Overclocking a Radeon X300

i have just bought a Dimension 8400 which came with a Radeon X300 graphics card. It's a good mid-ranger but i was looking for something with a little more oomph. I have read up about overclocking and was wondering whether tweaking it a little is safe and if i would notice the difference. I have downloaded ATITool so i can do it easily. At the minute my card runs:

GPU clock: 324MHz
Memory clock: 196MHz

but according to the ATITool database, the card could be clocked to

GPU clock: 375MHz
Memory Clock: 200MHz

Would i really notice the difference? and is it safe (i don't want to burn out my components)?
At the minute i do not have any extra fans and cooling systems so i don't know how high this card can go.
If anyone has any ideas please post back

Thanks
Alex

 

Hi alex98uk,

You're talking 15% increase in GPU clock speed and 2% increase in Memory clock speed, neither of which will be noticeable but will shorten the card's lifespan. It's said that an order of magnitude difference is necessary for a human to tell a difference; that's a multiple of 10.

 

just to be safe, gets some thermal grese and fans if your doing some serious overclocking (over 30%)

more CPU power= heat which u have to vent, more power need which u need to supply and more processing power (which u have to enjoy)

 

Suggest you check inside the case for positions to mount extra fans (maybe one at the front and one at the back?). With the extra cooling you could try some experiments with O/Cing the card. Trial some 3D games, they may not "look" much better, but they could run a little more "smoothly ".

If the overclocking trials don't knock your socks off and the fan noise has increased, you could disconnect the the extra fans and just keep them for when you upgrade to a better card (CPU, memory, etc) in future.

Matt