: 713 MHz 1007 MHz 1782 MHz
Default Clock: 600 MHz 900 MHz 1500 MHz
Overclock: +19% +12% +19%
and just remember what use to be on my trip down memory lane with this once man among boys card that nvidia produced.