General Voodoo3 Overclocking

The programs

We can overclock the hard way, or we can overclock the easy way. The hard way involves actually digging into the registry and creating new string values. Why do that when there are a couple a great GUI overclocking programs already available?

You have a choice between several different video card overclocking programs, but the most popular V3 overclocking program is probably Gary Peterson's Voodoo 3 Overclocker v3.1. You can find the program on Voodoo Extreme right here.

Voodoo 3 Overclocker

V3 Overclocker

The Voodoo 3 Overclocker program has a graphics clock slider that allows you to choose the graphics speed in 1MHz increments between 120MHz and 220MHz. You might be wondering why there's only one slider instead of two separate sliders, one for the engine core and one for the memory clock. We only need one slider because the V3's core clock and memory clock are synchronous (they run at the same speed).

We used the Voodoo 3 Overclocker program for all our tests. It's very easy to use. You just slide the slider to the desired speed, hit apply and then reboot to put the new speed into effect. If your video card can't handle the new speed, you just start Windows in safe mode and readjust the clock speed.

Entech's PowerStrip is another overclocking program you might want to consider. It's a complete display utilities package with far more options than V3 Overclocker, but the overclocking sliders are hidden away two or three levels deep to prevent newbies from hurting themselves.

Why did we write a Voodoo 3 overclocking guide when we recommend TNT2 cards?