Overheating/overclocking radeon 9800 pro

Okay, I'm a relatively new to the PC gaming world, so I've never overclocked a video card. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 pro 128mb card, and I've heard that they have some nasty overheating problems out of the box. It runs like budda' but I can't help but wonder if it can do more. I don't know how to overclock my card or see how well it is performing, so that would be really useful info if anyone has the time to write it down for me. Also, I was thinking about getting a different cooling unit for the card, as I have heard that ATI's fan is too dinky for the heat that the 9800 pro generates. Please lemme know anything that might help me along here. Thanks in adv., -Joe

 

i don't condone overclocking, but to each his own...

read this: http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=114&var2=0

 

Alright thanks, I don't think I want/need to overclock the card (I KNOW that I don't need to), but what about the cooling issue? Will the card perform better with a better cooling system? Moreso will it last longer? Any info would be greatly appreciated. thanks again, -Joe

 

Better cooling should increace the lifetime of the component, and should allow you to make it run faster. Overclocking video cards isnt as a big deal as the whole system, as its mostly isolated, and the only component to fail would be the card itself. You can get better performance from gentle overclocking (my card is currently running at a few extra MHz core and the memory about 10Mhz more).

Better cooling and overclocking kinda cancels each other out.

 

One of several sites dealing with overclocking Radeon cards = Valuable advise READ READ READ and understand before begining then give it hell.
http://www.rage3d.com/board/index.php

Tool for overclocking Radeon cards. = One of several probably the easiest.
http://atitool.ocfaq.com/

Better hsf for 9800 pro these are available at other sites also.- One of several easy to install,cheap and works very good removes heat from case as well as card. Arctic cooling vga silencer=
http://www.jab-tech.com/customer/home.php?cat=93

Instructions for using arctic silver paste - Don't forget the paste when changing hsf. - probably the best.
http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.h

Den

 

One more link. Here is a guide for using ATI tool. Allthough this has been posted for quite some time it is still a good guide.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=86655
Den

 

if i were to overclock the card, i would definately swap out the hs/f for a better aftermarket hs/f.