[AskanTale]

I am using ati overdrive to overclock my x850xt.

Do I have to bump it by one at a time? I am planning to bump it 20hmz all at once but i heard someone said bump it at a time.. do bump it one at a time make it safer?

[tweakmonkey]

In general it's not a bad idea to take small steps when overclocking anything. 1 MHz is probably a bit on the safe side, as even 20 MHz isn't a huge overclock. I'd try 5 MHz or so at a time until it crashes, then drop it down by 5 MHz and run some intense benchmarks/test to ensure stability, or bump it 5-10 at first, then slow my pace down to 1-2 MHz while fine-tuning.

The main reason you want to overclock a small amount at a time isn't to protect the card necessarily (as when it crashes you can just reset/shutoff the PC), but to be sure that you'll be able to set it back down if it gets stuck at a higher/unstable clock speed. Some programs or BIOSes will have protection for this though.

[Bear]

Aside from just crashes, keep an eye out for artifacts or graphical weirdness. Don't just benchmark and walk away. Glance over your screen for a little bit at random times during.

[AskanTale]

ahh ok tq.

[tweakmonkey]

Yeah I should have mentioned that.

Usually the first sign of a card being clocked too high (via core or memory) is the visual tears in textures or polygons, especially at the edges. For example, something might be rendered pure black instead of 'concrete-like'. These are usually indications the card is running higher than it can while remaining stable.

[Electric_Head]

The idea is to increase it in small increments untill your system starts getting artifacts and/or system errors. Find your max STABLE clock speed, then bump it down by a couple Mhz just to be on the safe side.

Remember, all chips aren't equal. Their is no way to tell how far a chip will overclock untill you try, some chips can handle the stress better than other and will overclock to higher speeds without problems. I've seen some Athlon XP Barton cores(renowned for their overclockability) that wouldn't budge, then look at mine and I am running it at double the stock clock speed. Don't try and force it if the system is hanging or you see artifacts, you will only damage your hardware.