Finally, my G400!

[Alec]

I ordered my 16Mb SH G400 one hour ago and it will arrive tomorrow, as I am already thinking about overclocking it with MGA TWEAK. I have a fan that I had on top of my G200´s heatsink, and that I intend to use on my G400.

What are the clock speeds that I can count to achieve with the fan? With my G200 I reached 104 Mhz and used to play UT for hours... (default clock: 89 Mhz).

------------------
"I wish I was a witch...
...to shove my broomstick right up your *ss."

System: Celeron 433@459Mhz; Intel Atlanta 440LX @70.7 FSB (BIOS Rev. 14); Soundblaster PCI 128; 128 Mb SDRAM 100 Mhz; Matrox G200 8Mb SDRAM AGP @103/137Mhz (Bios 2.7.20); 4.3 Gb Western Digital Caviar; Iomega internal 100Mb Zip drive; Sony HMD-A200 17" Trinitron

[Electric Amish]

You ought to be able to get close to 300 on the pll clock using the MGATweak program.

I can run at 300 for awhile, but I tend to overheat eventually. I don't have a fan on my heatsink, though.

good luck.

amish

[The_King]

Yeah. I ordered a G400 MAX two months ago and it only arrived a couple of days ago. G400 MAX's are in short supply in Australia.

[Indiana]

The fastest I can run stable on my G400/DH 16Meg (equipped with a standard 486 fan) is a PLL of 400 with dividers of 2.5, 2.0 and 2.5 for GClock, MClock and WClock, respectively (mem-optimizations enabled). This gives the following values:
Graphics Clock: ~160MHz
Mem Clock: ~200MHz
Warp Clock: ~160 MHz
For a short time I can use a PLL of 415 (long enough for one 3DMark2k benchmark run ;-) ), but only if the ambient temperature is not too high. Without the mem-optimizations you could probably go faster, but the overall-speed will be slower in most cases.

But normally I don't use MGATweak, cause I have tweaked my G400's BIOS to use the MAX values which is only a bit slower than the settings above and doesn't need any extra tool.

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 28 August 2000).]

[Alec]

So, if you overclock your standard G400, you can reach MAX speeds without forking out the extra buck!

Stuck with 300Mhz RAMDAC, though! Not that it matters at 1024x768, 32-bit color.

Thanx

------------------
"I wish I was a witch...
...to shove my broomstick right up your *ss."

System: Celeron 433@459Mhz; Intel Atlanta 440LX @70.7 FSB (BIOS Rev. 14); Soundblaster PCI 128; 128 Mb SDRAM 100 Mhz; Matrox G200 8Mb SDRAM AGP @103/137Mhz (Bios 2.7.20); 4.3 Gb Western Digital Caviar; Iomega internal 100Mb Zip drive; Sony HMD-A200 17" Trinitron

[Alec]

Got it! I´ve played UT and Q3 for a while and I was amazed! 1024x768, max. textures and it flies (and what a picture!).

Overclocked it to 140/186 and no probs for the half-hour I´ve been playing.

Btw, Indiana, how do you program the BIOS to MAX values?

------------------
"I wish I was a witch...
...to shove my broomstick right up your *ss."

System: Celeron 433@459Mhz; Intel Atlanta 440LX @70.7 FSB (BIOS Rev. 14); 128 Mb SDRAM PC100; Soundblaster PCI 128; Matrox G400 16Mb AGP @140/186, latest BIOS; 4.3 Gb Western Digital Caviar; Iomega internal 100Mb Zip drive; Sony HMD-A200 17" Trinitron

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Alec:
Btw, Indiana, how do you program the BIOS to MAX values?

There was a thread about this in the "Matrox Hardware" Forum some time ago: http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/008856.html

Also, you can find some quite usefull info on Hunsow's page: http://www.hunsow.tmfweb.nl/overclock.html

Please note that the overclocking capabilities of different G400 seem to vary A LOT, so you definitely should try the wanted speed (e.g. the MAX values) for some time with MGATweak first. If it runs stable you can overclock your card by reprogramming it's BIOS wit a custom pins file.

P.S.: You can also (try to) oc the RAMDAC...

[dZeus]

On my PC (celeron 366 @ 550MHz) I don't see a single difference in FPS when my G400 is overclocked... If I were you I would not overclock till you got hold of a CPU that really pushes the G400 to the MAX

[Electric Amish]

Yeah, Alec, with that processor, you won't see much difference at all with the G400 overclocked. The CPU can't push enough data to it. I had the same problem with my Celeron 300a@464mhz.

amish

[Alec]

Thanx, Indiana. I think I´ll pass o/c´ing the RAMDAC, cause I´ve got no use for it. I run Windows and games at 1024x768 32-bit. Also, I guess that, as you overclock the card, the RAMDAC is overclocked, too. Read this page:
http://www.reactorcritical.com/revie...w-g400_2.shtml

Strange, huh?


Dzeus and Electric Amish:
There´s some gain in overclocking the G400 (to more than MAX values in this test): http://www.extremehw.com/reviews/3dv...0/index15.html

It´s worth it even more at 32-bit, I guess.
Thanx for your advice, anyway. I´ll test my board extensively before I permanently overclock it.

------------------
"I wish I was a witch...
...to shove my broomstick right up your *ss."

Celeron 433 o/c´d to 459Mhz; Intel Atlanta 440LX o/c´d to 70.7 FSB (BIOS Rev. 14); 128 Mb SDRAM PC100; Soundblaster PCI 128; Matrox G400 16Mb AGP + Cyrix fan o/c´d to 140/186, latest BIOS; 4.3 Gb Western Digital Caviar; Iomega internal 100Mb Zip drive; Sony HMD-A200 17" Trinitron

[Alec]

Well, I did it, and I was sucessful. Risky attitude, doing that with a one-day old G400!

Played UT with the board overclocked for 3 hours before flashing the BIOS. No heating probs. Now I don´t need software to overclock.

Thanx Hunsow, for your tips.

------------------
"I wish I was a witch...
...to shove my broomstick right up your *ss."

Celeron 433 o/c´d to 459Mhz; Intel Atlanta 440LX o/c´d to 70.7 FSB (BIOS Rev. 14); 128 Mb SDRAM PC100; Soundblaster PCI 128; Matrox G400 16 Mb AGP at 146 Mhz + fan, o/c´d BIOS, 348 Mhz RAMDAC (thanx Hunsow); 4.3 Gb Western Digital Caviar; Iomega internal 100Mb Zip drive; Sony HMD-A200 17" Trinitron