Overclocking the new MBP C2D

[Machead III]

I know a lot of you, me included until recently, have been unable to overclock our C2D MacBook Pros because ATITools wasn't recognising the X1600s current speeds and was crashing whenever it was clocked at above like... 10 10.

Well, I managed to get overclocking on my C2D MBP by updating to the recent update of Omega drivers and using ATI Tray Tools which fully recognises all the X1600s current settings and will allow you to clock up to some pretty amazing speeds.

My old CD iMac could hit about 400 450, up from it's default speeds of 300 310. That was pretty nice, but anything above that would cause severe spaz chucking.

But hoo hoo, boy oh boy, can my C2D MBP whip that. I'm at 445 520 right now, and Prey, maxed out (although at one res lower than native, because I actually find that this causes a natural antialiasing that compensates for the minor decrease in detail) runs quite literally butter smooth, whereas without overclocking I had to disable some of the higher end features and even then would achieve slightly stuttery fps.

It seems these MBPs aren't as comfortable overclocking the GPU Mhz - I can't go above 445 without it having a stroke - but it's able to seriously push the memory speed. I think I could probably get away with 550, maybe 570... who knows even 600.

But for now I'm sticking with the safe bet of 445 520. It's like a new card!

 

[Radam]

I might over clock my MBP if the right tools come out for it, the GPU pumps out enough for me at the moment, but i don't know how safe or hot much more heat your computer will produce, ill probably wait for other people to mess around with it before i go and do it.

 

[steelfist]

Any Benchmark comparisons?

 

[Machead III]

Man, I'm pushing the X1600 up to 460 570 now, and not a single artifact. And this is driver level overclocking, so presumably completely safe and within the limits set by ATI.

I haven't had any problems, so I'm not worried, but if anyone knows a reason why I should not be going up that high then please say.

I'll do some real benchmarks soon, but comparing the ATI Tray Tools 3D renderer's FPS I get:

GPU 415 Mem 430 = 290-305 FPS (standard)

GPU 450 Mem 535 = 360-375 FPS (23% increase)

GPU 460 Mem 570 = 400-410 FPS (36% increase)

Overclocking the memory is much more effective that GPU mhz, but that still helps, and I could probably get away with ~500, but I haven't tried yet, as it seems less happy when overclocking that than mem. This all drains the battery very quickly though, so best when connected to the mains.

I mean my old iMac could only do 400 450. With these speeds it's like having a completely new chip inside the MBP. Plus, the nippy C2D is great at number crunching in strategy games, although I still can't play that Giant Earth map on CivIV, which is like the real life size of a football pitch - you'd probably need the freaking Earth Simulator for that ^^

The reason I have been cranking it up is to improve performance in Battlefield 2142 demo, which lags like NUTS, but I'm pretty sure it's all about the software and EAs lame demo support, as playing Prey online with those overclocks is literally flawless.