Overclocking

Given that the Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 already comes at a pretty amazing 175MHz core clock speed, and 183MHz memory speed, we were uncertain of the margin of overclocking that we could achieve with this card. Equipped with 5.5ns and a TNT2 chipset, possibly from a good yield, we began our testing.

Let the games begin

The Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 does not come with a built in overclocking utility in its driver set, but this is easily resolved with Powerstrip's latest version, 2.51. Armed with this overclocking weapon, we approached the Maxi Gamer Xentor 32. At a 175 MHz clock speed, the Maxi Gamer Xentor is already very fast, but we hoped to increase this a little bit.

Starting out, we raised the core speed to 190MHz (+ 15MHz) and the memory to 200MHz (+17MHz), since 190/200 are nice round numbers to try to hit. Starting up some benchmarks results in visual artifacts, leading to an eventual freeze. Hmm. After the reboot, we bumped the clocks a little bit lower to 185/195, and resumed the benchmarking. This time, things were going smoothly through the first 3Dmark 99 benchmark, without any visual degradation. However, around the middle of the second test, we got another freeze and lockup.

The eventual realization through testing was that our particular Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 would not overclock past 175/200. Remember, this will vary from case to case, at least with the core speed, as cores may be different in their overclockability due in part to the yield of the chips they come from. The RAM clock, on the other hand, is probably pretty indicative, since 5.5ns rated RAM is going to be 5.5ns rated RAM, regardless of yield.

Our thoughts

It's not entirely untrue to say that we expected a higher overclockability, but it's also untrue to say that we're not impressed. In other words, we are impressed with the card's ability to go to 175/200, since the default core clock speed is already a good 16.7% over the default TNT2 Ultra clock speed, and at 200MHz on the memory side, you're at ~9.3% over the default. However, we had hoped for something in the 190/200-210 range, which we've seen or heard of these cards hitting. Anyway, should you pick up a Maxi Gamer Xentor 32, good luck with your overclocking!