Advice on Overclocking M15x

I've been looking around all kinds of forums and found that some people were able to overclock their M15x's. However, I did not find any info on my specific specs and would like to know if someone could help me out here on what settings I should put my clocks on

Alienware M15x
i7 Q740 @ 1.73GHz
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730
6GB RAM

I have the latest ATI Drivers installed including CCC2 and there is no Overdrive option on mine so I downloaded the AMD GPU Clock Tool and it says these are my speeds

Engine 649.99
Memory Clock 799.97

Does anyone have any recommendations for what to set them to?

 

I have no idea what clocks the 5730 can handle. But just overclock little by little, run benchmarks to test stability, and watch your temperatures and you should be fine. If you're getting temps over 85 Celsius or black screens then lower the clocks.

 

That's what I was going to do, but I was hoping someone had some insight on what it can handle. I'll try increasing each by 10? Or is that too small or too much? I'm not really an OC expert haha

 

I would increase the engine clock by 20 or 25 until I got to about 100mhz or 150mhz over the stock clock then go up by about 5 or 10 from there. I don't know about ddr3 memory but with the gddr5 memory in the 5850 I don't gain anything when overclocking the memory more than 100mhz over the stock clocks; so I wouldn't go too crazy with the vram speeds.
Just my two cents

 

How did you get to where you can change the clock speeds? I also have the 5730 and downloaded AMD GPU clock tool and it says "Failed: No valid devices found"

I also want to experiment with overclocking this GPU.

EDIT: I actually have the exact same setup as you. =\

 

You may have the wrong version; I don't know which one you need though. Try downloading MSI Afterburner, its another overclock program; I actually prefer it to AMD GPU Clock Tool.

 

Thank you, downloading that as i type now. I shall try this out soon and come back with some results.

I tried that and when I enter a value into Core Clock then push enter it just goes back to what it was before. Any advice?

 

I had that same error when I tried to get it a couple months ago. I gave up until today I wanted to play the Crysis 2 demo in all it's glory so I re-downloaded it AFTER I updated the ATI drivers and it worked fine for me.

 

By the way thanks for your input on my questions. I ended up stopping at

800.40 and 948.37

I have two temperature programs and they both say I'm running about 52 degrees outside of games and about 60 while playing games like Metro 2033 and Crysis/Crysis Warhead. Seeing as how those games are very high demanding (especially Metro 2033) I'm pretty happy with the performance right now.

 

I feel so dumb, I forgot that I had to do that to get AMD GPU Clock Tool to work after installing the 11.2 drivers. Glad you got it working.

Higher clock speeds don't always translate to better performance, just use what's most stable and gives you a decent performance increase.

What settings do you run in Metro 2033? Just wondering what the 5730 is capable of. I run Dx10 on low settings and get goods fps, even on low settings this game is absolutely gorgeous.

 

Since updating ATI I can play on High with DX10 and get very little lag. I can play on very high with DX11 but whenever I go outside or there are about 3 or more people on screen the rate drops significantly. It's really inconsistent so I just leave it on high. Like you said..that game looks great on any setting. I wish they took the extra time to optimize it better for performance

 

I haven't played it with the 11.2 drivers, I need to check it out.

If you could only adjust each individual setting instead of choosing between presets...

 

I think I've already updated to the latest drivers, I'll try re-updating and then re downloading. You are using the newest ATI GPU Clock tool right? Theres not a specific one for the 5730?

I'll try it later tonight and see how it goes, i'm in college now.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m15x/499768-m15x-fsb-overclocking-not-only-920xm.html

 

If you max out stability and temps are like 75 degrees you can overvolt it and add more clocks. I dont remember how to overvolt it but if you ask somebody can likely help you.

 

Yeah I know I would love that even more. Ever since updating I can play on Very High with DX10 and it's perfect fps for me. That's without using the AMD Tool

Yeah I just downloaded version 0.9.8
Download AMD GPU Clock Tool v0.9.8 | techPowerUp

I saw that thread, but I got really confused reading it..

I think I saw something about that somewhere online but I never really looked into it. If I were to increase voltage from .9 to let's say .95 or 1.0 would it be safe and increase performance/stability better than just changing the clocks?

 

Just a quick update. With my engine clock at 850 and memory clock at 1000 I can play Crysis/Crysis Warhead on Very High with no lag whatsoever. And I can play Metro 2033 on Very High with DX11 with a small amount of lag . I was fooling around with the CCC2 controls too so I don't know if that is contributing to my new found performance levels

 

Thats awesome! I gave up though after not being able to get it to work. I installed the AMD GPU Clock Tool and it said it couldn't find any devices.

So then i took your advice, i uninstalled my drivers, uninstalled the clock tool and reinstalled everything. Still said it couldn't find any devices.

Any other advice? I'd love to overclock my GPU lol.

 

i think you tried the wrong version. try version 9.26

http://downloads.guru3d.com/AMD-GPU-Clock-Tool-v0.9.26.0-For-HD-5870-download-2383.html

 

Wow, you're awesome. haha. Worked perfectly, i shall try messing with my clocks later. Do i have to set them every time i start up my computer? or do they stay at what i set them at until i change them?

Thanks +rep.

 

you'll have to set it everytime. you can make a shortcut to make it startup and apply the clocks automatically, but i forgot how to do that. but you can ask the revelator about doing that, he is super pro.

 

Overvolting does not increase performance in itself. it merely increases the possibility of higher clock rates, as well as increasing heat. so if you increased that much it would probably raise temps a few degrees and you would be able to overclock a bit higher. maybe 50mhz to ram and core clocks?

 

Mine maxed out at 870 engine and 1020 memory. If i went up to 880 and 1030 it just crashed as soon as i started anything. I don't have any games to test this with, but still pretty glad i got it to work, haha.