How to overclock ATI radeon HD 6970

I am having a computer which comes with Ati radeon hd 6970 graphic card. I am looking to overclock this graphic card to enhance the output for gaming purpose mostly. But here I am not having any idea of doing the same. I am also not so great in overclocking stuff. I had seen a few hardware issues before while updating the driver. It looks the gpu is not giving me maximum graphic output. I had provided a short detail of hardware that I am using. I am quiet sure I am having a really high end hardware with me, but still it is not working as per my need. Sometime there is only black screen while playing games.

My computer configuration is:

• Motherboard: Asus rampage 3
• Processor: Intel core I7 950
• RAM: 4 GB ddr3

The first thing you can do is start with finding out whether your system is capable of handling overclocking or not. This matters the most. Because sometime it happens that people go for overclocking blindly and they face issue with the output. So you have to start with running a test to find out whether your system is capable of handling overclock or not. Most of the time the system restarts and does not boot up. That is due to extreme pressure. Regular desktops are not having much cooling options that cause this kind of problem.

There are few things you have to check first before going ahead with overclocking. First you must have the latest graphic drivers in your system. Outdated drivers can cause system issues. And then you can go ahead with other stuff. Like increasing your cooling output. You can go ahead with the same if you are having a full size fan or atleast a decent liquid cooler. It is always good to start with testing first because if you dont do that, then overclocking can be a kind of risky process.