How far can you overclock a laptop GPU?

[OriginalPromise]

For a Radeon 7850M, 675mhz, how far can you overclock? It's currently ay 720MHz

How should I balance my voltage and clock speeds?

My games sometimes crashes. What are rules I should follow for a stable overclocking experience?

I'm using the overdrive feature from the catalyst control center. Should I use afterburner instead?

Is the temperature the only factor I should worry about or could the voltage play a role on the card dieing?

What are your personal experiences overclocking a laptop component?

I have a load of questions.

[Sauron]

1) don't overclock anything in a laptop, it doesn't make sense and it can damage the other components inside as a consequence of the extra heat generated. It also significantly reduces battery life.

2) if games are crashing you have gone too far already

3) use afterburner, don't even touch the catalyst utility

4) increase voltage as a last resource, only when the frequency you are reaching starts crashing should you try increasing the voltage by VERY little

5) the last three points don't matter because of point number 1, revert to default conditions and leave it there.

[That Norwegian Guy]

Just don't.

[D4RK]

1) don't overclock anything in a laptop,

 

if its a gaming laptop it can handle it, i didnt play with the voltage with mine but i pushed the frequency by 150 or 200 more dont remember anymore and it was fine.

[Kyuubixchidori]

If anything, you want to do the opposite and undervolt it. 

 

I mean, you CAN overclock it, but the 10% ish of improvement isnt worth causing your gpu/harddrives/everything else in your laptop to fail. Remember that the heat of the gpu effects everything else in the laptop

[Sauron]

if its a gaming laptop it can handle it, i didnt play with the voltage with mine but i pushed the frequency by 150 or 200 more dont remember anymore and it was fine.

 

judging from his previous post, it's an aio and it already runs pretty hot as it is...

[OriginalPromise]

Aren't 60C and 70C perfectly safe temperatures at full load?

judging from his previous post, it's an aio and it already runs pretty hot as it is...

[Xquisite]

You shouldn't overclock anything in a laptop, it's not worthwhile. You won't really get that much of a performance increase and the temperatures of the components in a laptop are always pretty high, and you definitely don't want them to get higher.

[OriginalPromise]

This guy got 800MHz via afterburner with the same card in a laptop. If I have an AIO, I was thinking that I have more room to "expand". I'll just leave it at 720 than and lower my voltages down a bit.AMD Radeon HD 7850m Overclocking Tutorial:

[flibberdipper]

Not far. Only reason I was able to OC the GMA 945GME in my netbook is because they underclock it to 166MHz from 400MHz, even though it still runs at the same voltage. When I had it running at 400MHz I lost like 4 minutes of battery life browsing the web.

[Sauron]

Aren't 60C and 70C perfectly safe temperatures at full load?

 

They are safe. Doesn't mean you should go any higher. And anyway they are safe in a tower desktop, where there are no cheap plastic parts in direct contact with the components. Don't overclock soldered components unless the producer specifies there is room for that.

[VSG]

I got my 7970m from 850/1200 to 925/1250 without any voltage increase. The temps were pretty much identical too.

Stock Cloudgate run: http://www.3dmark.com/cg/1784249

OC Cloudgate run: http://www.3dmark.com/cg/1500178

Only did this for HWBot, but I bet games have a noticeable fps increase too.

[OriginalPromise]

I got my 7970m from 850/1200 to 925/1250 without any voltage increase. The temps were pretty much identical too.

Stock Cloudgate run: http://www.3dmark.com/cg/1784249

OC Cloudgate run: http://www.3dmark.com/cg/1500178

Only did this for HWBot, but I bet games have a noticeable fps increase too.

How did you overclock it?

[VSG]

Trixx, most AMD laptop GPUs are from Sapphire.

[KatanoWaki]

I rocked an A6 APU in a laptop and overclocked the CPU out of the gate from 1.4 to 2.0ghz on stock voltage. Then a few months later Afterburner was updated to allow GPU overclocking on it, I maxed out the slider at 500mhz. It wasn't much, but it kinda shows how conservative AMD is with laptop chips. My battery life actually increased since it throttled when it wasn't plugged in ( so it was under volted a lot ).

 

Then in my Lenovo I have an i7 and 755m. I can max the core slider to +135 ( after repasting the heatsink ) it stays steady at 1228mhz. Memory I took to +300mhz, anything higher crashes. 

The key is to repaste the heatsink. The factory paste jobs on all my laptops were horrible and led to 100*C out of the box. Once I repasted both my i7's stay around 85C max and the apu when gaming goes to 70C. Then it's just like a desktop with crappy cooling, but you should always be plugged into a wall when you're overclocked. You can easily overdraw from the battery and heat it up causing damage.

 

I finally have a desk and I'll get to build my own desktop soon, so hopefully days of gaming with temps in the on screen display are over.