X-Bit labs have just finished their ATI RADEON 8500 Extreme Overclocking Project.
Here's a bite from their Experience
We overclocked RADEON 8500 core up to 325MHz, but the card didn't work very stably at this frequency and hung after working for long with heavy workload. Accordingly, we had to decrease the core frequency. The ultimate top frequency of the core, at which the card worked was stably, totaled 320MHz It feels as though ATI originally clocked its RADEON 8500 chips to nearly the highest frequencies possible, whereas the overclocking potential of NVIDIA GeForce3 hadn't been entirely exhausted until GeForce3 Ti500 arrived. At the same time, GeForce3 Ti500 chips boast lower overclockability than RADEON 8500 chips: the difference makes about 12% (they could be overclocked from 240MHz to only 270MHz).
As for the graphics memory, it worked at 730MHz-740MHz in overclocked mode, though we decreased the working frequency down to 704MHz (!) for the sake of absolute stability. So, 704MHz - that's what the highest acceptable frequency for the graphics memory proved to be.
We should pay tribute to ATI: that was the fastest graphics memory we have ever tested, though some graphics cards happen to be equipped with equally fast or even faster memory with 3.5ns or 3.6ns access time. However, it was only RADEON 8500 graphics memory that took advantage of the card's quality design to overcome the 700MHz bar.
So for the full story warp to X-Bit labs
Here's a bite from their Experience
We overclocked RADEON 8500 core up to 325MHz, but the card didn't work very stably at this frequency and hung after working for long with heavy workload. Accordingly, we had to decrease the core frequency. The ultimate top frequency of the core, at which the card worked was stably, totaled 320MHz It feels as though ATI originally clocked its RADEON 8500 chips to nearly the highest frequencies possible, whereas the overclocking potential of NVIDIA GeForce3 hadn't been entirely exhausted until GeForce3 Ti500 arrived. At the same time, GeForce3 Ti500 chips boast lower overclockability than RADEON 8500 chips: the difference makes about 12% (they could be overclocked from 240MHz to only 270MHz).
As for the graphics memory, it worked at 730MHz-740MHz in overclocked mode, though we decreased the working frequency down to 704MHz (!) for the sake of absolute stability. So, 704MHz - that's what the highest acceptable frequency for the graphics memory proved to be.
We should pay tribute to ATI: that was the fastest graphics memory we have ever tested, though some graphics cards happen to be equipped with equally fast or even faster memory with 3.5ns or 3.6ns access time. However, it was only RADEON 8500 graphics memory that took advantage of the card's quality design to overcome the 700MHz bar.
So for the full story warp to X-Bit labs
