MSI StarForce 822 GeForce3 64MB

Overclocking

We had a hunch that the MSI StarForce 822 would respond well to core overclocking (due to it's reference heatsink) and not so well to memory overclocking (due to the lack of RAM-sinks). It turns out that both our hunches proved correct, to some extent.

We knew that the StarForce 822's large reference heatsink should provide good overclocking success. The adhesive thermal pad used to bond the heatsink to the core seemed to work well in CPUs, and therefore we suspected that the case would be the same here. We were a bit surprised, for the better, when we were able to get the StarForce 822's core up to the magic 250MHz mark. This actually is the highest we have gotten a GeForce3 card, and our success is likely a result of a good core (luck) and good cooling (engineering).

We suspected that the lack of memory cooling may hurt the StarForce 822's ability to reach high memory clock speeds. It seems we were right, to a degree, as pushing the StarForce 822's memory clock any higher than 515MHz (258MHz SDR) resulted in visual artifacts. This is the same level we were able to push the other GeForce3 we have already reviewed, the Gainward CARDEXPERT GeForce3 PowerPack !!!. It seems that the lack of memory heatsinks are not limiting the StarForce 822's overclockablity too much. We did note, however, that the chips got extremely hot when running at this high clock speed, meaning that perhaps some heat dissipation would have helped. There is no question that the addition of RAM-sinks would be nice and would likely allow for higher overclocking success.

Therefore, we were able to push the MSI StarForce 822 to a 250MHz core and a 515MHz memory speed using PowerStrip. This left us satisfied with the overclockablity of the card, but left us wondering how much further it could have gone with even better cooling methods.