noob overclocking graphics card

[knight_40k]

Having just OC'd my CPU, I now want extra power from my GPU, so how do I OC it? I have a Radeon 7950 Windforce and AX850 PSU, rest of system specs in sig. What programs do I need? How long do I test stability? What's the max temperature/voltage?

 

Any other information you think I should know or any tips would be very helpful. I've never done it before.

[nick99n]

i dont want to be an ass but just google it 

get afterburner and a furmark 

up a bit the volt and the mhz run the test for 30 mins 

if the temp is under a number you like (i would never go over 90c) and the image i clear the i would push more i the image has problems then back a step 

but you will find more guides by just googling 

http://www.wikihow.com/Overclock-a-Graphics-Card this seems nice 

[EpIcPoNaGe]

For me, I'd get afterburner and heaven for the software though it may be a little different since I'm team green... 

I'd not increase the voltage at first and see what you can get at stock volts. I'd up the clock speed by 15 mhz (some people rec more or less) and test for one rotation on the heaven benchmark. I watch for artifacting and if there isn't any, I record the final result and bump up the clock another 15 mhz. I keep doing this until a more noticeable decrease in performance gains or even a decrease in performance or artifacting. From there on you can bump up voltages to see if it'll give you a more stable clock speed. For voltages, you'll need to do some of your own research to see what others use on your card. Once a overclock has been reached, I'd run heaven for 30min-1hr to ensure it is stable. 

Hope this helps!  

[KamiKatze]

What i do is:

-Go into MSI afterburner

-see of there is a voltage slider or just a 'power target slider'

-if latter one is the case, turn it all the way to the right, make sure your gpu is cooled well

- crank the clock speed up in sets of 30 MHz and do a quick test everytime by firing up 1-2,minutes of furmark (i would recommend the one built in OCCT).

-if your test/pc crashes, set back to a lower freauency and test again.

-once you found a stable core clock, adjust the memory clock by the same percentage and do a long stress test, ensuring it will not crash.

Temps shouldn't rise above 90. You can set a custom fan curve in MSI AB and check the 'apply overclock at startup', 'start with windows' and 'start in background' to make sure your overclock and fan curve is applied when you start up.

[KamiKatze]

You can optionally do some runs of valley benchmark at various clock speeds to see which one has the best performance. This is especially important when you do the memory overclocking. I had it happen that the benchmark result got worse when i increased my voltage and clock speeds.

That being said, every card overclocks differently, you will have to search your own target.