Need some help overclocking my 290x

[Popemaster69]

So as I've been looking into overclocking my 290x, I couldnt help but notice how much higher core clock speeds and memory speeds people were getting, while
the highest I can get is 1100mhz core and 1330mhz on my memory using Sapphire TRIXX.  If I try to go over either the core or memory speeds after that point,

I get crashes and/or artifacting when I run games or Firestrike. This is however without touching the VDDC offset slider, which I'm not quite sure how to use.

I'm wondering if thats the best im going to get out of my card, or should I use a different overclocking utility like MSI Afterburner?  Or maybe there's something

else I could do, any help or suggestions on this would be awesome.

[Zayzo]

So as I've been looking into overclocking my 290x, I couldnt help but notice how much higher core clock speeds and memory speeds people were getting, while

the highest I can get is 1100mhz core and 1330mhz on my memory using Sapphire TRIXX.  If I try to go over either the core or memory speeds after that point,

I get crashes and/or artifacting when I run games or Firestrike. This is however without touching the VDDC offset slider, which I'm not quite sure how to use.

I'm wondering if thats the best im going to get out of my card, or should I use a different overclocking utility like MSI Afterburner?  Or maybe there's something

else I could do, any help or suggestions on this would be awesome.

Personally, regardless of amd or nvidia i've always used afterburner. I don't think you're going to go any higher without some more voltage and better cooling.

[Sam Z Man]

It's a 290X you won't get that much more out of it.

[Popemaster69]

Personally, regardless of amd or nvidia i've always used afterburner. I don't think you're going to go any higher without some more voltage and better cooling.

I feel like I have ample cooling, since its the Tri-X edition, so it doesn't get super hot under load, and how exactly should I go about increasing the voltage as far as increment size?

[OAcesync]

R9 290Xs are known for not having much overclock headroom even with a Tri X cooler

[swimsphinx]

like stated above 290x's typically don't have much overclocking headroom. And after that its all the silicon lottery of whether you'll get a good overclocking chip or not

[Monarch]

You'd need to increase voltage. Like I can reach 1100/1550 with +75 mV voltage. I can do it with less voltage, but with lower memory clock. Increase voltage in increments of 5-10 mV, and I'd say 10 MHz on the clock, and see how far it can go with no overheating, crashing, or artifacting. Then try to OC the memory.

[Briggsy]

The biggest problem with overclocking Hawaii is that you pretty much need them under water to really reach a high core clock. I had two 290's (still have one, gave the other to my brother) and neither would overclock worth squat on air. after modding them with Kraken G10 and Corsair AIO coolers, I was able to reach 1225/1550 on one, and 1225/1600 on the other without an issue. 

 

You are using trixx, which is the best for Hawaii overclocking so thats good. The only overclocking advice I can share is that with Hawaii the memory voltage is tied to the core voltage. some people mistakenly think auxiliary voltage is for memory, but aux voltage is there if you need to offset Voltage droop under extreme overclocks. you may find that your highest memory clock is 1300-1400mhz, but if you bump core voltage up by say +50mv, you suddenly might get another 50-100Mhz highest memory clocks. Overclocking Hawaii is very counter-intuitive, but you basically need to increase core voltage to get better memory clocks. with air cooling you might not get too far with the gpu frequency, but even still memory overclocks really help performance with Hawaii.

[Zulkkis]

My card has garbage ASIC (~60%) and it responded to voltages pretty well. From what I've heard is that if you can keep the temps in check, overvolting is relatively harmless since the limitations are pretty tight anyhow, so unless you custom bios you can't really start degrading your GPU like you can with a CPU.

 

I managed +200 mV / 1225 / 1600, but while it managed 3D firestrike perfectly, it crashed in about an hour of gameplay that wasn't even that intense. Took it back to stock for now (1030/1400).

 

From what I've heard is that after ~1080-1100 or so the performance gains don't really show up that highly and overclocking beyond that doesn't yield that high gains in the actual performance.