I have a Chanitech gforce 5500 that is unaltered and all orriginal. Im going to be keeping this card for a few more months before I move up to a 6800 ultra. I would like to know how to overclock it to make these next few months more bearable, after trying FEAR I knew I needed to do somthing to make it better. I was thinking about using somthing like riva tuner to overclock it and I have a better heatsink if I need it. Im new to overclocking videocards and if anyone has any suggestions or knows if anything can be unlocked please post.
I would suggest increasing the core and memory by just a few Mhz at a time, running a bench like 3dmark2003, checking to see if there are any artifacts (colorful pixels, like snow kinda) and increasing it more. Patience is key. If you don't want to run 3dmark a bunch of times, make a save game in whatever game you play, and replay that same part over every time you overclock and check for graphic anomolies. Of course I'm not really an expert and I'm sure there are others here who can help you some more.
A couple of things... first off, riva tuner is a good program to use to overclock the card. Increase only ONE of the specs at a time (I suggest core first, followed by RAM), and only increase by 2 or 3 MHz each time. Then, as Neo said, use a program like 3DMark2003 to check for artifacts and/or pixel problems. Once you find any problems, back the speed down by 1 MHz at a time, until there are no more problems. Once you are confident you have it at the max, run a full round of 3DMark2003, and check every test closely. Repeat the same thing on the RAM. On stock cooling, you probably won't be able to get THAT high of an overclock on it, but maybe enough to run games a bit smoother until you get a new card. On the subject of new cards, if you plan getting a 6800 Ultra, I would have to suggest spending the few extra dollars and going for a 7800 GT. The 7800 GT will perform quite a bit better than the 6800, plus the 7800 will run cooler and quieter. If you are running on AGP, however, you will have to stick with the 6800. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the info. Im running agp and thats to keep me from getting carried away and getting 7800's and putting them in sli, I know I cant afford that but I would buy them anyway. The heatsink i was thinking about putting on was a socket 7 with a small fan that I was going to modify to fit, it should cool it a lot better than the cheapo thing on it now.