The Test Bed

Before I get started, I want to let you know what I have in my system. This should let you know of all the components that generate heat.

My Video Card Overclocking Situation before Adding the Card Cooler

This is what I experienced with the Creative Labs TNT2 Ultra with the standard heatsink and fan. The Creative Labs TNT2 Ultra that is in this system is able to clock to 170/207 without any visual distortion. When running the core speed at 180 I would have an instant lockup in any 3D game.

When the core was at 175 the card would run for a while then eventually lock up. Anything between 171 and 174 would eventually give me visual distortions. The standard heatsink on the card was removed and them reapplied with heatsink compound and a bit of glue. My overclocking didn’t improve at all.

The memory is hard to tell if it is good at a certain clock speed or not. Visual distortions occur more when the memory is overclocked than the core. When the memory on my board was overclocked to 215MHz, I noticed little dots appear all over the place. On every clock setting from 215 to 208, the dots would get less and less until I couldn’t see them anymore at 207MHz.

My Video Card Overclocking Situation after Adding the Card Cooler

After adding the Card Cooler, I promptly set my TNT2 Ultra to a core speed of 175MHz and it remained stable thought every singe thing I tried.

The next step was to go for a core speed of 180MHz. During the first 5 seconds in any 3D game, my system would lock up. The same thing would also happen with standard cooling, so I wasn’t disappointed. With a core speed of 179, 178, and 177, the computer would eventually lock up. My system never locked up at 176MHz, however, I feel safer with a nice, round, clock speed of 175MHz.

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