Help with overclocking (Aorus Xtreme 1080ti)

MattahB · December 1, 2019

Hi all, so I have an Aorus Xtreme 1080TI and have been experimenting with overclocking the last couple of nights. Hoping for some clarification on a few things as in past builds I've just let things sit at out of the box settings

First the card is advertised as factory overclocked. So is that in hardware? As in if I open up MSI Afterburner and set the clock and memory settings to +0 will the card already be overclocked? Or is that relying on pre-set settings in Aorus Engine software?

Second in Aorus Engine I can get a solid Firestrike score at +45 clock and +105 memory. I cant remember the exact score but its ~29000 graphics score with the clock settling around 1810 or so. If I go up from there my Firestrike score plummets to like 11000 and I see noticeable choppiness in the test, and that is with fans blasting at 100% and temps never crossing 55. I uninstalled Aorus Engine and installed Afterburner instead. With the clock setting and memory setting at +0 I end up seeing a clock at 1999 (though it reports 2000 in the monitoring graphs) in games and in firestrike with a graphics score ~29300.. a pretty big improvement with what should be lesser settings. If I go up much from there I see the same score decreases in Firestrike.

I should also say I maxed temp and power limit in both programs.

Third.. is Firestrike a good test for overclocking? I get that it stresses the hardware, so could I see better gains in games even with diminished scores in Firestrike?

Looking for some help as the differing numbers between both programs make it hard to know what to believe. I know Afterburner is the higher regarded program, but looking for some input.

specs:

8700k

32G corsair Vengeance 3200 @ xmp

2x 1TB sata SSDs + 2TB WD Black

Corsair RM750x PS

Thanks