Overclocking your Nvidia 6800/6800LE DDR graphics card: Overclocking/Unlocking Guide.

[MONKEYMAN]

(I apologize for the fact that due to the size of the screenshots you may need to increase your resolution slightly to make it easier to read and that the explanation may seem rather bloated however i wanted to make it as easy as possible for all to understand.)

I though to aid all you guys out there with a 6800/6800le card I would do a brief tutorial on getting the most from your card................

Overclocking your Nvidia 6800/6800LE DDR graphics card:

My Leadtek 6800 128mb graphics card was clocked at 325mhz for the core and 700mhz for the memory, these figures will vary between brands and between the two models I am covering in this tutorial(6800/6800le).
I have seen through my own experiences and other peoples observations that increasing the core speed of the card has a greater performance impact than increasing the memory speed and that overclocking the memory high before the core can lead to a reduction in the maximum core speed attainable.
I am overclocking using the function built into the Nvidia drivers, you will require either a set of the XG drivers(currently using 80.40 myself) or download coolbits.reg from the files section here at AOA.

Instructions:

Right-click on your desktop and click properties-settings, go down and click on advanced and then at the top click to name of your graphics card on the top-right tab, a box will extend out from the left hand side of the window with more options, click on clock frequency settings and you will see this:



click in the box for "manual overclocking" and read and agree to the disclaimer(if you wish to continue)



Move the core frequency slider up 10-20mhz each time and click test changes and apply, after each increase run a graphics intensive benchmark(I use 3dmark03) keep on doing this process until either the benchmark crashes or artefacts are visible during the benchmark. When this occurs back off by 5mhz until the problem dissapears.
In my case:



Then repeat the process with the memory(leaving the core at its highest working overclock) until you have a balance of the highest attainable core overclock and the highest memory frequency at this core speed.



Keep running loops of your chosen benchmark and check the temperature of your card, this is where you have to draw your own boundaries, if I can keep the core temperature under 75/80c i'm happy and they DO have an auto core slow/shutdown when temperatures reach dangerous levels.
You need to find a temperature you are hapy with, if you feel it is too high then drop the core frequency by 5mhz and check again, keep repeating until you are satisfied.

Enjoy your overclocked card and read on if you are interested in the possibility of increasing your cards performance even more then read on...........





Unlocking the extra pipelines and shaders on your Nvidia 6800/6800le graphics card using Rivatuner.

Your graphics card will have a certain number of pixel pipelines and vertex shaders enabled by default.

6800 -12 pipes and 5 vp
6800le -8 pipes and 4vp

It is possible to unlock these to the full set of pipelines that the card has in its core(16 pipes and 6vp), It is quite possible though that the particular core in your card is there for a reason, it may have damaged pipelines or the core may not be able to reach the required speeds for the gt/ultra cards. Whether your card will unlock fully or partially is a gamble but with no real risks and its always worth a go.
The guide below will show you how unlock these extra pipelines,although you may find that after enabling one of the pipelines/shaders artefacting or erronous 3d performance may occur, simply follow through the instructions again and lock the pipes again one by one until you narrow it down to the affected pipes(s) or shader(s) and then unlock all but that/those pipes.

First of all you will need to install the latest version of rivatuner, this is available from the files section of AOA.

When you open the program this is what you will see to begining with:



Click on the customize tab and select the first icon(low level settings) and goto nvstrap at the top....



goto the bottom of the opened window and click install...



This provides support for unlocking and advanced hardware options,



Tick the "allow enabling masked hardware units" a warning will be displayed,



Click yes and then select custom from the dropdown next to the "active pixel/vertex units configuration" and the following will be displayed:



Notice how Bit 3 and Bit 11 are disabled and masked, click on the greyed out tick to the left of these Bits to unlock them.(On some cards different Bits will be disabled and on 6800le versions two in each group will be disabled) the one you have now enabled in the top group of four Bits is the one of the four quad-pipe pixel pipelines and the one in the bottom group of six is your extra vertex shader.



Click ok and then apply....



and restart your computer, if all has gone well and none of the pipes/shaders you have enabled are damaged the you can expect similar to the following results:

Standard:



With an extra vertex enabled:



With 16pipes and 6vp enabled:



And with all pipes/vertex's enable and a moderate overclock on the core/memory(400/900):



Lay back and bask in the glory of your now even faster card(if it worked that is!)

NOTE:If unlocking all or some of the pipes caused major artefacting then removing Rivatuner will return the card to its original state as will performing the steps above but locking/unticking the bits that were previously locked(and you suspect were causing problems) you can just unlock 1 vertex shader and leave the other locked(6800le)if one causes a problem and the same applies to the pipelines.