Introduction
NVIDIA's Titanium series of graphics cards have been a hot topic since they were launched earlier this month. We already answered the performance side of these boards in our GeForce3 Ti 500 and GeForce3 Ti 200/GeForce2 Ti previews, but today we wanted to address the performance of these boards when they're pushed to their max. That's right folks, today we take a stab at overclocking our precious Titanium boards, and as we expected, the GeForce3 Ti 200 becomes an even more attractive product once its overclocked. But how did we overclock our Titanium boards you ask? Simple, with a small modification to the Windows registry, overclocking any NVIDIA-based product is a snap (assuming you're using the reference drivers available on NVIDIA's website).
Simply open the Windows Registry Editor by typing "regedit" in the Run Menu of Windows. Then open the following directory:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global"
Right click on the "Global" directory and create a new key titled "NVTweak." Next, right-click on the NVTweak key and create a new dword value named "Coolbits." Adjust the value of Coolbits to "3" by double clicking on it and entering "3" in the value data field.
After a quick Windows restart go to the "Additional Properties" section of your display settings. Click on the "Clock Frequencies" tab and checkmark the "Allow clock frequency adjustments" setting. After that, you're ready to begin overclocking your card!
Test System Setup
Intel Pentium 4 2GHz
ABIT TH7II-RAID
256MB PC800 RDRAM
ASUS V8200 GeForce3 Pure
NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500
NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200
NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti
Driver version Detonator 20.85
30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA/100 Hard Drive
AFREEY 12X DVD-ROM
Windows 98 SE
DirectX 8.0a
Desktop resolution: 800x600x16
Benchmarks
3DMark2000 ver 1.1
3DMark 2001
Quake 3 Retail - 640x480 High Quality
Quake 3 Retail - 800x600 High Quality
Quake 3 Retail - 1024x768 High Quality
Quake 3 Retail - 1280x1024 High Quality
Quake 3 Retail - 1600x1200 High Quality
Serious Sam Retail - 640x480x32 Normal
Serious Sam Retail - 800x600x32 Normal
Serious Sam Retail - 1024x768x32 Normal
Serious Sam Retail - 1280x1024x32 Normal
Serious Sam Retail - 1600x1200x32 Normal