ATIs Overdrive, does it actually work?

Zardon · Dec 8, 2003, 06:08 PM

For those of you who read my recent review of the Visiontek 9800 XT you will notice I wasnt overly impressed with ATIs overdrive feature.

Brandon over at firingsquad has delved into this a little deeper and his results are interesting to say the least.

Read it here

After obtaining our initial OVERDRIVE results, we were even more let down -- the performance improvements we were seeing were even less than what we had hoped. We then set out to test OVERDRIVE with Rage3D Tweak when we discovered something: OVERDRIVE does not touch the memory’s clock frequency when overclocking! As a result, OVERDRIVE will reduce the graphics core’s speed, but the memory remains overclocked at our predefined level. Basically, we’re still getting the protection of OVERDRIVE, but we’re also getting most of the benefits of overclocking. After all, in the case of the RADEON 9600 XT in particular, the faster graphics core it boasts is begging for more memory bandwidth, more so than fill-rate.

Chaos · Dec 8, 2003, 06:17 PM

Why bother if they don't even touch the memory clock.....

I am glad I don't have the feature on my AIW 9700 Pro cause I think it would just be a dissapointment.

Zardon · Dec 8, 2003, 06:19 PM

as I said its a nice idea - certainly in principal, it just isnt a patch on manual overclocking with powerstrip or eqivalent.

Dec 8, 2003, 06:08 PM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	ATIs Overdrive, does it actually work? For those of you who read my recent review of the Visiontek 9800 XT you will notice I wasnt overly impressed with ATIs overdrive feature. Brandon over at firingsquad has delved into this a little deeper and his results are interesting to say the least. Read it here After obtaining our initial OVERDRIVE results, we were even more let down -- the performance improvements we were seeing were even less than what we had hoped. We then set out to test OVERDRIVE with Rage3D Tweak when we discovered something: OVERDRIVE does not touch the memory’s clock frequency when overclocking! As a result, OVERDRIVE will reduce the graphics core’s speed, but the memory remains overclocked at our predefined level. Basically, we’re still getting the protection of OVERDRIVE, but we’re also getting most of the benefits of overclocking. After all, in the case of the RADEON 9600 XT in particular, the faster graphics core it boasts is begging for more memory bandwidth, more so than fill-rate.

Dec 8, 2003, 06:17 PM	#2
Chaos Number Nine Join Date: May 2002 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 5,268 Rep Power: 167 System Specs	Why bother if they don't even touch the memory clock..... I am glad I don't have the feature on my AIW 9700 Pro cause I think it would just be a dissapointment. __________________

Dec 8, 2003, 06:19 PM	Thread Starter #3
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	as I said its a nice idea - certainly in principal, it just isnt a patch on manual overclocking with powerstrip or eqivalent.