Why is my GTX970 a bad OverClocker?

[AlliedVera]

Hey guys!
So I got a Gigabyte G1 GTX970, and I wanted to see if I could match the RX 580s base clock(Purely Curious). - And I couldn't.

The best I could do is maybe 140mhz increase, doesn't seem that bad. I also tried the 207mhz increase with  +70mV. I wasn't able to figure if that made any difference though.

 

In general, I am wondering- wasn't G1 series built with OverClocking in mind? And In general, how far can these cards be pushed, on average.(If there is an average)
              Anyway... the curveball here is, that I'm running 2 PSUs. I have a Lenovo board, with an i5-6400, that's running on the proprietary 250W PSU, and the GPU is ran by a ThermalTake 550W.
I understand, that the Watts shouldn't be a problem, but could 2 PSUs cause instability, when overclocking? Like, since the GPU draws some power from the MOBO too, then maybe it mismatches the power delivery somehow.

And I get that I shouldn't really be running 2 PSU setup, if I can avoid it, but I'm not really sure what exactly could the harm be, except the possibility of a power-loss. And, yes, I have ordered a different MOBO, to run with a single PSU.

Appreciate anyone reading this, and thank you for your any answers you could provide.

Also I noticed on Gigabyte's site that my GPU can run in OC and Gaming mode, Is this related to the 2 GPU BIOSs?

 

Edit: So apparently the GPU is boosting to 1392Mhz, without me OCing at all. What I find weird, is that - that's more than Gigabytes page says.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by AlliedVera

[Cyracus]

25 minutes ago, AlliedVera said:

built with OverClocking in mind? And In general, how far can these cards be pushed

Overclocking varies between cards, it's the silicon lottery, some have very little overclocking headroom and some have a lot. Looking at reviews operational speed between 1400 and 1500mhz looks like typical OC range.
As for your 2 PSUs, it shouldn't be an issue.
Dual bios is software controlled, from what I read it's just a copy of the main bios for redundancy.
I believe OC and gaming refer to gpu boost 2.0 stuff

[Ebony Falcon]

Clock speed are u getting ? 

[Levent]

Power limit. No stock bios can hit 1400mhz and above and hold it there.

[AlliedVera]

54 minutes ago, Ebony Falcon said:

Clock speed are u getting ? 

stock 1392Mhz while stressing.

[AlliedVera]

21 minutes ago, Levent said:

Power limit. No stock bios can hit 1400mhz and above and hold it there.

Wouldn't MSI Afterburners Power Limit function help with that, or is it that GPU Bios would have it's limit, whatever I'd do? i had put it to 105%, and ran fallout 4 with 1492Mhz for 10min, but yea the driver crashed when I paused the game. xD

[Levent]

1 minute ago, AlliedVera said:

Wouldn't MSI Afterburners Power Limit function help with that, or is it that GPU Bios would have it's limit, whatever I'd do? i had put it to 105%, and ran fallout 4 with 1492Mhz for 10min, but yea the driver crashed when I paused the game. xD

It doesnt. Every single Nvidia card has a bios level power limit. Launch furmark and see if your card is able to hit 225W total board power. As you can see I am not hitting TDP limit but power limit as I am not able to provide more power to the card.

[AlliedVera]

4 minutes ago, Levent said:

It doesnt. Every single Nvidia card has a bios level power limit. Launch furmark and see if your card is able to hit 225W total board power. As you can see I am not hitting TDP limit but power limit as I am not able to provide more power to the card.

Yea, You're right. Whatever I did it didn't go over 224W.

[Ebony Falcon]

Have u maxed the power slider In afterburner seems like something is capping the card at 80 percent power draw c 

[freeagent]

My 970 ran like that, my 980 too. Both ran at 1400, about 100 faster than stock