Overclocking the EVGA SSC GTX 970.

[wyattzx]

Hey guys!

 

So, I'm running an FX-6300. It's bottlenecking my card. I figured, "Why not overclock my card then?" Because logic. Or rather, lack thereof. Regardless, I'd like to start to overclock my card. I did so with my Radeon 6870, using AMD's Overdrive. Now I've moved onto EVGA's Precision X, and I have no idea what I'm doing. Power target? GPU Temp Target? I don't understand! So I was hoping you folks could help out a bit! Here's what my Precision X looks like. 

 

 

I don't even know where to start.. I know you're supposed to bump up your clocks, and then run benchmarks / play games to check for artifacting / stability issues, but I don't even know what to touch, what not to touch, and what does what here. A thorough explanation would be mighty helpful!

 

Edit: Ignore the -13 on the GPU Clock Offset. I mis-clicked when I took the screenshot, and didn't save it like that. It's never been changed.

[arronleeds]

You do realise that you're supposed to overclock your cpu and not your gpu? Overclocking your gpu will make the cpu bottleneck it even more.

[wyattzx]

You do realise that you're supposed to overclock your cpu and not your gpu? Overclocking your gpu will make the cpu bottleneck it even more.

I'm working on that now.. I've gotten my CPU stable up to 4.4ghz. 

[wyattzx]

So.. Am I getting no help with this?

[arronleeds]

Download msi afterburner and bump up the core clock and memory clock and write down what the max you get to before it starts artifacting and use that. Download the free demo of 3dmark from steam and run firestrike, if it artifacts it will give pink flashes of pixels and lines on the screen or the drivers will crash.

[wyattzx]

Download msi afterburner and bump up the core clock and memory clock and write down what the max you get to before it starts artifacting and use that. Download the free demo of 3dmark from steam and run firestrike, if it artifacts it will give pink flashes of pixels and lines on the screen or the drivers will crash.

Should I bump up the core and mem clocks at the same rate? (Say.. +15 at a time.)? 

[arronleeds]

Na it doesn't really matter, could do +100 on core and +200 on memory. But if you want to do it at the same rate that's fine.

Don't do it in low increments like that though, do it in the 40s or 50s, I can get around +200 on my core but my 970 is clocked lower, off to bed mate as its 2am, il reply tomorrow if you reply to this.

[incarnate]

up the core clocks first and set power target to max (should be 115%) also keep an eye on temps. you'll want to increase your fan profile if you get up to 80C so you don't throttle. I got mine up to +112 mhz core clock before giving up on making hairworks run smoothly. once you find your maximum core overclock push your memory up higher until it isn't stable. memory overclocks gives less performance than core in most games.