Overclocking NVIDIA

It has been almost two years since I sat down and wrote my guide on How To Overclock the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Series. As the title implies, the material covers what is now considered an obsolete product... so it's a little outdated, but certainly not irrelevant. When I originally wrote that article, I was an avid enthusiast who was just beginning to write product reviews. Back then I had only one video card worth playing video games with, and I massaged it in every way possible looking for that last bit of hidden performance. But now that things are different for me and my collection of products fills the entire Benchmark Reviews Video Cards section, I find that overclocking is a hobby of the past.

Because I receive many different products for review testing, there are two things that have happened as a result: 1) I don't have time to play video games anymore, and 2) I don't need to overclock any of these graphics products because already arrive that way. However, occasionally I receive a top-end product that already tips the scales, and the enthusiast in me comes back out to play with some overclocking experiments. That's why I've returned to this article, and decided to update my previous guide with a fresh and current approach to the topic.

Overclocking can take on many forms, and experiments can range from minor product improvements to a total re-engineering project that completely alters the hardware. Because of their long history of successful product launches, NVIDIA is the most recognized name in the graphics industry. Their GeForce series of desktop graphics accelerators has become an enthusiast favorite, primarily because of excellent overclocking potential. For gamers, overclocking unlocks a hidden potential to change the graphics quality settings from medium to high without a hardware upgrade. The results are often times worth the risk, and in this article Benchmark Reviews will focus on achieving the most gain possible from any NVIDIA GeForce video card through overclocking, while using the least amount of effort.

Some industry voices have called overclocking a hobby, while others have compared it to product misuse. However, I believe that if you are reading this article, you are probably one of the many computer enthusiasts who believe it is perfectly acceptable to get something more out of a product without it costing you more money. When I think about it, everyone enjoys getting something for nothing; it's human nature.

Additionally, it is also human nature to blame someone else if something goes wrong. This is where I present a warning to you, the reader of this article, that this article is not a recommendation to overclock your video card. This article explains how I conducted these experiments on my own personal property. Benchmark Reviews and the author of this article will not be responsible for damages or injury resulting from experiments you choose to conduct on your own property. If you read beyond this point, you are accepting responsibility for your own actions and hold Olin Coles and the staff of benchmarkreviews.com harmless.

So with the legal disclaimer out of the way, here's what you can expect. This article covers several key areas, most of which you will likely skip so that you can jump right into overclocking. The first section will cover the end-goal of overclocking and discusses when it should be temporary or made permanent. Then the discussion moves on to the preparation and actual overclocking procedure. After that, I review a few different tools that could help make the tasks much easier. At the end of this article, Benchmark Reviews offers up our results on the performance difference between a reference stock and overclocked video card.

So if you're ready, let's begin...

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