Hello everybody,

I'm Kevin, new here. I'm from the Netherlands so please excuse me for write faults.
I have red (i don't know the exact wordt for reading in past time) on this site a review about my graphic card. In the review there was spoken about overclocking the graphic card.

My question is: How do i do that? Can i do that in my bios? Or is it only possible in windows? With my card came a program called "asus catalyst control center".
There are overclocking abilities in that program but if i try that my screen freezes and i have to reboot my system.

I'm realy looking forward to any answer.

Greetings Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Overclock can be done with modified BIOS but in your case I recommend using drivers. ASUS Catalyst Control Center is nothing more than ASUS version of ATi Catalyst Control Center so I recommend you to install newest drivers from ATi first.

You can find them here: http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
Choose your operating system (Windows XP ar Vista), then Radeon and then Radeon HD 3850. Then download Catalyst Software Suite under Option 1.

Install newly downloaded drivers. Choose Custom Installation and if you don't want to register and install World in Warcraft trial disable those options. Choose Advanced view mode after reboot.

After that open Catalyst Control Center (right click on desktop or icon in tray) and check if VPU recovery is enabled. This option can be found on left under VPU recover. This option is very useful when trying to find overclock limits.

Under ATI Overdrive section enable ATi overdrive and try Auto-Tune option. This is safest way to overclock ATi graphic cards. If your screen freezes again you can try manual overclock. Raise GPU clock in 10MHz steps and after each step hit Test Custom Clocks button. If result is Passed hit Accept button and continue rising clock until screen freezes again. Remember last value of GPU clock that passed Test and after reboot set GPU clock at that value. Do the same with Memory Clock.

Hope this info is helpful and please inform us of your results.

Hello X,

Thanks for the advice i'm gonna try it and then report my achievemend. what test program do you use if jou want to test your graphic card performance?

greetings

Most people use 3DMark: http://www.futuremark.com

But if you have a game that has benchmark in it you can use that also.

On this page you can see what games we have used for testing that same card (results table at the bottom of the page): http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Graphics-cards/ASUS-Radeon-HD-3850X2-1-GB.html

Bear in mind that every card from same series has its own overclocking limits. For example: I have HD 4850 that achieved better overclock results than card that we have tested here: http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Graphics-cards/Sapphire-HD-4850/Page-3.html

Also with your card you may achieve higher or lower overclock frequency for GPU or memory than we have achieved. That is perfectly normal.

Hello _X_,

i've followd you'r advise and began clocking with smal steps. Now my memclock runs 1100mhz instead of 828mhz standard and the gpuclock runs 905mhz instead of 669mhz original. So i'm pleased with my achievement because the first time i tried it with asus catalyst center my mem wouldn't go further then 920mhz en the gpu not beyond 720mhz. So thanks for your advise.

But now my next question.

If i ad another graphic card en put it in sly ( or crosfx) don't know the exact phrase. Does it realy matters or is it wise for me to look at a newer better graphic card and replace the one i have? Adding an extra will cost me 171,= euro's and replacing it with for instants a "Asus 2GB 4870 X2 PCI-E" will cost me 460,= euro's.

What is the performance diffrence?

2x ASUS Radeon HD 3850X2 1 GB in sli ~VS~ Asus 2GB 4870 X2 PCI-E

Is it possible to give an answer? I understand not exactly but just a guide line?

Greetings Kevin
Ps thanks for the quick and good advice.

I'm glad I could help. BTW you got nice overclock there.

Two ATi graphics cards system is called CrossFire and two nVidia graphics cards system is called SLI.

Two HD 3850x2 1GB in CrossFire is actually 15-20% slower than one HD 4870x2 2GB. Is that difference worth ~200EUR to you I don't know. But there is another problem with two 3850x2 graphics cards in CrossFire. They need good and powerful Power Supply Unit and as consequence there are problems with heat that two graphics cards produce so good ventilation in computer case is recommended.

So ... if you can sell HD 3850x2 that you have and buy HD 4870x2 you would get better performance levels and lower power consumption and lower temperature in your computer case.

If you decide to buy another HD 3850x2 and make a CrossFire system, first check specifications of your power supply unit. Maybe you will need to get better PSU.

Hello X,

when i overclocked it, Ati catalyst tested it and it was good. But now if i start 3d mark it all jammes and i need to restart my com. How come that te Ati program tested it without any problems but i can't use it's abilities?

Greetings

Well its not that simple. ATI Catalyst drivers test last only few seconds and 3DMark lasts much longer period of time.

So all you have to do is find combination of GPU and memory frequency at which 3DMark will finish with no problems or anomalies in displayed picture (dark triangles, horizontal stripes and stuff like that).

First you can try to set GPU at 850MHz and memory at 1000MHz and see if 3DMark finishes with no problems. If not start with lowering GPU frequency in 5MHz steps. If that doesn't solve the problem try to set memory at lower frequency the same way as you did for GPU that you need to set back to 850MHz.

Worst case scenario is that you need to lower GPU and memory frequency at same time. There is no formula how to set these values so you have to do it with trial and error system.

When you overlock your graphics card successfully ("24h stability" ) you can write down result (and GPU and mem values) that you get in 3DMark and repeat the same test with default values for GPU and memory. By comparing those two results you can get good idea how faster your graphics card is at overclocked values.

Thanks for you'r advice, i already wandered why it whent so easy and so good. That's why i asked for a test program. I'll test it and when it runs good i let you know how it went.

greetz kevin

If you have any further problems just post it here.

Expecting you results