Gtx 970 oc

[Pentium 4]

Hello guys, I recently picked up the Gigabyte GTX 970 SOC. The card runs stock at 1178mhz and boosts to 1329mhz, so out of the box it is pretty solid. However, seeing TTL and everybody else rave about how far these new Maxwell chips can OC, I decided to give it a go.

I need some advice though. I was playing BF4 and after maybe 30 mins of game play, with the CPU at 64-66 oC (4790K OCed to 4.7ghz at 1.26v) and the GPU running at a stable 61 oC my system 'froze' up and both my displays turned off. I could still hear noises coming from my computer such as beeps when I tried to Ctrl/Alt/Del. My question is whether the core voltage is too low for the OC and that is what caused the crash?

Here is what I've got the settings at in MSI Afterburner. Should I bump up the Core Voltage? Thanks for your helps.

 

[SieB]

Put the power limit up to 110%, drop the memory to +200 and put the core to +200 as well. That should give you 1500\1900. You might be able to run that without any extra voltage needed, just set the power limit to 110%.

That is what I have my card running at anyway, +200 on the mem and +200 on the core with no extra volts needed, just the power limit set to 110%. All cards are different though so you may need to add a bit extra voltage, just add +2 at a time till you get it stable.

 

[Pentium 4]

Thanks for the super speedy reply dude, much appreciated! What would you say the best way for me to test the stability would be? Should I just run a game for a while and see if it's okay? Thanks again man.

 

[SieB]

Thanks for the super speedy reply dude, much appreciated! What would you say the best way for me to test the stability would be? Should I just run a game for a while and see if it's okay? Thanks again man.

Use Unigine Heaven, set it to the extreme preset and run in benchmark mode. If you can do a run with no issues then try running BF4.

Also use MSI afterbuner to check your GPU clocks while Heaven is running, GPU Z doesn't give you your proper boost clock.

 

[Pentium 4]

Thanks a bunch dude you've been a massive help. Just one last question, whilst running Unigine it freezes for a moment and I get a message saying the Nvidia drivers crashed and have been recovered. Does this mean the OC isn't stable or is that just an indication that the current drivers need to be worked on? Thanks.

 

[SieB]

Thanks a bunch dude you've been a massive help. Just one last question, whilst running Unigine it freezes for a moment and I get a message saying the Nvidia drivers crashed and have been recovered. Does this mean the OC isn't stable or is that just an indication that the current drivers need to be worked on? Thanks.

If the drivers crash it means the core clock is unstable. You can either bump the voltage up or lower the core clock to get it stable.

Best thing to do is start with a low core clock and bump it up a bit at a time to find out what the maximum core clock is you can run at without touching the volts. Leave the power limit set to 110% though.

When you find the max stable core clock without voltage, do the same with the memory. Then when you know the max clock for the core and mem without voltage, you can start playing around with increasing the voltage and core clock to see what the maximum you can get with voltage is.

You might also need to restart if you get a driver crash before trying again, for some reason I have to restart because Heaven just keeps crashing on me if I get a driver crash. That never happened with my AMD cards, I could just run again straight after.

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

that's not bad and do as above suggested, but imo you can easily push 2ghz ram on 970, i did find that 1.5ghz on core is a limit even with full voltage and few messing around in bios with voltages, it wouldn't stay stable at 1.5. Good luck OC your card

here's what i run mine at for gaming, msi 970 oc.

 

[Pentium 4]

Thanks so much for your help guys, you've been great. Time to start finding the sweet spot using SieB's advice

 

[Pentium 4]

Hello again guys, encountered some new problems. Basically, at stock voltage I can push a 1353mhz base clock and a 1504mhz boost clock, however I literally cannot bump the memory clock up without Unigine becoming unstable. Have I got a poor card or am I doing something wrong? I've set the power limit at 110% and the fan speed is on Auto.

 

[SieB]

I literally cannot bump the memory clock up without Unigine becoming unstable.

Is this with stock volts? If yes then the only thing to do is to drop the core clock a bit and try to increase the memory. Both mem and core will use more power effecting the ability of pushing each clock higher.
Strange that you can't raise it at all though, you should be able to raise it a little without any instability. Every card is different though, some need more volts than others and some don't clock well at all.

Core clock is more important than the memory though, so as long as you can get a good core clock you will still get a decent performance boost.

 

[Pentium 4]

Once again thanks for the great info man. I found that my core clock was actually boosting to 1540 so I dropped down the slider and the memory increased perfectly. Now sat happily at 1518 boost and 1950 on the memory. You guys are da real MVPs.

 

[SieB]

Once again thanks for the great info man. I found that my core clock was actually boosting to 1540 so I dropped down the slider and the memory increased perfectly. Now sat happily at 1518 boost and 1950 on the memory. You guys are da real MVPs.

No probs, enjoy your overclock