WARNING: I am not liable for any damage done to persons, hardware or software as a direct or indirect result of following this guide. You overclock totally at your own risk!

Processors aren't the only thing that can be overclocked. Most people overlook the fact that video cards can be overclocked too.

Like processors, the idea is to get increase the clock speed of the chip (in this case the video chip) while trying to keep the temperature as low as possible. Secondary fans that can be fitted into ISA expansion slots are a good idea for this. Some overclockers even mount heat sinks onto the video chip itself. Such heat sinks are avaliable, but one can be fashioned by taking a heat sink for the processor and cutting it down to size. Add some thermal compound to stick it onto the video chip.

Unlike the overclocking of processors, there is no "jumper" setting on the video card that determines the clock speed setting of the video chip. For this, we use a software called MCLK to increase the speed. I managed to get a 10% increase in video performance on my Diamond Stealth 2000 3D using this method. The MCLK programme has to be placed in your Autoexec.Bat to ensure that it runs every time you boot up. It is advisable that you increase the speed only in small steps (of about 2) each time and monitor the sideeffects. The MCLK programme, can overclock the DRAM clock generator of the the Cirrus Logic GD-542x/30/36/4x, S3 Trio/Virge, ET6000 and Trident 9440/96xx video-cards.

Another factor that affects overclocking is the speed of the memory found on the video card. Faster memory allows for even more overclocking to be done. There is no need however, to place heat sinks on the memory chips. They fail not because they run too hot, but because they are simply not designed to run at such a speed. Typical DRAM speeds found on video cards are 40ns, 45ns and 50ns.

If overclocking is sucessful, the computer should operate as normal (but faster!). Should it not be successful, sideeffects and tell tale signs are wierd characters, colours and distorted graphics.