When to stop raising overclock numbers? 8600mGT 128mb Ver.

Okay, I know all the ''its bad to overclock a laptop gpu'' stuff, but oooother than that, I'm wondering that with the 8600M GT 128mb card in the 2.2GHZ MBP's, I have a max core clock that I have to go by (OC'ing in Rivatuner) so that I don't get any artifacts.....

However When I'm using memory clock, I can set it to huge numbers (System max seems to be 955mhz) without the 'TEST' acknowledging a fail status. At its current state:

561/785 - (could even set that mem clock higher....but afraid to)

I don't get any artifacts whatsoever, but just wondering if there is any sort of sign OTHER than artifacts, (also other than crazy CPU temps) that you've overclocked your MEMORY clock too high?

Thanks!!

 

Turn on the Hardware Monitor feature of Rivatuner. Start a game. Run it for a minute or two (the actual game, not the menus). Exit, check the monitor. Most likely, the clocks that were active during the game aren't the ones to which you overclocked.

 

Played for about 5 minutes, and clocks reached the numbers I gave them.

 

which driver are you running and which version of rivatuner?

 

I'm running driver 169.04 and RivaTuner 2.05

 

Does the MBP 1.2 firmware have any effect on overclocking?

 

i have asked this question before in another thread but i do want more opinions on it. what kind of difference can one expect on the 8600gt 128 vs the 256 version? i believe one of them was same performance even with higher resolutions. any more thingsi can relate to?

 

Well regarding the difference between the two cards, 256mb is probably more future proof you could say since new PC games are starting to ask for more VRAM in general. (however this could possibly be not that much of a factor considering the turbocache up to 512mb of vram of the 8600M GT GDDR3)

I'm personally alright with the 128mb with some overclocking, as I've ran The Witcher, Bioshock, and Condemned fairly well at 1280X800-1440X900 resolutions. Around 20-25 FPS with high settings in those games. Definitely playable.

But personally I don't think (like many others) that the $500 cost to upgrade to a 256mb vram + .2GHZ justifies the upgrades.

But if you are interested in OC'ing the 8600M GT in the MBP, the GDDR3 is especially tuned to handle OC'ing--mostly in regards to more stable temperatures. (comparing to the usual DDR2 that is in many other types of 8600MGT cards.)


Also if anyones interested in OC'ing best to watch out for ANY artifacts at any point when gaming. This means that you are slowly destroying your card, so clock to an amount in which you feel confident and don't see any Artifacts.

Also I'm feeling like every card is different cuz I've heard in another post about a guy with a 2.2ghz mbp who could overclock his Core to 610, while mine can only clock up to about 560.

 

^oh great i didn't know about the turbocache so that at least gives me some relieve. and i agree that the 500$ can be spent better on 4gb ram and 7200rpm hd which can provide a better overall boost

 

TurboCache isn't as great as more discrete VRAM, so search up a bit more about shared graphics ram before thinking its just as good. Better than ATI HyperMemory, but still its usually just used to allow games to think that the card has more discrete memory.