How To: Overclocking AMD Boards With 690G Integrated Graphics

AMD 690G IGP Overclocking

When I was working on the AMD 690G article I read that the ASUS M2A-VM HDMI motherboard had an IGP overclocking option that was available in the BIOS. By going into the BIOS and entering the ‘Advanced Chipset’ menu one could adjust the clock speed of the ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 graphics engine for better 3D Performance. Since I had the neutered ASUS M2A-VM motherboard my BIOS didn’t have this feature as it’s only available on the higher priced ASUS M2A-VM HDMI motherboard. Since both boards are nearly identical I downloaded the latest version of ATITool and gave it a shot to see if I could overclock the Integrated Graphic Processor (IGP) on the ASUS M2A-VM.

After downloading and installing the software I fired up ATITool version 0.26 and crossed my fingers. Right off the bat I knew something was wrong as the core and memory frequencies should be at 400MHz and not 66MHz! These settings are incorrect as it’s reading from the wrong device, so the device has to be changed in the settings menu.

To correctly select the right device click the ‘settings’ tab on the lower right corner and then you’ll see the above window. Select ‘0x791E’ from the ‘Use Device’ drop-down menu and then click back. Only three devices were listed, so it’s not hard to find the right device!

After clicking ‘back’ you’ll be back at where you started, only this time around the clock frequencies will be correct and can now be adjusted. Keep in mind that ONLY the clock frequency can be adjusted as the memory timings are locked. I then clicked ‘Find Max Core’ and found out that it DOES NOT correctly find the max of the board. For some reason ATITool will not dected artifacts and will keep going until the video card blows up or the system blue screens, so be careful! Remember that AMD dose not support overclocking and by doing so you run the risk of VOIDING your warranty!

After clicking ‘Find Max Core’ the system shot from 400MHz well over 500MHz and I was greeted with a nice blue screen of death. After I rebooted and started ATITool, I was amazed that the AMD 690G chipset was able to reach 563.25MHz before the system crashed. I manually set the core clock frequency to 525MHz as anything over 550MHz would cause artifacts and that’s not good. Slowly increase the clock frequency 5-15MHz at a time and run game tests to make sure it’s stable and not showing any artifacts. Overclocking is an art and takes time to reach, so remember patience is vital.

Let’s take a look at what this overclock does in terms of performance!