AGP 7900 GS Ver 1.1 UDF3 Overclocked

[The_Smurph]

Well after reading through quite a few posts and issues with the older version 7900 I was definitely worried about this card. I did have to buy another PSU, older Thermaltake couldnt put out the AMP's even though I had several people on forums, and computer techs assure me it could handle it. The new supply is a PCP&C 750W Silencer Quad. 60 Amps on the 12V+ rail :).

Since I installed the new PSU the card has been running fine w/ a constant temp between 46-53 on idle and 67 is the max I have seen under load. Im currently running a modified 167.26 from a third party site.

I primarily play Source Engine based games and they have run great with this card. I use the Half Life 2: Lost Coast Stress Test for most of my testing situations. With a 1280 X 1024 resolution I can pull 70FPS w/ Trilinear Filtering, No Anti, No AA, and no HDR on the stock speeds.

Now this is where things get strange. Yes I have overclocked this card a bit, 600/1480(btw this was w/ Rivatuner 2.06), and run LC and surprising enough the FPS dropped to 61. I then turned on Anti(2X), and AA(2X) and got an increase of around 3-4 FPS. Ive ran this test three times on each setting to make sure the results are correct. After digging around in this forum it has been stated quite often this card can not be overclocked.

Was wondering what are this issues w/ overclocking these cards, is it heat, the voltage toasting the Memory on the card, or is it still a black hole as to the possible problems. The card runs well but I have only had it up and running for about 3 weeks now; so Im holding my breath this new version(1.1) has a little longer self life than what I have been reading about w/ the previous version.

Also on the overclock, if anyone can figure out what gives w/ the drop in FPS that would be great. However w/ the problems I have been reading through I can understand why quite a few of yall are not actually attempting any over clock on this card at all.

Specs:
PSU: PCP&C 750W Silencer Quad(Crossfire edition)
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-K8NS(Rev. 1.X)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ OX 2.4Ghz 754 Pin
MEM: 2Gig Kingston Hyper X DDR 400(2-6-2-2)

[Miker]

We never said you can't over clock a AGP 7900. That card is way more reliable then a AGP 7950GT. Plus the Ver. 1.1 of these cards seems to be even more reliable.

I would say with that processor there is no need to over clock the card. I had a 2.8GHz P4 then upgraded to a 3.4GHz Extreme P4 and it gave me 30-40FPS more in Source games. Right now, in CSS de_dust2 at 1280x1024, everything maxed, 4x anti, 16x filter I get a low of 80FPS and a high of 180.

There is no point in over clocking a card that is already bottlenecked by your CPU, overclocking the card is just stressing your CPU more and getting lower FPS.

[The_Smurph]

Thanks for the heads up Miker, I didnt mean to imply yall said this card couldnt be overclocked. Meant to imply that yall have had some issues w/ the 7900 series cards. I did kick up the overclock on the processor to 2.7Ghz and that netted me another 12fps in Lost Coast. I appreciate the help and Im pretty sure that is as high as Im going to get out of the overclock on this processor.

[Miker]

Yaa, the card is just so much faster then the CPU of the AGP.