Overclocking tests
Overclocking was conducted using the control panel's clock settings feature. A quirky aspect of Gainward's EXPERTool was the decrease in performance once clock settings were adjusted upwards. This happened each and every time. The software may need an update or two.
A final, stable clock frequency was arrived at by testing the card at 1600x1200x32 with 4x FSAA and 8x AF. The card was deemed stable if it could pass through three loops of 3DMark 2001SE without a screen blemish. No additional cooling was directed at the Gainward FX 5900 Ultra and it was situated in a standard case. From the default 450/850 clocks, a stable 495/955 level was reached. That's over 10% for both GPU and memory - not too shabby, especially with no additional cooling. To highlight the impact of raised frequencies on benchmarks, three were re-run with the inflated clocks.
Firstly, 3DMark 2001SE.
A very healthy 1000-mark rise here. Just imagine if NVIDIA were able to release this card with 500/1000 standard clocks.
And now Quake III.
The fastest has just got faster.
We challenge any manufacturer to create their own custom cooling solution and market their card with 500/1000 clocks. That would really be something, wouldn't it ?. Who says overclocking doesn't pay ?.
