Need help with OC settings for the 970 G1 Gaming

[Haraven]

Hi,

 

I've been trying to overclock my GPU for a few days now, but I can't seem to find a stable enough overclock configuration. From what I've been reading on the internet, the Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming should be able to overclock to +150 core, +500 memory, 100% fan speed, 110% power limit (see this link), without having to touch the core voltage. That doesn't seem to be the case, for me. Those settings cause screen flickering in Furmark, and eventually lead to my driver crashing. So far, the only setting I've gotten stable results with is +100 core, +0 memory, auto fans, at 110% power, core voltage untouched. Can I somehow squeeze a little more juice out of the card?

For the record, the PSU I'm using is a Super Flower Leadex Gold 650W; I know the brand sounds sketchy because of the name (apparently, it's a literal translation of the company's Chinese name), but they have pretty good reviews on their products, and I haven't had any trouble with the power supply yet.

Thanks in advance. 

[Comessy]

What drivers are you using?

If you are using 352, revert to 350. 352 is unstable

[f5alcon]

What is the rest of your hardware? I have not been able to overclock mine at all without issues on AMD, switching to Intel and have heard of other people that the mobo and cpu were limiting the GPU overclock. 650w could be the limiting factor as well depending on your power draw.

[I Hendrycks I]

I've got an 850W Seasonic Silver rated PSU and I have my G1 Gaming clocked to +150 to core clock and +100 on the memory. I also set the power limit to +12% and I'm having no issues.

[EpIcPoNaGe]

It could very well be the fault of the silicon lottery  You could try modded bios and add more voltage? 

[Haraven]

What drivers are you using?

If you are using 352, revert to 350. 352 is unstable

I do indeed have the 352 driver. Will look into it, thanks.

 

What is the rest of your hardware? I have not been able to overclock mine at all without issues on AMD, switching to Intel and have heard of other people that the mobo and cpu were limiting the GPU overclock. 650w could be the limiting factor as well depending on your power draw.

My CPU's the i7-4790k @4.0 GHz, and the mobo's MSI Z97S SLI Krait. I don't recall reading anywhere about people having GPU overclocking issues with those hardware parts, though.

 

It could very well be the fault of the silicon lottery  You could try modded bios and add more voltage? 

I'd rather not touch the voltage unless I really have to. Would be really unfortunate if it were indeed the silicon lottery.

To be fair, I'm pretty pleased with leaving the card at stock speeds if it comes to it, but since I want to do a couple of graphical improvements to recent AAA games  - *coughs* The Witcher 3 -, I'm going to try to squeeze at least some power out of it before calling it quits.

[EpIcPoNaGe]

 

I'd rather not touch the voltage unless I really have to. Would be really unfortunate if it were indeed the silicon lottery.

 

 

You can increase voltage to the nvidia limit of 1.212. That might let you overclock a bit more. You don't really have to worry about voltages too much since 1.212 is the nvidia set limit AND you have a really good cooler and card.

[Haraven]

Little update: Reverting to the 350 driver didn't really do me any good. Going to look into modding the voltage, if I can't find a better solution.

[Monarch]

Just set the voltage to +87 mV and see how much Mhz you can get out of it. It's perfectly safe. I'd also suggest using Gigabyte's OC Guru II to increase minimum voltage to get more stability on lower clocks as well, if needed of course. 

[Haraven]

Tried cranking up the core voltage to +87 mV, and... still nada. The GPU is stable for the first 6 or so minutes of the stability test, but at around 8 minutes into the test, the flickering becomes frequent and easy to notice. Tried +150, +130, and +100 (which I'd initially thought was stable) MHz clock speed, but no luck. Going to run a longer stability test at stock settings tomorrow, just to make sure the card is functioning properly.
Edit: Ran the stability test at stock settings; seems like even like this, the flickers still occur, granted, at a lower rate. This is a little strange, because I haven't noticed any sort of flickering/artifacting/etc. while ingame. Then again, video games don't really push the GPU to the limit the way Furmark does. Thoughts, anyone?

Edit 2: A more down-to-earth test showed that the GPU works just fine - at stock, at least -. Ran The Witcher 3 on high-ultra settings for around a half hour, with no problems whatsoever. No more Furmark testing for me, I guess.