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Received my EVGA GTX 1070 FTW today. Should I overclock it right away?

Zyre

I sold my 390 Nitro for a GTX 1070. The performance is amazing and I'm very happy.

 

The FTW allows for higher Overclocking. Should I overclock the card right away, or keep it default and do it in the future? 

I plan on keeping it for 2 years minimum. I'm also on 1440p.

 

What kind of change can I put into the memory and core? I don't plan on changing voltages really.

 

Oh, and my 1070 has Micron memory. Saw some people talking about it and thought mentioning would be smart.

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you should test it at stock speeds for a while before you overclock. that means stress testing it or playing games 

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If you need more performance, overclock it. Since you're on 1440p you will get extra FPS out of it. Look at the pin topics at the top of graphics cards forum labeled Unigine Valley and Fire Strike 3D Mark. Download those 2 benchmarks and test for stability.

 

Congrats on the 1070 btw.

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I like the idea of running it for some time to make sure that there's no glaring problem that would make it need replacement, what with overclocks having the chance of voiding your warranty. Then if it's been fine, go ahead and OC.

 

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Sure: Why not, unless you want to keep power consumption as low as possible?

 

To get a meaningful overclock, you'll have to increase the voltage limit. That's the basis for being able to crank clock-speeds.

 

The EVGA FTW comes with two BIOSes, correct? And, if I recall correctly, the default BIOS is the same one that comes with the SC and ACX 3.0, and has a voltage-lock in it that prevents the voltage from exceeding safe levels. If that's the case, then you can just crank the voltage setting as high as it will go in an overclocking application, and it will always stay beneath unsafe levels.

 

Be aware, that none of the EVGA chips are binned, and so, generally, you have as much of a chance of getting a good overclocking card from an SC, or a regular ACX 3.0. However, you can also use the alternative BIOS, and so, you will be able to increase the voltage further than SC and ACX 3.0, potentially enabling you to reach higher overclocks.

 

Some people can get up to, and even slightly beyond 2150 Mhz on the core, and 5000 Mhz on the memory. My maximum stable OC, on an EVGA 1070 SC is 2113 Mhz core, 4558 Mhz memory - and that gives me a nice, anywhere from ~1 - 14% performance boost in games.

 

I recommend sticking with the voltage-locked BIOS to begin with, and cranking the voltage, power, and temperature targets to their maximum, and then finding what your maximum OC for both core and clock is. If you want to push it beyond those number with the alternative BIOS, you can, but you'll have to be careful with the voltage.

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Many moons ago i had a GeForce 6800 that refused to overclock when i got it but after a few weeks, in the same system, it gave better fps and was then happy to accept an OC. I was also able to unlock the disabled pixel pipelines with rivatuner although 1 vertex shader unit was damaged to i had to leave that off. Either way, i ended up with more performance than a stock 6800GT :) 

 

No idea why the card went better after some use. I don't know if/how electronics 'run in' like a mechanical system would but i have seen this trend a few times when i update parts of my system

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12 minutes ago, Carosel43 said:

Many moons ago i had a GeForce 6800 that refused to overclock when i got it but after a few weeks, in the same system, it gave better fps and was then happy to accept an OC. I was also able to unlock the disabled pixel pipelines with rivatuner although 1 vertex shader unit was damaged to i had to leave that off. Either way, i ended up with more performance than a stock 6800GT :) 

 

No idea why the card went better after some use. I don't know if/how electronics 'run in' like a mechanical system would but i have seen this trend a few times when i update parts of my system

I thought it was 6200 to 6600, unless you had the turbo cache model.

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You may leave it for a week or so as everyone else tends to agree, but imo, just overclock it and be done with it. I got my GTX 1080 and the first thing I did is overclock it. A couple of months later, still running like a champ. I have done this to all of my graphics cards, GTX MARS 760, GTX 770 Lightning, etc... I have never had a problem with that. The best part is that there is free 14 day return (at least if you live in North America or the EU) so even if it burns out, you'll get a free replacement asap.  

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Overclocking will not void the warranty of evga cards, but bios mods will. Here's a link: http://www.evga.com/support/faq/afmviewfaq.aspx?faqid=55

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9 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

I thought it was 6200 to 6600, unless you had the turbo cache model.

If i remember rightly the 6800 had one quad of pixel pipelines (as they were called then) and one vertex shader unit disabled vs the 6800gt. I was able to recover the quad of pipes but the vertex shader was damaged, and caused glitching on the screen. This is likely why the chip was binned as a 6800 in the first place. 

 

As for running the cards before overclocking, i personally leave them a little while to settle down after being installed. I left my current msi gtx 970 4g for about 3 weeks before cranking it up. I got a bit carried away and have had to come down slowly but 1475 on the core and 4001 on the RAM is not a bad effort i don't think 

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33 minutes ago, Carosel43 said:

If i remember rightly the 6800 had one quad of pixel pipelines (as they were called then) and one vertex shader unit disabled vs the 6800gt. I was able to recover the quad of pipes but the vertex shader was damaged, and caused glitching on the screen. This is likely why the chip was binned as a 6800 in the first place. 

 

As for running the cards before overclocking, i personally leave them a little while to settle down after being installed. I left my current msi gtx 970 4g for about 3 weeks before cranking it up. I got a bit carried away and have had to come down slowly but 1475 on the core and 4001 on the RAM is not a bad effort i don't think 

Your lucky with your GTX 970. Mine can hit 1.5GHz. However due to its absurdly low ASIC (62.1%) it puts out a lot of heat in doing so, and needs a voltage mod to be fully stable.

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I personally would keep the GPU at stock for around a week or so to make sure nothing is wrong with it, Stress test it and everything else. Then overclock to your heart's content.

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3 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Your lucky with your GTX 970. Mine can hit 1.5GHz. However due to its absurdly low ASIC (62.1%) it puts out a lot of heat in doing so, and needs a voltage mod to be fully stable.

I have given mine +35mv (1.25v total i think) and under full load in heaven for example i hit about 72'c but that is with the fan at maximum. My ASIC score was 71.9 i think? cant recall. Anyway my 970 wont hold 1475 all day, once it hits about 70'c the voltage drops to 1.225 and the core slows to 1467 but it will then hold that all day. In games it will normally survive at max boost without any trouble. 

 

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No, absoloutely not.

 

I'd benchmark it a minimum of 3x (1 is fine for the non OCD) 2 minutes after rebooting each time for a baseline.  Then I'd play my games of choice.  Overclocking, imho is more for the end of your cards life.  

 

I know there is a culture about pumping out synthetic or genuine benchmarks but if you have to ask OP's question the answer is no.

 

If you were planning to use PrecisionX (EVGA software) and not screw around with anything else I'd suggest only if you feel you need it for your games.

 

If you do OC I'd read the warranty very carefully as to not void it and lose eligibility for their step up program.  If you feel you need to OC maybe grab the 1080?  Give it some time.

 

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