Overclocking the Bravo X700

Overclocking Results:

stock overclocked gpu (core) speed: 398MHz 461MHz Memory Speed: 266MHz 266MHz

Considering the intended market for the Bravo X700, we didn't expect much in terms of overclocking. With the 60mm low profile fan installed on the back, we started overclocking the core first.

By default the Powercolor X700 core is clocked at 398 MHz, which is just 27 MHz slower than the X700 Pro. With this in mind, The first thing we did was increase the Bravo X700 to 425 MHz. Unsurprisingly, the card had absolutely no problems running at that speed. The highest we could push the core was 461 MHz; anything higher and the videocard would lock up while running 3DMark05 or Gun Metal 2. We were a bit surprised at this because ATi cores usually start to artifact before they reach their maximum speed.

Of course no matter how well the core overclocks, the Bravo X700's Achilles heel is its memory bandwidth. With the memory clocked at a paltry 266 MHz, the Bravo X700 is begging to have its memory overclocked. Starting at 266 MHz and using Samsung K4N561630F-GC37 DDR2 memory modules, we didn't expect to be able to go very far.

The first thing we did was increase the memory frequency to 300 MHz, but unfortunately that was a no go and the videocard locked up the system. We also ran into a peculiar problem with PowerStrip 3.59 when overclocking the memory; increasing the memory speed above stock automatically dropped the core speed down to 75 MHz!

We tried using a few other programs but we still ran into the same problem. Sadly we were not able to overclock the memory on the Bravo X700 videocard.

PCStats Test System Specs:

processor: amd athlon64 4000+ clock speed: 12 x 200 mhz = 2.4 ghz motherboards: gigabyte ga-k8nxp-sli (nf4-sli) gigabyte ga-k8nsnxp-939 (nf3 ultra) videocard: msi rx800xt-vtd256e gigabyte gv-rx80l256v powercolor x700 pro msi nx6800gt-t2d256e albatron trinity geforce 6600gt agp msi nx6600gt-td128 albatron trinity pc6600 asus extreme n6600top/td/128m/a gigabyte gv-3d1 (single mode) gigabyte gv-3d1 (sli mode) msi nx6600gt-td128e (single mode) msi nx6600gt-td128e (sli mode) powercolor bravo x700 memory: 2x 512mb mushkin pc3200 l2 v2 hard drive: 74gb wd raptor 10k rpm sata hdd cdrom: aopen 52x combo powersupply: seasonic super tornado 400w software setup windowsxp build 2600 nforce catalyst 4.12 detonator 66.93 benchmarks 3dmark2001se 3dmark05 codecreatures aquamark gun metal 2 x2 the threat ut2003 doom3 aa test, af and aa+af test 3dmark2001se ut2003

the agp and pci-e systems use a different motherboard but results are shown for reference.