Leadtek GeForce 6600GT PCI-e

System Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice Core
ASUS A8N-SLi Mobo
Kingston 1GB Dual Channel DDR400
Leadtek GeForce 6600GT PCI-e

My post may be a little hard to read but please bear with me.

I currently have a Winfast 6600 GT PCI-e and it comes with a program called Winfox. It comtains programs as Overclocking SPeed Runner, Display hardware Monitor, and etc.. etc.. Well the Overclocking Speed Runner caught my eye and when I opened it it seemed pretty easy to use, except for I dont know what I am doing.. It has 2 sections, 2d turbo and 3d turbo. In each section it has two bars for either increasing or decreasing. The first set of bars are for Graphics clock under 2d which right now is at 301mhz and 1002mhz for memory clock, and for 3d it has graphics clock at 500mhz and mem clock at 1000mhz.. now my question is it worth overclocking and if it is, what are some safe numbers for overclocking this card.. or if you guys could just offer some generalized tips on overclocking, and is this a good way to over clock or is there a better way?

Well, first off, I'd scrap the "winfox" drivers and get the latest "winfox" or official Nvidia drivers. If you chose the Nvidia Drivers (which I would advise, as I have reservations about the winfast drivers) then you cna google a small registry file called "coolbits"m which enables Nvidia's own overclocking mechanism. With this enabled you can enter the clockspeed settings and "detect optimal frequencies" which will give you the basic "safe" o/c on your card. After which you can increase the clocks slowly until you start seeing errors (glitches and artifacts) on screen.

My AGP 6600gt overclocked from 500/1000 to 564/1125 safely. I never tried it when I put a zalman v700 ALcu on it though, as i just wanted to flog it at that time.

first off, kudos on the card you chose well

As for overclocking leadtek cards in specific, the included winfox utility is pretty good, but generally more conservative than most users like. Most of us just use coobits (registry tweak) or rivatuner (extensive program that can do...everything lol). But if you want to use the winfox utility, thats fine results wont be much different.
Anyway, you want to overclock the 3d section. Start off by just moving the core and memory up 5mhz at a time, then running a benchmark like Aquamark 3, 3d mark 2005, or using ingame time demos like the one for doom 3, CSS, ect. There are 2 reasons for doing the testing right after a 5mhz overclock. First off is to ensure stability. Benchmarks and time demos will run your card through the most intensive action scenes and will heat up your card and stress it quickly. (note that if doing the time demo route for games, run it 2-3 times in a row, benchmarks like AQ3 or 3DM05 you only need to run once) After you run your stress test, if you did not crash, freeze, or artifact (which is a broad description for visual anomalies, like tearing, purple pixels, black and white snow, and anything that basically...is not "normal" to be seeing), then you want to go back to your 3d section, and up it another 5mhz, then go back and do the tests, and just repeat this till you come to a situation where you to artifact or freeeze, then just knock it down about 8mhz and then go play some games for a little while and make sure it doesnt cause any problems in realtime situations.
You want to do this all in one sit down if possible, because that way you can have your card pushed to its limits meaning you wont be doing anything down the line that will be more intensive than an hour of benchmarking and overclocking, followed by some time of straight gaming. This is pretty much the most stress your gunna be able to give your card, meaning the stable settings you get there, should be stable in any game.
If you wanted to buy a different heatsink to make your card even more overclockable, I suggest you look at this topic, as I just reccomended a few really nice coolers to finch, and they will all mount to your card

Ok so I have raised the bars to 557 core clock and 1057 mem clock and to me.. it doesn't seem to be doing anything.. I have been running the test on 3dmark05 return to proxycon or something like that.. and I dont see any triangles or artifacts or what not, and the fps doesn't seem to be going up? Is there something I am missing? I also went to Nvidias download driver page and got the forceware 78.01 drivers.

just look at ur final 3dmark score and u will definetly see a difference from ur score u got at stock settings

Alright cool, thanks for the answers you guys.. I will post up my scores soon..

Ok so on 3DMark05 without any additional tests, just the 3 games tests, all on stock cooling here are my scores:

At Start:
500 Core Clock
1000mhz Mem Clock

3771 3DMark05 Score

At Finish:
564 Core Clock
1.07 Ghz

4095 3DMark05 Score

Is that good or bad or have people done better on this card on stock cooling?

Also, another thing is that, I am not using the Winfox utility to overclock.. I am using the nvidia advanced properties, and whenever I restart, my overclocking setting have restarted to default. Why is this?

*edit* before overclock I also used the coolbits as suggested. I have the 78.01 Forceware drivers, and what is all this about pipelines being unlocked?

thats a pretty good increase, well done
550core is pretty typical on stock cooling, its rare to reach much further than that, but with some modding you could prolly reach 600mhz core and really fly, but thats going to need either new cooling, a volt mod, or both. The memory overclock is always a toss up, and varies based on the memory modules used on the card. If you list off what the writing on your memory modules say we could probably tell you what its rated for and give you something to shoot for.

In your frequency options from the advanced options you should be able to check a box that says "Apply these settings at start up" checking that box means it will always boot up with the settings you choose. Though there is nothing wrong with reapplying an overclock after restart, it can be a bit annoying. So its really up to you.
Have you pushed the memory any further or is that just what you stopped at? The last 6600GT I used was a Gigabyte pci express 6600GT which used K4J55323QF-GC20 2.0ns Samsung chips, meaning it was only rated for 500mhz (1000mhz effective), so if you use the same then you are not likely to get much better results than what you have right now. I believe Leadtek chose to use these same 2ns modules, but some makers did opt for the much faster 1.6ns modules, which were rated at 625mhz (1250 effective), and in the early days of these cards I believe XFX and Gainward chose to use the faster modules, which specifically were the samsung K4J55323QF-GC16 modules. So if you have those, then you should definately be able to get much higher speeds, but may require more voltage in order to achieve it.

The 6600GT comes with 8 pixel pipelines and that is all that it can support. You cannot unlock any more. In some cases if you have a 6800 standard (which features 12 pixel pipelines) you can unlock the 4 dormant pipelines to have the full 16. Same can apply to vertex pipelines, but those typically unlock with out issue, where as the pixel pipelines tend to be hit or miss.
Overclocking and optomizing is the only way for your card to achieve better performence.

aweomse.. i found that button for the apply setting at startup, but where would i find out what chipset the memory is? and even if.. could i just go into bios and up the voltage..? after overclocking, I now want to go out and buy a better cooling, lol.. right now I am running my gpu at 49 C, and my temp threshold is 127 C

But what I dont get is, why can't I overclock anymore even if I dont see any tearing, white triangles or grain? Right now I am happy about my overclock.. I can wait until I get better cooling, but I am just curious

well if your overclocks are not limited by cooling, then its likely to be voltage that needs increased. I havn't been keeping up to date on bios flashes for 6600GTs, but you may just need to download a bios image for your card, flash the bios with the higher voltages, and then see how much higher you can push your card with that. Infact I believe leadtek even includes a bios updating tool, atleast my leadtek 6800GT did.
Other wise you will need to do a hardmod to increase voltage, either through the "pencil method" which entails using a graphite pencil (number 2B typically) and drawing a bridge from one trace to another, to increase voltage. Or using the "resistor mothod" which involves soldering a variable resistor to your card at the proper points, and adjusting the resistance that way.
Either way, you need to understand the method, keep a steady hand, and keep a multimeter handy to check the voltage to keep yourself from going to high and damaging your card.
Though a lot of people have had success with even moderate volt mods on stock cooling (if its decent cooling) your best bet is always to upgrade your cooling to something more powerful, because adding voltage will also add more heat, and when your pushing your card further, your also adding more heat, and you cant just ignore those factors.

And of course you could just be limited based on the cards revision. Some cards overclock better than others, its just that simple. You could go buy the same card you have from the same store you bought it from, and odds are it will either overclock higher or lower. Really all you can do is try different things to see exactly what your card is capable of doing.
Even if you read off your chip and memory information and research it, you will get different results than someone with the card that came of the line just 2 minutes after yours.

If you want to know what your memory modules are, you need to remove the card from your computer, and write down exactly what the text on your memory modules say.

going into your motherboard bios and adjusting the pci express bus votlage (or agp voltage for those who are reading this..) will in most cases not improve overclockability, and can damage your card. If you want to increase voltage you need to flash the card with a modified bios, or do a hard mod and physically adjust the resistance using one of the two methods above

Hey well thanks for all the help stang, and everyone else who helped me.. you all seem to know alot about overclocking vid cards.. I am just going to stick to extra cooling.. seems to be the easier method..

I tried my luck with my Leadtek Winfast 6600GT TDH:

Stock setting show up as 501.43(Core)/1002.38(Mem) in Rivatuner Hardware Monitor. This gave me a baseline 3dMark2003 score of 9027 and 3dMark2005 score of 3847.

I then took my card's speeds as far as the "Test Settings" would allow me while still passing. This gave me artifacts, and I slowly lowered the settings until the artifacts disappeared. I ended up at 576/1170 which ran everything fine with no artifacts.

This resulted in a score of 10129 in 3dMark2003 and 4392 in 3dMark2005. Just over 500 better in 3dMark2005 and over 1000 better in 3dMark2003.

Now I do have a Zalman GPU waterblock on my card, along with their stick on Memory Heatsinks, and I hadn't tried overclocking before this, so I don't know how much the additional cooling helped. Although my GPU core temp stays below 43*C under full load.

Pretty impressive overclock in my book. I feel I may be limited by voltage though, as my Powersupply seems to be a little small, or severarly over-rated (450watts). I literally see my 12v rail drop when I put a load on my system (all the way down to 11.68 volts) However my new 600w Rosewell Powersupply should be here next week, then I can try again.

My system is as follows:

Pentium 630 (3.0ghz/800mhz, oc'd to 3.8/1014) with HT
Asus P5LD2 Deluxe Mobo
1 gb OCZ Gold DDR2-667 4-4-4-8 Memory (running at 3-4-3-6 @ ddr2-675, 2.2 Volts)
2 Western Digital Caliver SE 7200 RPM 160 gb SATA in RAID 0
Leadtek Winfast 6600 GT TDH PCI-x
Sony DRU-810 DVD Burner
RaidMAX 450Watt PSU (soon to be replaced)
Home Brew Watercooling System (Zalman CPU, Northbridge and GPU Waterblocks, custom Radiator, Resavoir and Pump)
1-120 mm Intake Fan, 1-80 mm Intake Fan, 1-120 Exhaust Fan, and Dual 80mm Exhaust Fans on PSU.

CPU Idle Temp 41*c Full Load 52*c
GPU Idle Temp 31*c Full Load 42-43*c
Mobo Temp 34*c, all with Ambient Temp @ 25*c

dont b scared 2 start a new thread!

i could b wrong but the 6600gt should make alot less heat than your cpu. my 6600gt agp is aircooled with a cpu heatsink, stays around 22c idle and i think 35c is the highest ive seen it under load. with the standard cooling it would get around 55c. my room temp is usually 18-20c my 6600gt barely benefitted from the cooling in terms of max oc! my power supply is good, my card needs a vmod badly, ill do that when it's out of warranty. my oc is 565/1.03 (sux), and with standard cooling it was only about 10mhz less!
what fans are on the radiator? how big is the radiator? i reckon youd need a radiator big enough for 2 x 120mm fans side by side at minimum, and use 2 x 120mm fans on the rad.
if the radiator is attached ot rear of case then the 2 x 120mm fans act as exhaust fans, and you would just need enough ventilation of the front of case to allow the airflow. 2 x 120mm intakes would help the rear 2 x 120 mm work
what pump are u using?

I've got Leadtek's AGP 6600GT (only real difference is AGP mem is base 900 instead of 1000), but I was able to get about 560 core and 1.07 or so on the memory with stock cooling. I picked up a Zalman VF700-CU and I was able to get 602 core and 1191 on the memory. This yielded me a 4123 on 3DMark05. I never ran 3DMark03, but I suspect it would have been decent. I think I would have scored even higher with a faster CPU.