Graphic Card OverClocking Advice....

[Briggsy]

Hey guys,

OK, I want push my twin 7970 to a really good oc for bench marking, is there a rule of thumb when it comes to increasing core clocks, shader clocks and memory clocks when doing this.....

Yeah ok I can sit there and move this and that but how do you guys do it? Surely there is a balance when you move one you need to increase the other?

Thanks

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

if you never done it before, i really dont recomend you go ahead wit it, overclocking basically can damage/ essentially brick your gpu/cpu if your not careful

i like to use either msi afterburner or evga precision X

i recommend you to sync shaders with gpu clock for better stability, start from small intervals, each following a quick furmark or something along those lines(get the gpu at 100% and check stability)

then same with memory clocks.

sometimes you might need to increase your volatge, if your not very informed regarding that then dont bother with it as you can literally fry your gpu.

on last note you shouldt push further than 10-15% from original clocks, that pretty much general rule but if you really want top notch performance for bench then you can go further

 

[simon d]

I would not use furmark as this may cook you cards, use 3dMark 11 or Heaven DX11 Benchmark 3.0

Keep a eye on your temps, you will need to setup a fan profile to allow for the extra heat being produced.

As you are crossfiring you will be limited how far you can push your cards.

 

[Master&Puppet]

I did a post on using MSI AB last year which is still pretty relevent (link at the bottom)

Things have moved on slightly though, I wouldn't use furmark anymore (there is some code which disables power regulation in the cards and causes more volts to be put through the core). Any other of the benchmarks above would be fine.

I would also change the fan profile - I'd have the line running up from 40C to about 75C. These modern cards run cool anyway - especially the non ref aftermarket branded ones.

When it comes to upping the voltage you will find that there are diminishing returns. To begin with just push the core mhz until it produces artifacts or crashes, then try upping the memory. It's the same as cpu OCing here - better to have a faster processor speed than faster memory.

Note that you will need to restart your pc to eliminate artifacts - simply turning down the mhz will not eliminate them.

When you hit the limit on stock Vs (maybe around 1050-1100mhz) push up on the slider and carry on with the tests. You'll find that for each incremental voltage increase you get fewer mhz out of the card.

For reference many of the factory overclocked 7970s have 1.175 set at the core so I would start there and see what you can get. You should be fine with 1.2V too if you want to squeeze even more out of them.

Basically just add 25mhz to the core until it eaither crashes or you start getting artifacts in the benchmarks. Then put it back to the last working setting and increase in 5mhz increments instead.

Once you reach the GPU limit then do the same for the memory and shader.

Personally I assign 2 profiles to AB for my cards and never set AB to automatically apply an overclock on start up. One profile is the stock profile (or even an undervolted/underclocked one if you want to be super kind to them) for general use like web browsing etc. Then I have the OC profile which I select and deselect before and after a game (if my cards need the boost). It's the same deal with the cpu really - no need to crank on the OC if you don't need it.

OC Thread - http://forum.overclo...post__p__450543

MSI AB manual is a useful read http://event.msi.com...er%20Manual.pdf

 

[Briggsy]

I did a post on using MSI AB last year which is still pretty relevent (link at the bottom)

Things have moved on slightly though, I wouldn't use furmark anymore (there is some code which disables power regulation in the cards and causes more volts to be put through the core). Any other of the benchmarks above would be fine.

I would also change the fan profile - I'd have the line running up from 40C to about 75C. These modern cards run cool anyway - especially the non ref aftermarket branded ones.

When it comes to upping the voltage you will find that there are diminishing returns. To begin with just push the core mhz until it produces artifacts or crashes, then try upping the memory. It's the same as cpu OCing here - better to have a faster processor speed than raster memory.

Note that you will need to restart your pc to eliminate artifacts - simply turning down the mhz will not eliminate them.

When you hit the limit on stock Vs (maybe around 1050-1100mhz) push up on the slider and carry on with the tests. You'll find that for each incremental voltage increase you get fewer mhz out of the card.

For reference many of the factory overclocked 7970s have 1.175 set at the core so I would start there and see what you can get. You should be fine with 1.2V too if you want to squeeze even more out of them.

Basically just add 25mhz to the core until it eaither crashes or you start getting artifacts in the benchmarks. Then put it back to the last working setting and increase in 5mhz increments instead.

Once you reach the GPU limit then do the same for the memory and shader.

Personally I assign 2 profiles to AB for my cards and never set AB to automatically apply an overclock on start up. One profile is the stock profile (or even an undervolted/underclocked one if you want to be super kind to them) for general use like web browsing etc. Then I have the OC profile which I select and deselect before and after a game (if my cards need the boost). It's the same deal with the cpu really - no need to crank on the OC if you don't need it.

OC Thread - http://forum.overclo...post__p__450543

MSI AB manual is a useful read http://event.msi.com...er%20Manual.pdf

Thank you very much