Oc Explanation and theory

ConnorDahne · July 29, 2015

Sorry for the title, I din;t know how to word this correctly in title.
So I know overclocking guides are put here ad nauseam, what I'm asking is for a link or explanation explaining what the core clock is, what memory is, why it works, and how it works.
I understand go to afterburner, and bump up until you can't and can get a decent result (maybe)
But I just feel I'd be able to do it better, or feel better when doing if i knew why I get more fps etc when I do it.
When googling I just get guides on how to do it.
If anyone has any ideas of what website would be a good place to look it'd be much appreciated.
----EDIT-----

after day of searching i found a post as soon as i asked.
Thanks though

EMENCII · July 29, 2015

@ConnorDahne

CPU or GPU? I see that you mentioned afterburner, so I can guess the answer is gpu...

So, the GPU's chip has many cores (for nvidia are called cuda), and they operate at a frequency. There are two ways to increase the performance of the gpu, increase the core count, or the speed of the operations that they do. To do more operations you need more current, and so when you reach the cap of the current available, you add more, by overvolting. Modern chips have a thermal treshold, which means that the BIOS itself won't let it get hotter than 100°C, to prevent its burning. That is what the temp limit does, it allows the GPU to run hotter and colder, as you wish. The power slide lets the card have a certain limit of power delivered (i am not sure but it should refer to the TDP on nvidia's site), so if your card has a total delivered power of 250W, 100% means that your card, when needed, will have delivered 250W. Boost frequencies are different from GPU to GPU because every chip is different, and needs a certain amount of volts per Mhz, which is why at the same frequency, two GPUs will require different voltages and from here different amount of power, running hotter/cooler than the other. The memory of the GPU acts as a cache, which you can find explained here asap:

So, it's really fast, it's basically a high speed low capacity ram, and why should you OC it? The answer is the same with CPU. You will see some improvements (

) but not many. It is because it doesn't directly affect the cores' performance, but if the cores are much faster and keep waiting for an answer from the memory, the system won't be as fast.

If you have any other questions, I'll be glad to clarify or try to explain further ^^

ConnorDahne · July 29, 2015

@EMENCII Thank you, that really really helps.
I just felt I'd be able to do it better if i understood why it was happening.
I was talking about gpu, as of right now I don't feel comfortable with cpu because I can't replace it if I break it.
What program would you recomend?
Msi, GPU Tweak, EVGA's program, or another option I don't know of lol
I guess my biggest fear is that I'll break it, if I keep from messing with the voltage for now it should be relatively "safe" right??
I know each card is different and there's always that chance, but generally would you think so?

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out, I really appreciate it