Well if you didn't notice by my specs I'm a poor college student, as such I bought the cheapest PCI-e card money could buy (PNY GeForce 7300GS) while it kicked the crap out of my laptops 5200fx, I wanted to push it futher, enter coolbits. Right now I've got stock cooling, and it runs (stable mind you) with a core speed of 627mhz, and the Ram is clocking 687mhz. (stock is something like 550/400) tomorrow morning I'm picking up a Zahlman GPU cooler/ram heatsinks, and I'll post my updated clocks (maybe some benchmarks too)

Nice job there! Often the low end parts are made from the same chips as the high end cards with some other changes to reduce cost, it takes just a little coaxing and they realy wake up!

Awesome stuff. Ill be really interested in your results -- Im short on money too.

P.S Nice speeds

Ok I got bored and ran HL2 (CS:S) video stress test, on my box (Sempron 3400+ 1gig of pc3200 (400mhz) ram) the oced 7300 got a score of 54.94 fps at 1024x768, all settings on high, aa off (trilinear only.) For what it's worth, I run cs:s (this is in-game, not the stress test) at the same res. with medium textures and have an average fps (gotta love net_graph 3) of ~100-110 now.

Do some benchies on 3DMark 03 or 05,that'll give you a nice consistant results comparison.
http://www.futuremark.com/download/

Definately get some consistent benchys out of it, its amazing what a difference a little bit of OC'ing can do, I increased my 3D Mark 03 score by over 1000 points by taking my card just that little bit higher!

Allright guys I ran 3dmark03, and here are the results: nothing stellar, but a big jump (IMO.) No overclocking I scored 3290, with overclocking (still stock cooling) I got a 3971. I'm off to get the oil changed in my car, and I'll pick up that gpu cooler while I'm out, expect some more updates eventually.

FYI - when I upgraded the cooler on my card it just improved the temps but I couldn't overclock any higher.

What can be done to push it further then?
Or am I just stuck with what I've allready reached?

Set your card to high performance in windows and shut down any unused processes in windows task manager.
And what about OC'ing your Cpu?

I saw massive increases in overclocking with better cooling.
Stock cooling max O.C was 551gpu 1150mem @51c

Then it went to a max O.C of 571 gpu 1170 mem @46c with zalman coolers.(before artifacting)

Finally it's now up to 620gpu 1204 mem @39c with liquid cooling.
They'll go higher but start to artifact at 625Mhz ,so I dont push any Higher

Very soon we'll see how far they'll go at -35c with volt Mods

Are there any locked pipes on the 7300 series? Maybe RivaTuner can unlock some more oomph for your card.

Failing that, volt mod that sucker, slap a high cfm 120mm fan next to it along with the Zally cooler and open her up

Quote: Originally Posted by capt_cope What can be done to push it further then? Or am I just stuck with what I've allready reached?

It's just like overclocking a cpu, cooling up to a certain point, but eventually you will need to add more voltage to get any farther. Sometimes it can be done with a simple pencil mod or using NBITOR to flash the Bios with a new value.

If neither one is an option for your particular card, then it will need to be hard modded with a variable resistor and a soldering iron.

MVK tek or VR ZONE are your best bets for these type of mods

http://www.mvktech.net/content/view/2328/0/1/0

http://www.vr-zone.com/index.php?c=6

Quote: Originally Posted by $SOLID$ Necro using NBITOR to flash the Bios with a new value.

I haven't checked Nibitor lately, but I think that you can change voltages and memory timings through it. It may help you push the card further.

Talking abou low end cards in my case and Old low end card, does any one know y the xfx 5700le 128 is a good overclocker? I just got one for my office pc, and no I dont do mych gaming there but i was wondering About the benchies....

PD I'll Bench it as soon as I get to the office on monday!!!

Quote: Originally Posted by PurpleDiamond I haven't checked Nibitor lately, but I think that you can change voltages and memory timings through it. It may help you push the card further.

Yeah, I can confirm that, I was using NiBiTor the other day.

Well sorry for the lack of an update, but I've been away from the internet this weekend (not set up at the appt. yet.) To make a long story short I returned the 7300 to best buy and picked up a 7600, and here is why: First thing I did was buy a Zalman 700 GPU cooler, I went to install it and realized (after the damn thermal grease too) that there is a cap in the way of the bracket, about where the screw hole is. I munched around and tried to find a way to fit it, but no dice. It was about that point I made it look all nice and stock again, tossed it in it's box and trucked over to best buy. My reason for this was simple: the Zalman is the only decent cooler I can get my hands on around here (I have no desire to watercool) and with stock cooling that 7300 had an idle temp of 54 c So I swapped out the 7600's stock cooler and slapped on the zalman, it's running about 32c idle, which I won't complain about, my 3dmark03 scores are in the low 9000s now, my only complaint is that this card refuses to overclock as easily as the 7300. I only bumped it up 50mhz for both core and ram, and much higher and I get hangs and artifacts.

Sorry for that rambling, and for the record I have an emachine mobo, so I can't do much with the bios. (no cpu ocing for me, which is a shame, I've got a sempron 3400+ in it and I hear those can really do nicely when tweaked a bit.)