Disclaimer

The modifications described in this article have been successfully made in practice. Each mod was tested by us and helped achieve the desired result. We don’t accept any claims concerning damage to your graphics card or any other PC component after the modification because such problems imply your own mistakes. The author and X-bit Labs are not responsible for any damage inflicted by repeating anything of what is described in this article. We also cannot promise you that your final result will be as good as ours due to the variation in the potential of particular samples of graphics cards.

Warning! Volt-modding, if recognized, makes all warranty obligations void.

You should take up volt-modding if all the following items are true:

• you are definite about how you will do it;
• you are very definite about why you will do it;
• you have soldering skills;
• you are not afraid of losing the warranty;
• you have squeezed the maximum out of your computer, but want more;
• all other methods of overclocking are exhausted.

Before doing any volt-modding, make sure the graphics card is properly cooled (sometimes the standard cooler may be insufficient even for ordinary overclocking).

Ingredients

So, you’ve made up your mind? Let’s move on then. In order to experiment with a 7600 GS that has the reference PCB design, you need:

• A graphics card. Its brand doesn’t matter
• Multimeter
• A thin-tipped soldering iron (25W is optimal)
• Two variable resistors (10,000 and 20,000Ohms, desirably with multiple turns)
• Thin connecting wires (preferably copper, with multiple strands)

The regulators we are interested in are located on the reverse side of the PCB: