is it absolutely necessary?

TIMB3RW01F · Rated PG Joined: 16 Apr 2009 Posts: 7 Location: Brick, NJ

I have a NVidia GeForce 8400GS 512MB PCIe video card. I was wondering if it's absolutely necessary to use liquid-cooling for overclocking my video card? I don't have enough money to buy a kit and a compatible case, so i was wondering if it's absolutely positively necessary. If so, I'll wait until I get paid to buy all the accoutrements needed.

Thanks, BigBruiners!

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:33:53 Post Subject:

Hi -

Which brand card is it? Have a link to show it / the cooler?

Most should be just fine without modifying the cooler in order to get at least a moderate overclock out of it.

Monitor the temperatures before you start, and see if they are already high... Then watch them closely as you make any changes.

TIMB3RW01F · Rated PG Joined: 16 Apr 2009 Posts: 7 Location: Brick, NJ

slugbug · Rated XXX Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Posts: 772 Location: Canada

Not worth it to use water cooling on an 8400GS. All you need to do is download RivaTunerand play around with it a little.

burnin8r · Rated R Joined: 15 Apr 2009 Posts: 54

If you were thinking of spending money on watercooling, why not just get a better video card instead ? The 8400 GS is more for HD playback than gaming. for less than $100 you can drop in an ATi 4670 or a 4830 if you think your power supply can handle it.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:11:34 Post Subject:

(TSC)Bender · Rated NC-17 Joined: 11 Feb 2008 Posts: 162

The cost of watercooling could get you a better card than what you have. Like everyone else, I recommend that route.

As for learning overclocking, doing it for the video card is a little easier than the CPU. You can enable it in the driver or get an external program like Rivatuner that already has overclocking available. I personally up the core and memory clocks in increments of 5MHz and run a few games and benchmark programs and check for any instability and abnormal graphics artifacts (usually white snow or messed up polygons). If you run into any of those, bump the clocks down and you pretty much have your maximum overclock. Most factory clock settings give you a little space to overclock, even with standard fan cooling.

anonemus · Posted: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:37:16 Post Subject:

For beginners, its advisable to use nvidia's noob-friendly nTune. You can safely OC your card's chip and memory with this Smile

http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html

sbrehm72255 · Posted: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:25:54 Post Subject:

I'd opt for using RivaTuner instead of Ntune, its just as easy to clock your card with and its more stable IMHO.

acruxksa · Posted: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:40:53 Post Subject:

Just out of interest, what are you using the 8400gs for that you feel it needs to be oc'd? Also, what other system specs do you have? PSU?