Radeon 9600XT by ASUS Review - Overclocking
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I mentioned the SmartDoctor monitoring utility earlier and that it supports dynamic overclocking of the Radeon 9600XT. Its a fairly straightforward utility that allows you to overclock the video card and monitor the temperature of it at the same time.
At first glance, I noticed one thing - the slider for the core speed only lets you go to 530 MHz. I wondered if there was a reason for it, so I tried it and immediately froze my computer. Rebooting, and thinking that I was reaching the limit of the card, I increased the core speed by moving the slider 5 MHz and running 3DMark 2001SE and checking for artifacts. I eventually got to 530 MHz, didn't lock my computer, and proceeded to increase the memory speed by 10 MHz and checking for artifacts. Note that the memory speed is the effective speed, you have to divide by 2 to calculate the true clock speed of the memory.
I really had a hard time with SmartDoctor. My first score on 3DMark 2001SE at 505/500 was under 13,000. At 530/630, I scored 13,850 on 3DMark. At 530/640, I scored 13,563. It was producing inconsistent results from the start. The result: 13,964 on 3DMark 2001 at 530/685 using SmartDoctor.
RadClocker
Knowing that I can probably push the core farther, I used Radclocker to continue the overclocking of the Radeon 9600XT. Increasing the speed incrementally gave artifacts at 580/700, and I had to back it down to 553/675 for something more stable.
The final tally is:
I was hoping for a bit more especially with the new faster transistor switching. Needless to say, I'd recommend using Radlinker over SmartDoctor if you're overclocking this card.
Next: Conclusion >>
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