Best GT 610 Overclocking Settings Guide
Want to squeeze more performance out of the Nvidia GT 610? This guide walks through the exact overclocking steps and benchmarks that show how far this tiny entry level card can be pushed. The GT 610 may be old and underpowered, but with the right tuning it can still deliver measurable gains and make the most of the hardware you already have:
In this video we’re going to quickly overclock and benchmark an Nvidia GeForce GT 610 graphics card.
The GT 610 is a low powered entry level card first introduced in early 2012. If you’re already familiar with other cards such as the GT 710 or the GT 520, you’ll be right at home here since the GT 610 is extremely similar to both of those. Since this card is so old and because it was only an entry level card even in its prime, getting some decent benchmarks may be a bit of a challenge here.
So what are we looking at here. The GeForce GT 610 is based on the GF119 graphics processor, has 48 CUDA cores, and supports DirectX 12 feature set 11.0. The card runs at 810 MHz core clock and between 500 and 898 MHz memory clock. The card comes in both low profile and full height versions featuring passive, single fan, and dual fan cooling solutions. The GT 610 comes with either 1 GB or 2 GB of DDR3 or GDDR3 memory. The example card we have here is the Zotac GT 610 Synergy Edition 1 GB.
So let’s get ready to overclock and benchmark this little card and see what kind of performance we can pull out of it. The first thing we’re going to want to do is update the drivers. Let’s jump over to Nvidia real quick and grab the latest ones.
Now that our drivers are nice and updated, the next step is to install an overclocking program called MSI Afterburner. MSI Afterburner is a totally free tool that gives you a high level of control and monitoring over your graphics card. It’s made by the company MSI, but in no way do you need to use it with an MSI brand of card or anything like that.
Now that MSI Afterburner is installed, let’s run through the key settings we’ll be using for this card. We’ll be focusing on the core clock and memory clock values from the middle section here. We can see that the fan speed is currently set to Auto. You can turn this off and manually select the fan speed, but for this video we’re just going to leave it on Auto.
You can always reset your settings back to default by clicking the reverse arrow at the bottom. Once you’re satisfied with your changes, you can click the check button to apply them. You can save your current settings to a profile by clicking the Save button and then clicking on one of the profiles along the right hand side. Finally, you can have the current settings automatically apply at Windows startup by clicking the Windows icon in the upper right corner.
Now I’m going to put a list of known successful GT 610 overclocks on the screen as well as in the video description. Every card is different, but this should give you a good starting point for potential overclock values that may work for you.
Now that we’ve locked in some potential overclock settings, we’re going to want to test them. We’re going to run through five programs with benchmarks to test our overclock for stability and performance.
What I’ll do first is run through all five benchmarks using stock settings to obtain base level performance numbers. I’ll then select a minor initial increase in both core clock and memory clock settings. I’ll then run through the Unigine benchmark tool over and over while increasing the overclock values slightly each time.
Once the settings have been pushed too far and I start seeing crashing, graphical glitches, or any type of odd behavior, I’ll turn back the settings to what they were just previously when everything was still running smoothly. At that point I now have a solid idea of where the sweet spot is for overclocking my particular card. I can either stick with those settings or try tweaking things just a little further.
After a couple hours of testing, this particular card was able to reach a solid overclock of 970 MHz core clock and 898 MHz memory clock. This certainly seems like a decent boost.
So let’s run through each of the benchmarks and see how the GT 610 performed. First up we’ve got Unigine Superposition benchmark tool. Running at the 720p Low preset, base clock results achieved a score of 708. After overclocking, the score improved to 928. This represents an increase of 31.1 percent, so things are looking very promising so far.
Next up we’ve got CS GO benchmark map. Running at 720p with all the settings turned down to the lowest values, the initial test achieved an overall average FPS of 37.8. After overclocking, average FPS increased to 47.6. That’s an increase of 25.9 percent. Another impressive boost of performance to be had here as well.
Benchmark number three is Grand Theft Auto 5 benchmark. Running at 720p, 50 percent resolution scaling, and everything turned down as low as it would go, our initial average FPS was 43.0. After overclock, average FPS increased to 53.4. That’s an increase of 24.2 percent. A significant boost to performance for sure.
Fourth on the list is Final Fantasy 14 Endwalker benchmark tool. Running at the 720p Standard preset, initial results achieved a score of 1891 or Low rating. After overclock, the score improved to 2459 which is a ranking of Slightly Low. This represents an increase of 30.0 percent. An extremely impressive increase to performance for this title.
Benchmark number five is Borderlands 3 benchmark. Running at 720p, 50 percent resolution scaling, and everything turned down to the lowest settings, the initial average FPS was 11.4. After overclocking, overall average FPS increased to 14.3. That’s an increase of 25.4 percent. Certainly an impressive increase, but still not really enough for a playable experience, so it looks like for this title the GT 610 has met its match.
Overall I’d still have to say I’m a bit surprised and impressed at how well this little card with only 48 CUDA cores was able to perform.
Have you ever had one of these cards? Tell us about it in the video comments and thanks for watching!
MSI Afterburner download page:
