Some help please, getting no results after overclocking

Prelude

Guys, I'm trying to overclock my Leadtek 7950GX2 for the first time. I followed this Rivatuner tutorial: RivaTuner 2.0 Guide at .:: Derek’s Blog

Stock speeds for my card are 500/600, right now I am running it at 580/765
I took these setting from this page:Technic3D Reviews: Grafikkarten: Doppelpack: Leadtek WinFast PX7950GX2 TDH - Seite 4: Overclocking/Benchmarks
As you can see, this *should* have quite an impact on performance.

However, I've tested this with the crysis GPU benchmark tool and with the 'stat fps' command for Unreal Tournament 3 and the net result is exactly nothing. I get absolutely no performance boost...
I don't think it's my CPU because it's an E6600 running at 3,15Ghz. My drivers are the XG169.04

Any help on this would be appreciated.

jp306

You would see a small difference in a game that is in the same generation as your video card, but you're not going to see it in a game like Crysis with a 7950GX2. Have you tried using any of the benchmarks in that link you provided with a before and after benchmark?

Prelude

Well no, I don't have any of that software. I hardly think though that I would see absolutely no improvement in FPS in modern games if this gives +20 frames in doom3

jp306

Download them then you'll see(they're all free), but Crysis is the most demanding game on the market. I'm not saying you would see no improvement in all new games, but you're not going to see it in Crysis.

CDsDontBurn

run 3Dmark06 with stock and OCed clocks, and compare your scores. if your OCed scores are better than your stock clock scores, then there you go. when playing games, have you increased IQ and were able to maintain the current FPS? If so, then that there in itself is a boost in performance.

in terms of drivers, i would honestly say to stick with the official drivers, or the NVIDIA beta ones, not a 3rd party. but that's me personally.

Prelude

Thanks for the replies guys, CDsDontBurn; why would you advise stock drivers only? I've been happy witht the XG's for years...

CDsDontBurn

because if you have any issues when you contact the manufacturer of the card, the drivers you're using are supported.

and there's also the fact that i'm not a big fan of 3rd party drivers for either NVIDIA or ATI....yes, that also means omega drivers as well

Prelude

Ok, I ran 3dmark06 and as I suspected I get identical scores before and after 'overclocking'. (8550 pts)
This is what the overclocking tab looks like in Rivatuner:



I've only altered the 3d performance settings, but looking at the hardware monitor after a run of 3dmark06:



You can see that during a run of 3dmark06 the core/memory Mhz don't go up and stay at the stock 500/600 setting...
Also, when I run GPU-Z I can select both GPU's via a dropdown menu (like with a dualcore on CPU-Z) Only the 2nd from the dropdown menu shows the new frequencies for the core and memory. So at first I thought that perhaps I only overclocked one core but with the 3dmark06 scores being exactly the same that doesn't seem to be the case...

procupine14

sometimes you have to apply those settings or set an option so that the settings will "stick" so to speak. I have noticed that with overclocking my 7600GT that i have to select an option that will cause the overclocking settings to stay that way.

CDsDontBurn

i forgot to mention something earlier that i just remembered about. In the past with NVIDIA cards, you have to set both the 3D and 2D speeds when OCing. The reason for this is because if you don't, then the gfx card will default to the lower 2D speed when a 3D application (a game most commonly) is launched.

I don't know if that is still the case with NVIDIA cards today as i have not OCed one since my old 6800GT card, but AFAIK, that is what needs to be done.

So OC your 2D and 3D clocks to be the same, and try running the test again .

procupine14

I'm fairly sure that that particular setting hasn't changed