Am I to stupid to overcklock a 780?

[chestwood96]

I am triying get my MSI 780(watercooled) to 1200MHz but it seems to be doing everything but what I tell it to do.

I do not have too much experience overclocking but my 7970 was way easier even under air. You just had to punch in a clockspeed and a voltage and it did the thing.
Here I am using the latest MSI afterburner, when i put +100 it increases by maybe 70MHz when I put +150 it increases by like 110 and sometimes even goes down. And the voltages do what they want anyway they completely ignore my settings. I allready played around with modding the bios with KBT but did not have a lot of luck there too. Is there some trick I missed or is it really harder to oc the 780?

Thanks for any help

 

[SieB]

Nvidia cards are definitely different for overclocking compared to with AMD cards. Like you said, you get what you clock it to with AMD and you get no more and no less.

With the Nvidia cards, from what I have experienced anyway, it depends on how much the card is being stressed and how much power it is using.

For example if I use +260 on the core it gives me 1588Mhz in the Alien Isolation benchmark. But in 3D Mark FS Ultra +245 gives 1580, that is I can get stable in FS Ultra but that is 15Mhz less for near enough the same OC. This is the same with other clock speeds, I need a higher boost in MSI AB in lower demanding things like games than I woud need in a benchmark as demanding as it get such as FS Ultra for around the same clock speed.

It also depends on the memory clock as well, if I knock down the memory clock the core clock boosts higher at a lower +Mhz settings.

You just need to play around with clocks and find what does what and then find a clock you are happy with.

 

[JR23]

I've spent quite a while overclocking my two 780 Classifieds as well as my friends DCUii 780 and my little Striker, all of which use offsets and GPU boost 2.0. With them all I started by increasing the power and temp target to maximum just to make sure the card wasn't throttled at all.

Then I used valley/heaven to check for stability and GPU-Z to monitor what clock speeds were actually achieved under load. It might be best first off to do a stock run with no overclock applied to see how far your card boosts, it will almost certainly boost beyond the rated boost clock. Once you know where you are then start playing with the offset. Don't try and overclock the memory and the core at the same time as they will affect each other. Personally I started with the memory, just gradually increase it in 25/50MHz steps until you get to a clock you are happy with, when you get artifacts you have gone too far but remember to go slowly. One of my classys will do +575 (7158) while the other just about manages +475 (6958), once I had established that I went on to overclock the core by slowly increasing the offset. The earliest sign that they were becoming unstable was the driver crashing or little stutters so then I bumped the voltage, did another run checking temps and gradually worked up. I found that with 1.3v both cards would do around 1360MHz. But neither of them could achieve their maximum core clock at the same time as their maximum memory clock. Trying to run them both at the same time in SLI the clocks needed to be backed off a little. My eventual settings were +221(core) +425(mem) on both cards yielding 1333MHz 6840MHz at 1287mV which is quite a bit under what each individual component was capable of.

So for the short story, don't rage anything, don't try to overclock multiple things at once and expect the final combined overclock to be a little bit lower than what the memory or core can do on their own. Also don't trust the clocks displayed on Valley or your overclocking software, use the histograms on GPU-Z to check what actually happened.

JR

 

[tinytomlogan]

youve played about with modding the bios and you are randomly smashing settings in.....

awesome start.... not.

 

[Kei]

My msi was a pain to overclock when i first got it. The offset and voltage would work up to a point but boost would raise the clock speed above my intended target without increasing the voltage enough to maintain stability. I gave up fighting with gpu boost and flashed the skyn3t bios onto it and haven't had an issue since. It now clocks like my old 6950, set an offset and it goes straight to it, same story with a voltage offset.

I run a +175/+650 overclock 24/7 which gives 1175/7300. (using 1175mV) For benching I have a +240/+705 profile which is right on the edge for my card and needs the full 1212mV. The core on mine wasn't keen on anything north of 1240 no matter what voltage or memory clock. Mine is also watercooled which keeps things nice and cool. (25-30 at idle and 45-50 at full load)

 

[Valeriant]

Yea, I got Strix 780 a month before Maxwell is out... grr. I'll be damn sure overclocking it, I read that it can compete with reference 780Ti in several games. Although I'm not sure if the temp would be healthy for the card stressing it at max OC, the VRM temp of this card is very high even with stock OC. Maybe I should consider liquid cooling. Anybody got tips with OCing Strix 780?

 

[tinytomlogan]

Yea, I got Strix 780 a month before Maxwell is out... grr. I'll be damn sure overclocking it, I read that it can compete with reference 780Ti in several games. Although I'm not sure if the temp would be healthy for the card stressing it at max OC, the VRM temp of this card is very high even with stock OC. Maybe I should consider liquid cooling. Anybody got tips with OCing Strix 780?

Dont.


Also: Dont thread hijack.

 

[Valeriant]

Dont.


Also: Dont thread hijack.

Whoops, understood, my bad.

 

[chestwood96]

Thanks for all your Input

I did not just randomly smash in settings, i was increasing by 50 until driver crash the by 10 from the last working value like most guides say.

Appart from that I have more Experience flashing bioses than overclocking (my 7970 is now a 7970GHz and a 280X).

I had the exact same prablem as Kei, i had a semi stable config but when stresstesting for longer time it allways crashed because according to the gpu-z logs it just went higher without increasing the voltage.

I have allready tried the skyn3t bios but the version i got does not really idle wich is not that great but i will try another version.

I have also not touched the memory speed at all so this is going to be another warzone. How important is the memory speed for high res gaming?

I am planing to get a 2nd 780 for sli to somewhat prepare for my upcomming tripple 1440p setup but I first want to somewaht master overclocking that thing.

Also I am not going for extreme overclocks I am aming for about 1200 maybe 1300

 

[tinytomlogan]

Thanks for all your Input

I did not just randomly smash in settings, i was increasing by 50 until driver crash the by 10 from the last working value like most guides say.

Appart from that I have more Experience flashing bioses than overclocking (my 7970 is now a 7970GHz and a 280X).

I had the exact same prablem as Kei, i had a semi stable config but when stresstesting for longer time it allways crashed because according to the gpu-z logs it just went higher without increasing the voltage.

I have allready tried the skyn3t bios but the version i got does not really idle wich is not that great but i will try another version.

I have also not touched the memory speed at all so this is going to be another warzone. How important is the memory speed for high res gaming?

I am planing to get a 2nd 780 for sli to somewhat prepare for my upcomming tripple 1440p setup but I first want to somewaht master overclocking that thing.

Also I am not going for extreme overclocks I am aming for about 1200 maybe 1300

Thats called GPU boost - thats what they do. Check our reviews

 

[chestwood96]

Quick update:

The Skyn3t bios worked well and was the soultion to the problem.

But I think I kind of lost the silicon-lottery (I have a 62% ASIC if that is actually relevant), I need 1.2120V for Stable 1188.9Mhz and 1200 just does not want to happen for more than 5-10 minutes. Maybe I can at least oc the memory a litle. I am using furmark@7680x4800(8xMSAA) for testing so the loads and power consumption should be lower in actual use.

Did I understand JR23 right, the card will overclock worse in sli or do just both cards have to have the same speeds?

 

[SieB]

Quick update:

The Skyn3t bios worked well and was the soultion to the problem.

But I think I kind of lost the silicon-lottery (I have a 62% ASIC if that is actually relevant), I need 1.2120V for Stable 1188.9Mhz and 1200 just does not want to happen for more than 5-10 minutes. Maybe I can at least oc the memory a litle. I am using furmark@7680x4800(8xMSAA) for testing so the loads and power consumption should be lower in actual use.

Did I understand JR23 right, the card will overclock worse in sli or do just both cards have to have the same speeds?

Don't use Furmark for testing stability, Furmark can also damage your card.
Stress testing at 8K is a bit extreme as well, i'd use Heaven in 1080p, 1440p or 4K to stress test as it is runs the similar to normal gaming.

The higher the res, the more power your cards will use so you aren't going to get a good of an OC testing at 8K. Test at 1080p to start with then go for 1440p and then 4K at the most.

 

[JR23]

Did I understand JR23 right, the card will overclock worse in sli or do just both cards have to have the same speeds?

You can run each card with an individual overclock should you have one that's significantly stronger than the other. I found they were both very similar but they didn't stay stable quite as high in a pair rather than on their own during my testing.

JR

 

[chestwood96]

Well Heaven deffinitely runs cooler

8k made sense to me since I am basically diong this because i am planing to get tripple 1440p monitors wich is like 6k

Now how important is the memory-clock?

 

[SieB]

Well Heaven deffinitely runs cooler

8k made sense to me since I am basically diong this because i am planing to get tripple 1440p monitors wich is like 6k

Now how important is the memory-clock?

Fair enough, as for the importance of the memory clock, i'm not to clued up on the memory side of overclocking to be honest. Core clock is more important than the memory clock anyway, but you do get more performance with an overclock on the memory. If I recall correctly the memory clock also has more of an effect at larger resolutions, for 1080p it doesn't really make that much of a difference but for 1440p and above it makes more of a difference.

As I said though, i'm not to clued up on the memory side of things so take that info with a pinch of salt. Just have a play around with the memory clock and see what improvements you get with it.

 

[chestwood96]

so I got 1176/1702 at 1.212V stable, it just wont go higher for more than 25 minutes. but hey at least i know how to do it now. Time to get a 2nd 78 XD

 

[NeverBackDown]

Well Heaven deffinitely runs cooler

8k made sense to me since I am basically diong this because i am planing to get tripple 1440p monitors wich is like 6k

Now how important is the memory-clock?

Wtf? No offense but that is just a terrible idea. Also its not 6k... 4k has 8million pixels while 1440p*3 has over 11million. Nothing can really run 4k now that great so adding more pixels isn't really a great idea.

 

[chestwood96]

I am a man of terrible ideas XD

 

[tinytomlogan]

I am a man of terrible ideas XD

Pretty much - try watching one of the review videos. GPU Boost is actually awesome when you realise it pushes your clock further - you only need to use GPUZ to show the max's like I do in the videos to get your final clock.


FYI a 780 will struggle in a lot of games with ONE 1440p screen let alone 3. You should have spent more money researching because no amount of overclocking will make games run right with a single card.

Overclocking has minimal FPS difference

 

[chestwood96]

Pretty much - try watching one of the review videos. GPU Boost is actually awesome when you realise it pushes your clock further - you only need to use GPUZ to show the max's like I do in the videos to get your final clock.


FYI a 780 will struggle in a lot of games with ONE 1440p screen let alone 3. You should have spent more money researching because no amount of overclocking will make games run right with a single card.

Overclocking has minimal FPS difference

I may be unreasonable but i am not that unreasonable.

As i have mentioned before I am deffinitely going to get a 2nd 780 before i get tripple 1440p screens.

I actually watch a lot of your videos and am aware that I propably can not get ULTRA settings on every game, but I am willing to live with that. I have done tripple 1080 with a single 7970. And I also know that a 15% clockspeed increase wont give me 200% FPS.