Overclocking 20" iMac's Radeon 9600

[iindigo]

After reading the recent wave of overclocking threads, I've become interested in squeezing some more performance out of my 20" 2Ghz iMac G5's ATI Radeon 9600 128MB. I'd like to hear some experiences with overclocking this card to try to find a speed between better performance and safety.



Thanks!
iindigo

 

[Clydefrog]

what prgorams did ou use to oc your card?

 

[Rocksaurus]

what prgorams did ou use to oc your card?

http://thomas.perrier.name/index.html

 

[Chone]

After reading the recent wave of overclocking threads, I've become interested in squeezing some more performance out of my 20" 2Ghz iMac G5's ATI Radeon 9600 128MB. I'd like to hear some experiences with overclocking this card to try to find a speed between better performance and safety.



Thanks!
iindigo

9600s usually top out at 400-450, the higher end models (XT and Pro) may get higher... I get 430 on 9600SE I have, up from 350 on the core... the memory only gets a measly 12mhz overclock but thats probably a 9600SE thing only...

The best way to test is quite time consuming but very rewarding, set your core a good 50mhz higher, benchmark and test for stability (which does NOT only mean the comp can boot), a good demanding game like Doom3 should do, get the demo if you don't have that and run the timedemo to stress the card heavily, if all is good and well, go up 5mhz (or a small-amount of your own), if all is wrong, go down 5mhz, keep doing this until you find the maximum overclock, do this first for the memory, then do the same for the core and then check if the card runs stable with both things overclocked, that should be it. Note that this method varies with card, I said 50 and 5 mhz for your card because its a safe number for 9600s but may not be so for other cards...

 

[iindigo]

Well, I just adjusted it to 30% on both mem and core, and so far the results are good. I don't have any truly demanding games, but World of Warcraft at 1680x1050 with 2x AA, fullscreen glow, and most settings turned to highest (or close) responds well with about 8-16 FPS gained depending on the environment. It certainly seems more smooth and silky in appearance.

I'll report back later on if any artifacts or instability occurs.

 

[eXan]

Once I added up to 40% to both core and VRAM on my rev.B 17" 2 GHz iMac (sig).

It was stable, I was able to run some testing in UT2004 and Doom 3.

In UT FPS increased only at maximum resolution (1440x900) with no gains at 1024x640 (the res I play this game at)

Doom 3, on the other hand saw some gains even at 1024x640 (didnt test it at maximum res.) - with stock frequences I got 24.2 FPS, +30% I got 30.1 FPS, +40% I got 31.3 FPS.

Then, just for fun I, I kept the core at stock 324 MHz, but increased VRAM clock by 50%, after running a UT2004 test (only 1-2 FPS gains at 1440x900) artifacts appeared.

Hope this helps

 

[Crazy Chucky]

This may not be entirely on-topic, but it's pretty closely related.

I have the same model, the 20" 2Ghz with the 9600, and I'm trying to figure out how big of a monitor I could theoretically attach to it. I have two questions...

1) Does anyone know the max resolution the 9600 can output to an external display? Apple's official specs assume mirroring, but I have the Screen Spanning Doctor and I know it can go higher, I just don't know how much higher.

And 2) I know that overclocking can increase speed in 3D games and such, but can it (or any other feasible and relatively safe mod) increase max resolution?

 

[eXan]

1) Does anyone know the max resolution the 9600 can output to an external display? Apple's official specs assume mirroring, but I have the Screen Spanning Doctor and I know it can go higher, I just don't know how much higher.

I belive its 1920x1200. 23-24" Monitors

And 2) I know that overclocking can increase speed in 3D games and such, but can it (or any other feasible and relatively safe mod) increase max resolution?

No.

 

[Crazy Chucky]

Thanks for the info!