Overclocking the x1600 in my first gen iMac

[redsteven]

I have a first generation intel iMac - 20" 2.0 GHz Core Duo with a Radeon x1600 (256 megs of VRAM).

I did some searching on the forums but most of the threads on overclocking really didn't have a ton of useful information... they consisted mostly of speculation.

I'm interested in overclocking in Windows XP, NOT OS X.

I just downloaded ATITool 0.26. and it named my default profile (89.95/89.95). I don't think that's significant but I figured I'd mention it anyway.

It also lists the default values for my core as 1326.76 and my memory as 1319.27. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell me what those values are. I doubt that they're MHz because that seems pretty high and we all know my x1600 isn't running at that speed.

I'm not interested in enormously increasing the clock speed. I was thinking more along the lines of mild overclocking that'll give me maybe a 5-10 fps boost with low-medium settings in a game like Mass Effect.

While heat is certainly a concern, this is a 20" iMac case, not a macbook pro case.

Does anybody have any recommendations, like how to actually find out my current clock speeds?

 

[Chris14]

Redsteven,
I have discovered, during my own attempts to overclock my X1600, that the latest ATITool doesn't really work as it should: those readings you give are WAY wrong, the default clock speeds for the X1600 (in PCs) is 470/470.
Apple underclocks by different quantities depending on what machine, but my speed was about 400/400. By using ATITool 0.25 beta 14 (I think, I'm doing all this from memory), It seems to find the right speeds, and you can overclock to around 470-480 maximum. Play around with the settings and see what you can do!

These links may help
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/232634/
https://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-248683.html
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/Mac_ATI_X1600_overclocking.html


Good luck!

 

[redsteven]

thanks for the response.

I'm very weary of downloading from anywhere except the official site cause i'm not running any antivirus software, and it doesn't look like techpowerup provides any convenient way to download old versions from their site : \

 

[flopticalcube]

I would suggest you start by downloading this set of drivers. The guy who writes these drivers (they are actually just tweaks of official ATI drivers) is a sponsored beta tester for ATI. A newer version of ATITrayTool comes with it that lets you overclock your X1600.

 

[redsteven]

thanks floptical. I decided not to download the drivers form that site though because they were last updated on january 1st... and the drivers on ATI's site were updated on january 8th : \

I'm gonna try downloading an older version of atitools and see how it goes.

EDIT:: I tried the new version of atitool... 0.27b3, and it seems to recognize the speeds properly. The default was 400MHz/400MHz. I set both the core and memory to 450 MHz, but for some reason it kept putting the core at 445.50 MHz. I don't know why....

I figure that +50 MHz isn't unreasonable at all so I'm gonna a scan for artifacts and then try it out at that speed today and see how it goes.

 

[flopticalcube]

thanks floptical. I decided not to download the drivers form that site though because they were last updated on january 1st... and the drivers on ATI's site were updated on january 8th : \

I'm gonna try downloading an older version of atitools and see how it goes.

The only difference between the 7.12 (last December) and the 8.5 (May) are changes for the HD38XX series of cards and CrossFire support. Neither of which applies to your card. To be honest, I don't think any more driver improvements will be made for either the X1600 or the HD2600 in the current iMacs.