Overclocking

For our overclocking tests, we wanted to see if we could push the GPU and memory speeds up to the same levels as the 6800 Ultra graphics cards.  After all, if you could, wouldn’t youi like to save yourself $100 and get the card much earlier?

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 134

You can see in this screenshot the default clock speeds for the eVGA 3-GeForce 6800 GT graphics card; they are the same as the 6800 GT reference card from NVIDA: 350 MHz / 1.0 GHz.

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 135

And here you see our final overclocking results: 420 MHz / 1.12 GHz!  These speeds are absolutely awesome and even blow past the default GeForce 6800 Ultra clock rates of 400 MHz / 1.1 GHz.  Our board was a retail sample, and though you might not get as high an overclock as you are seeing here, you may get more.  Overclocking has always been a game of chance.

Now what does this speed increase do for performance?  The graphs below should tell the tale.

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 136

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 137

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 138

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 139

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 140

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 141

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 142

eVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT Video Card Review - Graphics Cards 143

While increases in Unreal Tournament 2004 are almost non existant, the other three tests show marked gains in performance.  The Battlefield: Vietnam results show a healthy 6 FPS average increase on the highest resolution and the Far Cry tests show that the overclock is almost going to make the 1600×1200 resolution playable with 4x8x turned on.  The overclocked eVGA 6800 GT definitely gets put ahead over the ATI X800 Pro at stock speeds.

« PreviousNext »