Overclocking
The base frequencies for the card are 576MHz core, 1,242MHz shaders, and 1,998MHz memory. Testing on BFG's air-cooled GTX 295 showed that it scaled to 684MHz/1,474MHz/2,400MHz, so the indications were good.However, try as we might, and try we did, the watercooled card overclocked to 658MHz core, 1,418MHz shader, and 2,200MHz RAM - clearly lower than the air-cooled model. However, there's a mitigating factor here, and it's the fact that we've run three games for the overclocking tests. Our normal overclocking game, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, isn't as hard on the GPU as Company of Heroes, which displays corruption at a lower level, so we'll be switching to that as the one-game overclocking test from now on.
Here's how the performance scales with ET:QW, Company of Heroes, and Call of Duty 4, when compared to the stock-clocked card.
| Company of Heroes: OF (high-end) 2,560x1,600 4xAA 0xAF | |
|---|---|
| BFG GeForce GTX 295 H2O | BFG GeForce GTX 295 H2O overcl |
| 86.29 | 93 |
| Call of Duty 4: MW (high-end) 2,560x1,600 4xAA 16xAF | |
|---|---|
| BFG GeForce GTX 295 H2O | BFG GeForce GTX 295 H2O overcl |
| 93.2 | 103.5 |
| Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (high-end) 2,560x1,600 4xAA 16xAF | |
|---|---|
| BFG GeForce GTX 295 H2O | BFG GeForce GTX 295 H2O overcl |
| 92.03 | 103.13 |
The improvements range from between 7.7 and 12.6 per cent, and the average frame-rates are such that the increase may well make a real games-playing difference.
