MSI NX7300GS TD256E
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For overclocking, we used the coolbits registry hack to enable the overclocking features in the Forceware control panel. We let the software automatically detect the highest possible clock speeds for the card, which brought us from the default 550MHz Core and 810MHz Memory to 600MHz Core and 917MHz Memory. To test for stability, we then loaded up ATI Tool and ran the stress that also scans for artifacts. After a clean 30 minute run, we decided to see how much further we could push the card. Unfortunately the Core wouldn't budge, so we were left with 600MHz for the Core. We were able to squeeze a little more juice from the memory though, finally landing on 960MHz, which gave us a maximum overclock of 600MHz/960MHz. We then decided to bench the same Far Cry Training demo we used earlier, running tests with and without AA and AF applied.
We got some decent results from our overclocking test. Without using any AA or AF we saw a gain of about 4FPS, and even when using AA and AF, we saw a similar 4FPS gain in performance. While it's not much, it does help smooth out a game that runs at under 60FPS.
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Throughout our testing, we took a few temperature readings for our card using the built in temp sensor. Without any sort of an overclock, our card hovered around 46'C-47'C. After a half hour of ATI Tool's artifact detector running, the core temperature peaked at 63'C. We also took some temperature numbers with our card overclocked. A small increase of 1'C brought the idle temp to 47'C, and only reached a max temp of 65'C after a half hour with ATI Tool. It seems the relatively small cooler on this card does it's job well, and is fairly quiet too.
