Just got an X800Pro. I installed the Omega drivers and found that the base clock speed is 472 core /452 memory. I have taken this up to 550/500 with Radlinker but anything above this causes artifacts and lock-ups. Does anyone have any experience with overclocking the X800 series? I read somewhere that the core speed of the X800Pro is 500Mhz and the memory speed is 950Mhz? However I cannot ever reach the memory speed of 950Mhz. Any thoughts?Shez

Since we're on the X800 series, let me ask you smart peopleA) Is the X850 that I just bought essentially the same as or better than the X800 for simming purposes andB)Does it NOT ship with Catalyst drivers and if not, is Catalyst the accepted way to go and if so, which version?Thanks,Jim

Hi Shez,The memory is DDR (Double Data rate) which means that it's actual clock rate is half of the thruput possible. So, that 950Mhz speed you read about will actually be running at 475Mhz.ATI's spec for the X800 Pro is 475Mhz on the core and 450(900 DDR)Mhz on the memory.That you got 550Mhz on the core is good. And since the Pro comes with 2.0ns memory the fastest it is rated is 500(1000 DDR)Mhz. Which means that you got the memory up to it's max speed.You have a very nice Pro. Congrats! Most will achieve approximately 540 core and 475-500 memory maximum with stock cooling. I'd be surprised if you could get any more out of the memory, but good aftermarket cooling might get a bit more out of the core. The Artic Cooling Silencer series of cooling are very good. I have one on my Pro-converted-to-XTPE and it keeps the GPU nice and comfy. Good for case cooling as well (it expels the hot air from the GPU out the back of the case). Very quiet, too.KPSP is great! Thanks for your efforts,Greg

"A) Is the X850 that I just bought essentially the same as or better than the X800 for simming purposes and"Answered in a previous post (and it's still a good card, Jim. Enjoy it)."B)Does it NOT ship with Catalyst drivers and if not, is Catalyst the accepted way to go and if so, which version?"It will ship with the CAT's. And possibly the Catalyst Control Center. Gosta just pointed out to me in another forum that the .NET Framework (required by CCC) creates another user account on your system. Wow!! So much bloat just to tweak video drivers!The latest version of CATs (today) is the 4.12.Most of the CAT tweakers offering driver packages won't touch CCC (for good reason). The Omegas, UniAn, DNA, etc. drivers are all pretty good offerings. I like the Omegas because they are top quality tuned drivers and come bundled with the RadLinker driver tweaker for configuring the drivers to your IQ/Performance preferrence. Radlinker has very little overhead. UniAn and DNA (and most other packages) use the old ATI Control Panel.I believe the latest ATI Catalysts can still use ATI's Control Panel (rather than CCC). But that won't last much longer, as ATI continues to push CCC on it's customers.Greg

Thanks Greg, I never did realise that the DDR means 475 is the actual reading equivalent to 900, very interesting. I did get the clock speeds up but I fear they are dangerously close to lock-ups and I did some more experimenting and found out something interesting. The fps in FS2004 is actualy higher at the stock clock speeds than the higher clock speeds! Atleast 6-9fps on average variance. I guess I will have to experiment a bit more. With my older 9600SE the opposite was true and I used to get a very noticeable boost in performance with overclocking.Shez

THANKS Greg!Jim