Overclocking the Geforce 8600GT

[mbrigdan]

As you probably guessed from the title, I want to see how far I can push my graphics card. I'm using coolbits, under a x86_64 LINUX architecture (yup, GPU overclocking on linux. THANK YOU Nvidia!)
The card "supposedly" starts at 540MHz Core, and 700Mhz memory. (http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8600.html). However, my card stated at a different place, 685MHz core, and 810Mhz memory.
I used the auto-detect feature and it gave me settings of 747MHz core, and 946MHz memory.

I was wondering how much further I could push this card while it remains stable and doesn't damage it. The card does have a built-in showdown at 115C that I can't change, but I don't know whether that would actually protect the card that much. Help me magical xkcd people!

[rho]

I haven't done any overclocking for a while, nor have I done any research on your card (both because I'm lazy) so this is little more than speculation based on experience.

That sounds like a crazy factory OC. You'll get the best out of it by not using 'auto-detect'. Raise each setting slowly and benchmark. Once you start pushing things there's a trade off for stability between memory clock and core clock. You'll get better performance by reducing the core in favour of the memory.
As for temperature, you'll be fine in terms of being able to max-out the card without it frying. IT WILL FREEZE BEFORE IT BURNS.
What will shorten the life of your card is consistently running it hotter than necessary. Ideally only have it running at the faster settings when you need it to be.

If you really catch the overclocking bug, consider bigger heatsinks and perhaps a volt-mod. I had an xFx 6800gt that I could outperform BFG ultras with, saving myself enough for a motherboard.

I wish I had the money to get back into this passtime. I must admit, I envy you

[fishyfish777]

The Nvidia 8600GT is an old mid-range card in today's times though...
What's so fun about overclocking?
I got my q6600 to 5.5ghz using liquid cooling... but that's another thing.