overclocking ati x300 - research and my new settings

hey guys, i remember posting about oc'ing the x300 for the inspiron 6000 and there was some interest from other posters. anyways, i did some reading around through searches on google and users in other forums generally have their ati x300 mobility overclocked from the standard 300/216 (gpu/mem) to roughly 400/290 steady. to quote one poster, "btw, X300 is heaven sent for overclockers. A core/mem of 297/216 can remain stable at 390/280 without artifacts." by tetrflare @( )

i did my own tests with the ati tray tools max function for gpu and mem. i stopped the test at 400 mhz for the cpu (no artifacts were found at the time). when i ran the same for the mem, my system crashed at roughly 290 mhz. to be safe (i don't plan on extra efforts in cooling), i have my gaming profile at 390/280 steady.

as for performance increase, the only solid number proof i can provide is from the 3d benchmark included in ati tray tools. i didn't take any screenshots but the scores went from roughly 1500 to 2050 (i can provide them if you guys need them)! in terms of noticeable performance increase, i don't have f.e.a.r. installed anymore (man, i wish i did so i could get those results) but i increased settings for my two current games:

madden 2006
before: 1280x760x16, player models: high, everything else (stadium, field): low to medium, v-sync off
after: 1280x760x32, everything high, v-sync on

prince of persia: two thrones
before: 1024x768x32, all medium - bilinear, vsync off, medium everything
after:1024x768x32, all high- trilinear, vsync on, high everything, 2x AA

while i didn't put forth the effort to put in actual fps yet, in both cases, the new settings run better than the settings before overclocking, meaning the overclocking definitely raise the performance of my 6000 significantly (just look at the difference in settings for two thrones!).

for those interested, here are my specs:

1.73 GHz pentium m, 533 mhz fsb
512 ddr ram
100gb seagate 5,400 rpm hd
128 mb ati x300 pciexpress x16

anyways, i hope this starts something for other users as well. the x300 isn't going to be amazing but if it can hold settings of 390/280 steady without artifacts, and more importantly without dying, it's a pretty good card! for now, i plan on keeping the standard 300/216 during regular usage, then changing over to the 390/280 for gaming. i don't usually play games for that long and i guess as time passes, i'll grow more couragious and gradually work my way to using 390/280 the whole time, providing no troubles. let me know what you guys think!

 

Hi,

maybe you should read this thread about overclocking x700 and setting the latencies, measure heat and other stuff. My impression is that is much better to set right latencies and overclock memory, because you get much better results with less heat. Check here.

Cheers,

 

Nice little article you wrote. Thanks.

Agreed with Ivan here - try overclocking the memory only, and leave the core clock speed where it is, and calculate the performance increase. Then, do both the clock and memory - calculate the performance. Let us know what you get - I believe you will get a much higher performance gain out of the memory.

The thread posted by Ivan will help a lot, although I do not recommend setting those latencies, as you have a different card entirely and different memory. Still worth a look though.

 

here are my findings. i didn't bother doing 3dmark05 with just memory oc because it had no effect in 03.

3dmark 03
no overclocking: 2756
just memory overclock: 2753
full overclock: 3569

3dmark 05
no overclocking: 1365
full overclock: 1711

 

Wow, those numbers for X300 are even better than an X600 on 3DMark05.....

 

yea, i was very impressed. from what i read, the x300 was just a crippled version of the x600. imagine overclocking the x600...

another thing that i learned is apparently the x300 128 mb version that dell sells is a 256 mb hypermemory, meaning 128 is discrete with the other 128 coming from the ram. i don't know how it affects the performance but i would imagine that it wouldn't hurt to use extra memory for textures and junk. can anyone shed some light on this? thanks.

 

Actually, the X300 is an underclocked X600...same core, pretty much same everything. Sometimes, the memory differs.

 

So the 128 MB x300 from Dell actually has 256 MB total memory? i actually though that is was 64 MB card + 64 MB system RAM.

 

i tired doing what you did on your i6000 and it worked amazingly. I put my setting at 380:270. I have been playing Quake 4 at 1024 X 768 resolution at high quality with 16X anti-alaising and have had a consistent 30 FPS. Before to play smootly, I played at 1024X768 at low quality with no anti-aliasing. It made a huge difference. Thanks for the post. Also, let me know if you have had any problems since you have overclocked your x300.

 

That is very good for x300! Good job.

Cheers,

 

Thanks, I plan on learning as much as I can to improve the performance, your posts have helped a lot ikovac, thanks!

 

Always glad to help. Check this other new (still young) forum in my signature, it might hold more concise information there. I have written some new articles about simple undervolting and keeping the temp down. You might find it interesting at least.

Cheers,

 

Hey all, I have a question. I used ATI tray tools for a while and it worked just fine. i overclocked my 128 MB x300 without any problems. However, i recently rebooted my comp to get rid of all the uneeded dell bloatware. I reinstalled the ATI tray tools, and I can't seem to get it to work. I used to overclock to about 380/270 without any problems. Now when i switch to those setting and apply them, the screen freezes up and turns blocky for a few seconds before it changes the resolution. has anyone else seen this or know why this happens. i don't think i have fried my GPU or anything because i reinstalled the original driver and it works just fine. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I would really like to use the software again, I just don't want to damage anything. Thanks!

 

I always used powerstrip, also check your power settings for the chip (this lowers voltage aswell).

My x600:

http://tinyurl.com/aclra 2k1
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3998520 03
http://tinyurl.com/dvvaf 05

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=101689 (stock 06 score)

 

Thanks for the prompt reply. I did manage to get ATI Tools to work for overclocking. It seems to work fine so far. Hopefully things will continue to go well. Thanks!

 

I figured out my problem with the ATI Tray Tools. I has ATI Power Play on which automatically reduced the clocks if I was not plugged in. I just turned it off and now things seem to be working fine.