Safe overclock for reference 980?

[Firearm2112]

I would like to overclock my reference 980 a bit. What are some safe numbers I can start with?

[DeViLzzz]

[Imakuni]

Are you ready to lose your weekend?

 

Step 1: Gathering what you'll need

1. Get MSI Afterburner. Unless your card is Zotac's; in that case, get a new card.
2. Get a 3D benchmark software: 3D mark (can be downloaded via Steam if you want... for some reason) or Unigine Valley Benchmark.
3. Get the one you didn't pick from above.
4. Get Prime95.
5. Configure Windows so that it never enters sleep mode, and never turns the video off.
6. *REMOVE ALL OTHER OCS IN THE SYSTEM*. Most of the time, these are RAM and CPU OCs; put them at stock speeds.
7. -OPTIONAL- Get more benchmarks. Furmark, AlienVSPredator, Catzilla, 3D mark 11, these are some suggestions.
8. -OPTIONAL- Download Folding@Home.

Step 2: Starting it

1. Using MSI Afterburner, boost your maximum TDP allowed to the max % allowed. It will allow your card to get as much power as it can; it won't affect your card in anyway, though.
2. Don't change voltages if you are not experienced / don't want to void warranty.
3. Boost your core clock by +100 on the very first OC, and hit 'apply'.
4. If nothing weird happens, stress test it: First, close all the programs you can (including Antivirus). Then, launch the benchmark chosen at 1.2, and let the computer run undisturbed for about 4h.
5. If no crashes or artifacts occur, you can repeat step 2.3 and 2.4, but with a mild +30mhz at a time.
6. Eventually, it will crash/artifact. At this point, you can try to tune it further with +5 bumps in speed, or just use the last non problem OC.

Step 3: Making sure it is ok

1. Now you have your "safe" maximum OC, according to the benchmark chosen in 1.2. So run the 4h test on program chosen at 1.3.
2. If it fails, tone the OC by -5mhz and try again, until it passes both tests.
3. After both 3D benchmarks ares stable, run Prime95 for 8~24h, depending on how much you can let your PC go, and how safe you want to be. If it crashes, tone the OC down until it goes fine.

And now, you have found the maximum "safe" OC of the GPU. At this point, you can try to re-apply the OCs to the CPU and memory. If you do, repeat all the stress tests, and hope that nothing crashes. If it does, you'll have to tweak things further: reduce GPU OC to get a better CPU OC, or vice-versa, until you are confortable with both OCs at once.

 

-OPTINAL, YET HIGHLY RECOMMENDED PART- Your final OC might not *actually* be stable, you just don't know it. After all, you only ran 3 programs, and not every single thing out there. So a way to test further, is to use other benchmarks, for example. But my best suggestion is to install Folding@Home, and let your PC on 24/7 during one week. You can use it as normal, just leave it folding: this will put stress in CPU and GPU at once, and for much longer periods of time then those you used during tune, and you'll also help the world in the process. Lastly, create a .txt file and put it into the Startup folder in windows, so that if the computer crashes and restarts while you are not looking, you'll know that it happened.

 

If no crashes occur after this HUGE wall of text, congratulations, you can start bragging about your rock solid OC.

[TheMcSame]

There's no specific thing to hit, each card is different and nothing guaranteed. 

[kameshss]

I would go increasing one by one! 

 

Oh not! Try some numbers, and run stress tests. If it's stable, try to overclock it more and do the stress like that.