Performance boost from OCing GTS 250?

T

Trio

New Member
I was wondering, how much of a performance boost would I get from OCing my GTS 250?

I tried playing Crysis: Warhead on high settings, but it lags, so I'm wondering if OCing my GTS 250 will allow me to play on high settings. Currently I'm playing at 1260 x 760 (or something like that), ranging from 0 to 16xq AA (depending on the level), and all the graphic settings on mainstream (increasing any will make the game lag).

The settings on the card right now are:

Core clock: 756(Mhz?)
Shader clock: 1836(Mhz?)
Memory clock: 1100(Mhz?)

And also, how significantly will the temperature rise, and what should I do to prevent overheating? The maximum temperature the card reaches right now is 53C, and the lowest is 38C (34C if the AC is on, lol). Would applying Artic Silver to the GPU help with OCing a whole lot?

I'm also wondering if maybe my CPU is bottlenecking my card? It's an AMD Athlong X2 6000+ @ 3.0Ghz with 1Mb lvl 2 cache per core and 128Kb lvl 1 cache per core. I'm upgrading to either a Phenom II X3 720 @ 2.8Ghz (Black edition, so I can OC) with 6Mb level 2 Cache, or a Phenom II X4 925 @ 2.8Ghz (plain) with 6Mb level 2 cache. Thanks a lot for reading and replying.
 
your temps seem good. just make sure you have decent airflow and overclock it a little at a time till you get the fps :D your looking for
 
Ooh, so it's something I have to see for myself? I thought it was pretty strange that setting the game to high settings wouldn't increase my cards temperature over 53C, but would make the game lag.

This is kind of a stupid question, but how do I see the FPS during gameplay? I remember reading a post about using EVGA Precision, and something came along with it called On Screen Display Server. Do I use this to see the FPS?
 
if you do replace the thermal paste on your gpu, don't ever use artic silver five, despite what the manufacturer says, people have had problems with conductivity, instead go with ceramique, as its completly safe for gpu use, or mx-2, that is also in the same boat as ceramique
 
just a noob said:
if you do replace the thermal paste on your gpu, don't ever use artic silver five, despite what the manufacturer says, people have had problems with conductivity, instead go with ceramique, as its completly safe for gpu use, or mx-2, that is also in the same boat as ceramique
Click to expand...
Alright, thanks a lot.
 
Im sure its your cpu thats the bottleneck,Not the 250.

I would definatly overclock the 250 though just to squeeze that extra free performance :)
 
zer0_c00l said:
that thing is a copper beast from hell wonder how good it works :D
Click to expand...

Lol, that's what I thought when I saw my Zalman CPU heatsink.

I'm not sure if it'll fit onto my card

board_front.jpg


If the fan is over the GPU, it probably won't fit.

So which is better, a triple-core CPU that's OCable and has less lvl 2 cache, or a quad-core that isn't very OCable and has more lvl 2 cache?

**I hit a new record of 57C while playing a Devil May Cry 4 demo on high settings. But I forgot to turn the fan to max.
 
Last edited:
Umm, are you -sure- it's your GPU that's the bottleneck?...

While Crysis and Warhead are known to be GPU hungry, I've got a 'mere' 9800GT (GTS 250 being recycled 9800GTX) and High runs great, even before nVidia released a new ForceWare update that improved performance and even without OCing the card (Cant say that it doesnt run much better with OCing and the ForceWare update, hehe)

Have you tried OCing your CPU yet? it honestly sounds like that might be more of a bottleneck, try OCing it 10% to 15% and see if Crysis/Warhead runs better
 
I'll eventually remove the card cover to see where the GPU is, lol. By stock cooler, you mean the fan that's already in the card, right?

Springy182 said:
Umm, are you -sure- it's your GPU that's the bottleneck?...

While Crysis and Warhead are known to be GPU hungry, I've got a 'mere' 9800GT (GTS 250 being recycled 9800GTX) and High runs great, even before nVidia released a new ForceWare update that improved performance and even without OCing the card (Cant say that it doesnt run much better with OCing and the ForceWare update, hehe)

Have you tried OCing your CPU yet? it honestly sounds like that might be more of a bottleneck, try OCing it 10% to 15% and see if Crysis/Warhead runs better
Click to expand...

I think it might be the CPU, because I've read other people being capable of playing on 1264 x 764 with the rest of the settings on gamer ( AA set to 0 ), or playing in 1920 x 1080 with AA. I just tried 1920 x 1080 a while ago and it works fine if I don't increase the AA. It'll lag otherwise and I'd have to switch back to 1264 x 764.

What I'm trying to decide is getting a triple core or quad core- Phenom II. They both run at 2.8Ghz, but the triple core (Phenom II 920) has less level 2 cache, a total of 1.536Mb (512Kb per core) compared to the quad core's (Phenom II 925) 2.048Mb, and each has 6Mb level 3 cache. The Phenom II 920 is a Black Edition, so its very overclockable from what I've read, while the Phenom II 925 isn't very overclockable.

My current CPU isn't a black edition, so I don't think I can over clock it very much. And if what I've before is correct, if I raise the voltages to "aggresively" increase the speed, the temperature will increase significantly, and I don't want that. On the upside, from the Phenom II 920 review I read a while back, OCing it won't increase the temperature a whole lot. But, I'd rather keep my current CPU the way it is and OC a better one. That way, if anything were to happen to the new CPU, I'll have a back up one, WITH a warranty (I hope using an after-market heatsink didn't void the warranty though, lol).

Sorry if anything I've said is wrong, I haven't read any OCing guides yet.
 
Trio said:
I'll eventually remove the card cover to see where the GPU is, lol. By stock cooler, you mean the fan that's already in the card, right?



I think it might be the CPU, because I've read other people being capable of playing on 1264 x 764 with the rest of the settings on gamer ( AA set to 0 ), or playing in 1920 x 1080 with AA. I just tried 1920 x 1080 a while ago and it works fine if I don't increase the AA. It'll lag otherwise and I'd have to switch back to 1264 x 764.

What I'm trying to decide is getting a triple core or quad core- Phenom II. They both run at 2.8Ghz, but the triple core (Phenom II 920) has less level 2 cache, a total of 1.536Mb (512Kb per core) compared to the quad core's (Phenom II 925) 2.048Mb, and each has 6Mb level 3 cache. The Phenom II 920 is a Black Edition, so its very overclockable from what I've read, while the Phenom II 925 isn't very overclockable.

My current CPU isn't a black edition, so I don't think I can over clock it very much. And if what I've before is correct, if I raise the voltages to "aggresively" increase the speed, the temperature will increase significantly, and I don't want that. On the upside, from the Phenom II 920 review I read a while back, OCing it won't increase the temperature a whole lot. But, I'd rather keep my current CPU the way it is and OC a better one. That way, if anything were to happen to the new CPU, I'll have a back up one, WITH a warranty (I hope using an after-market heatsink didn't void the warranty though, lol).

Sorry if anything I've said is wrong, I haven't read any OCing guides yet.
Click to expand...

Yeah even with locked multipliers you can still get a decent overclock, all you really need is PCI/PCIe locks or else going past ~10% will result in instability

Yeah the X3 has less cache but it also has less cores, when you think about it the core/cache ratio stays the same (For L2 anyway)

Nah aftermarket heatsinks on CPUs dont void usually to my knowledge, but having a spare CPU is always a good idea in the worst case

For a major OC you'd need aggressive voltages, but with my C2Q it ran at 1.25V stock and I was able to push it to 3400MHz at 1.25V, dunno how much headroom the Phenom IIs have, or your Athlon X2 (Depends if it's Phenom based or not) with good airflow and CPU cooling you should be able to take the higher VCore, although too agressive voltage could lead to electromigration (NSDS anyone?) so keeping to the manufacturers' rated voltage range is generally a safe bet

AA could introduce a lower framerate and be the difference between smooth and laggy gameplay, but if I interpereted it correctly you had this problem even with no AA?
 
Springy182 said:
Yeah even with locked multipliers you can still get a decent overclock, all you really need is PCI/PCIe locks or else going past ~10% will result in instability

Yeah the X3 has less cache but it also has less cores, when you think about it the core/cache ratio stays the same (For L2 anyway)

Nah aftermarket heatsinks on CPUs dont void usually to my knowledge, but having a spare CPU is always a good idea in the worst case

For a major OC you'd need aggressive voltages, but with my C2Q it ran at 1.25V stock and I was able to push it to 3400MHz at 1.25V, dunno how much headroom the Phenom IIs have, or your Athlon X2 (Depends if it's Phenom based or not) with good airflow and CPU cooling you should be able to take the higher VCore, although too agressive voltage could lead to electromigration (NSDS anyone?) so keeping to the manufacturers' rated voltage range is generally a safe bet

AA could introduce a lower framerate and be the difference between smooth and laggy gameplay, but if I interpereted it correctly you had this problem even with no AA?
Click to expand...

The game lags on 1920 x 1080 only after I raise the AA. When I set AA back to 0, it still lags on 1920 x 1080, so I have to switch back to 1260 x 760. I can set AA to 16xq on 1260 x 760 on some levels without any lag, unless there's an explosion or something.
 
Trio said:
The game lags on 1920 x 1080 only after I raise the AA. When I set AA back to 0, it still lags on 1920 x 1080, so I have to switch back to 1260 x 760. I can set AA to 16xq on 1260 x 760 on some levels without any lag, unless there's an explosion or something.
Click to expand...

Yeah explosions and smoke grenades tend to make the FPS drop, threw 6-7 smoke grenades and it slowed to a crawl once :eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top