Disclaimer

The modifications described in this article have been successfully made in practice. Each mod was tested by us and helped to achieve the desired result. We don’t accept any claims concerning damage to your graphics card or any other PC component after the modification – 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. So you should do everything neatly to be able to unsolder all back again in case of the device’s death.

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 (the standard cooler may turn to 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 GT, you need:

• A graphics card. Its brand doesn’t matter, but it must comply with the reference design for the modifications described below to be correct
• Multimeter
• A thin-tipped soldering iron (25W is optimal)
• Two 10,000Ohm variable resistors (desirably with multiple turns)
• Thin connecting wires (preferably copper, with multiple strands)

The three last items can be replaced with an ordinary lead pencil, but we don’t use it often due to certain drawbacks. The lead from the pencil may crumble, so such a modification isn’t long-lasting. Moreover, you have to be very careful when “drawing” a resistance, and there’s a bigger risk of putting your graphics card to death than at ordinary volt modding. On the other hand, you can quickly remove all the modifications from your card.

So, it’s up to you to choose the particular tools. We are going to tell you how to use them.

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