I have never overclocked anything. And I thought maybe I'd start w/ my Geforce FX 5200. I know I know...why overclock that piece of crap...well its simple....i cant afford much else. I have run 3dmark 03 and my score sits around 1100. So now im looking into overclocking. I have done a little research, but nothing is very clear and i have a few questions. If I were to buy a cooling kit such as the ThermalTake Giant III would my performance increase much or would there be other things that i would have to do to do this? Also is there a high risk of me killing my video card completely in the process by adding a cooling kit to it? I have a few more questions, but i'll leave this one up for now and ask more if this one gets answered. My email is above and I can be contacted on AIM sometimes, my sn is Nataku954. Thank you

First thing you should do is download Rivatuner or CoolBits and see how far your video card can o/c up to. Overclocking can improve performance because higher clock speeds = more bandwith and higher fill rates etc.

I modded my Fx5900 SE couple of times(Replaced GPU HSF w/ Thermaltake Giant 2 and ARS5, applied Arctic Silver Epoxy on Ramsinks) and its not really a easy thing to do. I killed my old Fx5700U a long time ago just by scratching the board with pliars..

I know most Fx5200's have no fans so it might be a good idea to replace it. Replacing it with say Water-Cooling will dramatically reduce tempature and *may* improve overclocking results. But even if it is overclocked to say +100 Core / +150 Memory(which is pretty high), it will only gain about 7%~10% boost in fps, maybe even higher.

So if you really want to improve performance..best thing to do is save up and get a better video card.

Abit IS7 865PE
Pentium 4 2.6ghz @ 3.2ghz
eVGA GeForce FX 5900 SE

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Thanks, im trying to find a job so that I can build my dream machine. I have 10 dollars to my name and need 2000. Im only 17 so making money is a hard thing to do. If only there were grants for poor geeks. The vid card that im looking at buying is an ASUS ATI Radeon 9800 w/ 256 ddr. Do you think that would be good or should i wait for the next generation of vid cards? You mentioned liquid cooling. I like that idea, but im scared of one hose getting a leak and everything in my system short circuiting.

How much are you willing to pay for a video card?

If you plan on getting a 9800 Pro, get the 128mb version. Games these days don't require that much memory and in some tests the 128mb is faster because it uses faster memory. Its also much cheaper.
The next-generation cards are already coming out(X800 Pro) and others will be in stores by next month. They have awesome performance, they perform 2-3 times better than 9800 Pro in some tests...

Personally I would get the 9800 Pro if I only have around $170, if I had more I would try to save up for a X800 Pro or XT.

Abit IS7 865PE
Pentium 4 2.6ghz @ 3.2ghz
eVGA GeForce FX 5900 SE

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Yah, im in a contest for an x800, and i should have a job by the summer to help pay for my new comp and maybe enough to buy an x800.