GF4 MX440 Cooling+Overclocking project.
 

WELL FIRST OF ALL HI EVERY ONE!!.... This is kinda my first post so lets make it good.. lol...


Well i had a spare Geforce4 MX440 since about a month ago bought the card for the heck of it and never got to test it out so today i was a bit bored so i made a decision to test the card out and see how itll do and if its really worth recomending to people as low budget performance card. Well lets start....

First of all lets look at the stock Gainward Geforce4 MX440 Model Pro/600 TV 64MB DDR+ TV-OUT. Sure looks like a really nice card.... ME LIKE.... and look it matches my RED MSI KT333 Motherboard :D
http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/Stock.jpg
Sure doesnt look like it has that great of a stock cooler, no wounder it was the cheapest Geforce4 MX440 out there when i got it, now the Aopen, VGA, and Pine are @ the same price range and cheaper then Gainward.

Well first thigs first... lets see what they used under that cheap ass heatsink... and as you can see it isnt some cheap thermal tape or anything but just...... cheap thermal greese lol. http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/StockOff.jpg
Hmmm looks like they put plenty of greese on that core, more is always better.... ;) ok maybe not always but hey... better then nothing. Now lets clean this sexy card up and see whats under that thermal greese.... http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/nudeGF4MX.jpg
and as you can see it is powered by Nvidia NV17 core.... Yep i know not the fastest out there but still good enogh for people that arent hardcore gamers but still like to play a game onece in a while.

After cleaning up the card lets take a look at what ill be using to make the card cooler and yes also making it look cooler... ;) its always important to look cool :cool: http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/CoolKit.jpg
As you can see on the pic i will be using Crystal Orb from Thermal Take, Old heat Sinks that i took off of my old GF3 about 15months ago, Arctic Silver II, and Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive. I know not top of the line but thats all i had in my spare box, so i didnt spend any extra money on this mod.

Now thats niiiice ;) The card is sexy looking and ready for its testing,
1) http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/FinalProduct.jpg
2) http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/BkHS.jpg
and here is a pic of the GF4 MX440 side by side with my GF4 TI4600 http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/TI4...SideBySide.jpg
yeah as you can see that TI4600 is HUGE, thank god it fits in my case, lol when i got it i was like ogh shoot i dont know if it will fit, it hardly fir in my old Antec Case was sooo close to the hard drive... but the old Voodoo5 5500 is still one of the largest cards out there right now. The MX440 is pretty small, its the same exact size as my GF3 TI500 *dont have the pic*

After about letting the card sit for 90minutes after attaching heatsinks using Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive i took out my TI4600 and popped the MX into the AGP slot, and like i said it matches my Motherboard :cool, very very nice :D http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/MX440InPC.jpg

Alrighty next thing boot up the PC and the card is working *thank god*so next thing i do is install the latest drivers, 29.40's and no not the Refresh Rate Fixed ones, the refresh rate fixed 2940's dont do squate still runs @ 60Hz in 3D aplications and games. and run the first benchmark whitch is 3DMark2001 SE *DUH* and i get a score of
5970
http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3562832
The card is running at stock speed at that moment whitch is
Core 270
Memory 400
I run MOHAA and find one of the most grafical points in a certain level so the card is pushed to its limit, whitch would be standing right infront of the HIGHLY detailed tree where FPS drops from around 90FPS to 26.6FPS as you can see on this picture... http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/StockTest.jpg The game is running @ 1280 by 1024 evrything set to the MAX.
Next step I overclocked the card to
Core 300
Memory 435
restart the PC and get back into the 3DM2001SE and get score of
6360
http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3563217
and as you can see jump in points is pretty big, adding another 390 points to the stock score.... I am certainly impressed, next thing i do is go back to the MOHAA and make sure all the settings are same, and go back to the same level stand in EXACT point and see frame rate increase from 26.6FPS to 32.9FPS.... now thats pretty cool going from under 30fps whitch is when the game starts to be choppy up to 32.9FPS! when the game is smooth as you want it too be even tho some hard core gamers might say its still not good enogh. And personally i think thats pretty damn good to add another 6.3fps and still be stable as a rock. Now the 3rd step to push the card to its limit first i set the settings to
Core 330
Memory 460
and it crashed on the Nature test so i lowered that to
Core 325
Memory 455
and ran the tests again *yes i did restart the PC each time i changed the Core and the memory to make sure the system is fresh* After running 3dmark DEMO for 15 minutes looping @ that core and memory i restarted the PC and ran the Benchmark it self... and the result is awsome.... going from 6360 up to
6650
http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3563317
whitch i thought was great and to make sure the card was stable i looped the test 5 times or so... After that went to MOHAA again load up to the same point in the map and see that the fps went sky high as you can see here.....
Core 270
Memory 400
MOHAA FPS 26.6
http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3562832

Core 300
Memory 435
MOHAA FPS 32.9
http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3563217

Core 325
Memory 455
MOHAA FPS !!36.2!!
http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3563317

Now thats pretty freaking nice... :)
Now overall i gained 9.6 FPS whitch is great in MOHAA and games like THPS3 and Soldier Of Fortune were actually playable when the card was overclocked at 1280 by 1024 evrything at MAX! And there really wasnt that much of a diffarance between my TI4600 :confused: only in THPS3 it rana little chopy but on 1024 x 768 the Soldier Of Fortune2 Ran nicely and so did the THPS3. Mohaa never got under 31.1 fps even with smoke from granades around 5 people running and shooting around and with ping of 145 *higher ping more frame rate you loose* and thats on this level http://home.attbi.com/~dmitriy15/StockTest.jpg where at stock speed it would go under 26fps just by looking at trees and when overclocked it would be around 99fps when your not looking at the trees or very detailed objects. In my opinion this is a great card!! And especially great overclocker once you got enogh cooling on it. If id rate the car id give it an 8 out of 10. :)


FPS Gain in MOHAA *Medal Of Honor* +9.6fps

3D Mark 2001 Second Edition
Stock:5970
Overclocked at Core 325/Memory 455: 6650
Overall gain of 680 3DMark points.

SOF2 + THPS3 Playable at full blast grafix @ 1280by1024 when overclocked. ;)

ROCK STABLE even when clocked @ 325x455 *nothing above tho 325x455 is limit after that lock ups occur but quality still the same*, Tested 2hours of 3dmark Demo Looping, 30minutes of THPS3 & 15minutes of SOF2 and still running it clocked without a crash right now while typing up this report up.

Well thats pretty much it guys & girls ;).

Dmitriy