How do I overclock my 580 GTX Lightning

[Hunk]

Hey guys,

My new rig is finally assembled and the 580 gtx lightning works like a charm. But since it's pretty much stated in every review that to truly benefit from this gpu you have to overclock it, I figured I might give it a try.

I've downloaded MSI Afterburner and it seems pretty easy to use. I just need to press the '+' button and then hit "apply".

But I just don't know what frequency I should push it to. Do I have to OC it gradually?

What do you guys recommend?

Thanks!

 

[KaraMurat]

Overclock it gradually and keep an eye on the temps, test it to see if it's stable etc. keep a note of the performance gains and the temps achived and keep it at what you feel comfortable with.

The amount of overclocking also depends on the card you have i.e. if you were lucky and good card meaning you can push it furthur or if you were unlucky and can't overclock it too much before the card acts up.

Google GTX 580 overclocking and you'll see other people who have overclocked their cards and what they have achieved, just don't take huge jumps when overclocking, do it gradually. (also isn't there an auto tune feature?)

a thread i found on 580 o/c

 

[PCTwin]

I'm currently testing my GTX580 Lightning.

At the moment I'm gaming with the GPU at 980 and the memory at 2400 with voltage at 145 and the stock cooler.

Running fine so far.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

its a lightning card. MAX OUT THE volts and clocks adjusting DOWN the clocks until its stable. Thats what i did

 

[Sapsh]

Personally, i would never max out the volts or anything else, i don't think it's safe for the card. It's better to go in bigger steps initially (to roughly determine thresholds) and then in smaller to make adjustments. And as Kara said, keep notes of values and performance, because the dependence is not linear.

 

[Hunk]

Thanks for the advice, guys

Looks like my lightning is very unstable. I tried 900 core and 1800 memory but it made the pc crash.

Unless I'm doing something wrong...

 

[Sapsh]

What are your temperatures like? You sure it's not overheating?

 

[Sapsh]

Have you upped the voltage?

 

[KaraMurat]

Thanks for the advice, guys

Looks like my lightning is very unstable. I tried 900 core and 1800 memory but it made the pc crash.

Unless I'm doing something wrong...

Looking at the thread i linked earlier, a 850 core seems to be the mark people are trying to reach, you're trying for a 900 core...

Drop the core down to 800 and memory down to 1500 then try work your way up, unless you tried this before. I would try get as much as you can without increasing the volts, but thats just me personally you could increase the volts to make it more stable if you want to.

The thing to remember with overclocking, the more you overclock or the more you increase the volts the card the quicker/stable it will run for the short-term, however you may cause an early death or even worse fry the card if you don't take care of it.

It's a GTX580 anyway, beast of a card, unless you are a pro-l33t-overclock crazy dude, i suggest not to try heavy overclocks, a light to moderate overclock would do, however this all of course is my opinion, just trying to give my 2 cents.

(oh and btw definitely don't max out the volts as King suggested)

Edit: instead of going down to 800 / 1500 like i suggested - go to the card's stock values (i have no clue what they are)

 

[Hunk]

Yeah I guess I'll just stick to the stock values!

I won't be stupid enough to fry it!

Thanks anyway

 

[KaraMurat]

Yeah I guess I'll just stick to the stock values!

I won't be stupid enough to fry it!

Thanks anyway

lol sorry mate didn't want to put you off overclocking

 

[JezEngland]

hi. you can OC that safely. The GF110 is the best chip available, it'll OC easy. I think a 850/900 core should be easy to get because the GF110 chip should be a good pick by MSI/Nvidia. The card you have is designed to go alot higher, quite higher than 1000mhz core. That'll be for Sub Zero cooling I think.

When yours crashed probably because of too little Voltage. You should get a good OC without much increase in Volts. With some research you could find a common standard OC, try that settings and if it runs perfectly you can test the voltage by lowering volts little, test, if it's OK lower, test, onand on so that you can get a cooler stable card. When it crashes you know the base voltage limit. Enabling extra features in 3D control Pannel etc like AA Transparancy etc can make the GPU need more volts, because there's more work to do, it needs more power is the theory I see.

You should configure the fan speed manualy to suite your temps to keep the chip cool enough. Your chip, the GF110 has a temperature threshold of 97 degrees Celcius.

My 480's in SLI run at 850 core perfectly since recent months newer drivers and Crysis game file updates and I got them higher in MSI Kompbuster. Before that they crashed at 850MHz and I think the 480 will go higher now when not in SLI, I haven't tested the limit for my cards.

I raised the Voltage by about 110mV to get the OC running bench's and didn't test the voltage with lowering it.

The 480 GF100 has a different transistor, it's more powerful. I guess they'll be similar still to the GF110.

Motherboards settings can need tweeking to support the GPU's, common for extreme overclockers. I rarely do anything to mine.

Your card is made to be OC'd, I'm thinking it's the Twin Frozer 3? Is that right? that card is mastered

gl

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

Looking at the thread i linked earlier, a 850 core seems to be the mark people are trying to reach, you're trying for a 900 core...

Drop the core down to 800 and memory down to 1500 then try work your way up, unless you tried this before. I would try get as much as you can without increasing the volts, but thats just me personally you could increase the volts to make it more stable if you want to.

The thing to remember with overclocking, the more you overclock or the more you increase the volts the card the quicker/stable it will run for the short-term, however you may cause an early death or even worse fry the card if you don't take care of it.

It's a GTX580 anyway, beast of a card, unless you are a pro-l33t-overclock crazy dude, i suggest not to try heavy overclocks, a light to moderate overclock would do, however this all of course is my opinion, just trying to give my 2 cents.

(oh and btw definitely don't max out the volts as King suggested)

Edit: instead of going down to 800 / 1500 like i suggested - go to the card's stock values (i have no clue what they are)

Whats wrong with maxing out the volts? Its a lightning card, if it cant handle it IT'S BROKEN!

To OP if you cant hit 950 stable i would return the card.

 

[Hunk]

All right, guys, I gave it another try.

I'd left the fan set on "auto"...



I pushed the core to 900mhz which isn't much and the fan up to 50% and it worked fine.

I gained about 5-8 fps on crysis 2. So there's a slight increase in performance.

However, how do I know how to choose the core voltage?

Thank you so much, guys!

 

[KaraMurat]

Whats wrong with maxing out the volts? Its a lightning card, if it cant handle it IT'S BROKEN!

To OP if you cant hit 950 stable i would return the card.

I seriously doubt the fact that it's a lightning card means it can handle max volts, i'll admit i don't have experience with said card however, i believe and have seen on the internet a higher failure rate for people who over volt their cards or do it too much.

If the card benefited from max volts without any possible problems arousing, don't you think the manufacturer would set the card up so?

All right, guys, I gave it another try.

I'd left the fan set on "auto"...

[gif snipped]

I pushed the core to 900mhz which isn't much and the fan up to 50% and it worked fine.

I gained about 5-8 fps on crysis 2. So there's a slight increase in performance.

However, how do I know how to choose the core voltage?

Thank you so much, guys!

haha, sounds good, what did you set the memory and the shaders at?

as for the core volts there should be a sliding bar similar to how you overclocked the card.

as you can see there is a core voltage option, can you see that?

 

[jonowee]

Oh you so funny

... but yay... don't max out the voltage for nothing, all you do is cause the chip to create unnecessary heat before you even start bumping up the clock speeds.

I use the overclocked cards on the market as a guide, so for me use the clocks of a Gigabyte SOC, ASUS Top Edition, MSI Hawk for the different levels. But since you're using a 580 Lightning, the only 'standard' card up is the SOC. Then checking out the review of the card to see what others have managed to squeeze out 24/7 stability overclocks.

Edit: And please don't use Kombuster/FurMark to test stability, all the do is fry your GPU without giving you a sense of practical stability (read: to squeeze out higher clocks). Folding is nice stability testing platform without the hefty downloads associated with usual benching programs.

 

[Hunk]

Actually I'm wondering what voltage I should use when overclocking.

What settings do you recommend?

 

[S_I_N]

Actually I'm wondering what voltage I should use when overclocking.

What settings do you recommend?

voltages are uppped slightly different on gpou's basically you up the mhz and test if it fails you bump the voltages slightly say as in my case its 1000 which is 1.000 volts I go to say 1025 and test for stability again basically you rinse and repaet that to you get to where its not stable anymore or your happy wit it. I myself go until I start seeing diminishing returns on 3dmark scores.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

I seriously doubt the fact that it's a lightning card means it can handle max volts, i'll admit i don't have experience with said card however, i believe and have seen on the internet a higher failure rate for people who over volt their cards or do it too much.

THATS EXACTLY WHAT IT MEANS! were do you think the label "Lightning" came from that was added to the card? The whole design of the lightning card was to be able to do that. the entire card was redone to be able to handle that. they are FAR from reference design.

 

[Sapsh]

The label is just a label to make it sound good and attract buyers (by no means I'm saying its a bad card). If they changed reference design, that is for stability, better cooling, etc. It also means potentially higher stable clocks.

Now, don't forget that the voltage is applied to the gpu, which is the same as in a reference card and higher potential difference (pd) shortens its lifetime.

If you are using N2, I would see why one could max out the volts and see what happens (I still don't think anyone could actually do that).

Higher volts mean more heat, and it might be possible to achieve a better performing stable system with less pd across the gpu. I can bet that at everything maxed out you get less performance out of your card (diminishing returns is always there, as mentioned before).

If maxing out volts would be the way to go, why would people who oc all the time bother doing it in steps?

Btw, where did you read/hear that if it does not work at max volts its broken? It's a pile of bs to me.

If you want to see what happens when there is too much pd going through, take a 12v fan and apply 24v to it. BE CAREFUL THOUGH! You'll see it smoking. A fan is a very simple things electronically, but gpu isn't, so much smaller voltage increase would produce effects as drastic as that.

So, do you really wanna burn the card to death?

Hope this is not too confusing, its Sunday morning after all... xD