GPU Overclocking

The main trick to increase the GPU overclocking capability is also improving its cooling. GPUs can come with passive or active heatsinks, i.e. with or without a fan.

If you video card uses a passive heatsink, like the one portrayed on Figure 14, consider replacing it with a good VGA cooler. Take a look on our first look articles about Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 6 and Arctic Cooling Accelero X1 for a better idea on what we are talking about. Or if you don’t want to spend money, you can at least mod the heatsink to add a fan to it.

click to enlarge
Figure 14: Example of a video card with passive heatsink.

But even if your video card already uses an active heatsink, you may want to consider replacing it with a better cooling solution, like the Artic Cooling products we’ve mentioned.

Another trick advanced overclockers do is to increase the GPU voltage. Increasing the GPU voltage usually helps the GPU to achieve a higher clock rate. One way of increasing the GPU voltage is by editing the video card BIOS. We will discuss later how to edit your video card BIOS, however we won’t go into the details on how to change the GPU voltage.

Total or partial reproduction of the contents of this site, as well as that of the texts available for downloading, be this in the electronic media, in print, or any other form of distribution, is expressly forbidden. Those who do not comply with these copyright laws will be indicted and punished according to the International Copyrights Law.

We do not take responsibility for material damage of any kind caused by the use of information contained in Hardware Secrets.