Parhelia512 OC results

[Masterblaster]

Hello,
what max core and memory speed did your parhelia reach f.g.

parhelia512 128MB retail 220@240(core)/271@280(memory)

I am very excited of the differences between parhelia512 an the new parhelia8x...

[Nicram]

Masterblaster : I'm wondering Your signature, is S3 still on the market ?

[lecter]

LOL, yeah, it looks like it hasn't been updated in awhile

Actually their current positions in terms of market share are probably somewhat similar, at least for retail boards...

[Masterblaster]

it is an alliteration so i had to use an graphic cards developer with "s"....

please "BACK TO TOPIC"

[PAugustin]

I can go up to 320 (core)/350 with a Zalman ZM-80D cooloer : http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49553

But I dont keep those frequency as it pumps a lot of juice from my PSU. And I also have to take a couple of steps before going to 300+ otherwise I get screen corruption and have to reboot But if I do it in two steps, I can play games for houres

[Masterblaster]

Anybody else OCing?

[DGhost]

I think people decided that it was just easier to get a mid range graphics card from another manufacturer that supports their products better... might just be me though...

[Richh]

Re: Parhelia512 OC results

Originally posted by Masterblaster
I am very excited of the differences between parhelia512 an the new parhelia8x...

The differences are useful, but it's not like the P8x is suddenly a competitor for ATi and nVidia's gaming products. If you look at the retail clocks (220/250 for the P4x and 250/300 for the 8x) you'll get a general idea of their relative merits.

For me, the 8x is just about quick enough to play Richard Burns Rally with a reasonable level of graphic detail, whereas the P4x wasn't quite there. As far as speed is concerned, that's all I really care about.

I'm not really one for the virtual penis pulling that is benchmarking, but the following should give you a rough idea of the relative abilities of the two cards. Both test runs were accomplished on the same PC, with the graphics card being the only difference:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8151527

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8176328

Both cards were running the same cooling, an old Intel Pentium !!! heatsink modified to fit, which is much more effective than the standard item, but extremely quiet.

Both boards were mildly overclocked. My priorities are 24/7 stability and quietness rather than out and out performance, so I daresay that better cooling, and "maxed out" settings would produce higher scores in both cases. In particular, I've not had the P8x very long, and suspect that it has further to go. When I have more time to play I'll see how much "easy" performance is left.

BTW, "S3 Sucks" is only alliterative if you have a speech impediment. Three is spelt with a "T", not an "S".

[PAugustin]

Here is the link for my 3D marck project : http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3035502

[gangster]

i've been at 230/580 with my oem, 4X, Parhelia 128mb using infineon 3.3ns for about a year with no problems. it has a zalman zm80c with fan but no other special case cooling to keep things quiet.

i substitute a leadtek 6800 std for gaming sometimes because of the need for power or conflicts trying to run some games with the Parhelia installed.

[Masterblaster]

OK, now i got it stable to 250 / 298 instead of 220/271 on my Parhelia Retail.

Quite good?

But sometimes the window is full of graphic artefacts during the launch of Powerstrip...


Which overclocking Tool do you use ?

[Masterblaster]

Nobody has the same error?

[Richh]

PowerStrip is known for causing problems of this sort. You may be able to get around it by upping the clock speed in a number of smaller steps rather than going straight from default to wherever you want to go.

Increasing the default clockspeeds to something you know works via the pins file, and then using PowerStrip to take it the rest of the way is also a better option.

As for the "best" overclocking tool, neither PowerStrip, nor Matrox's Technical Support Tweak Utility, are perfect.

The MTSTU doesn't cause the glitching you see with PowerStrip. However, it only offers the ability to tweak both clock and memory frequencies together by a certain percentage over default, and doesn't work with 8x Parhelias either.

Again (with a 4x card) you can tweak the pins file to get the clock and memory into the ballpark, and then use the MTSTU to experiment further.

Speaking of the pins file, IME this is the best way to overclock the card. Reduces the need to rely on OS level tweakers, and you can flash a known good set of timings onto the card and use them all the time without the need to have anything "extra" running.

Only thing to make certain of is that you test your settings via PS or MTSTU before flashing them, and don't corrupt your BIOS during the flashing process. Make sure you have a recovery file, and a PCI graphics card handy in this case, so you can reflash back to a usable configuration.