Need help overclocking my 970

[d6s]

Finally got my hands on the Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming a few weeks before Christmas and now that I've had time to play around with it, I'd like to overclock it, but I have no idea where to start and what to change. 

[Malandrix]

What software are you using?

[d6s]

What software are you using?

that's kinda what I came here for....I have heard that OC Guru from gigabyte sucks and I have heard that Afterburner is one of the best, but I'm not sure

[Senzelian]

You'll need a tool to overclock it. I recommend MSI Afterburner. http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm
You'll also need a benchmark to test your overclock. MSI has the MSI Kombuster, which still works fine for that. You could also take the Unigine Valley benchmark: https://unigine.com/products/valley/
Another very helpful tool can be GPU-Z, so you can see the difference in your clock speed and temperatures.
 

But instead of listening to me, I recommend to watch a video. Paul had a nice video about overclocking his EVGA GTX 980. It's the same with the GTX 970:

[Doughnutnator]

Tools you need:

- MSI Afterburner

- Benchmarks (3D Mark, Unigine Valley & Heaven)

- Time, lots of time.

Install everything, open MSI Afterburner and max out Power Limit, fire up Unigine Heaven in Windowed mode (Extreme preset).

Now, let's OC:

- Only one thing at a time. Start by Core Clock

- Overclock with small 10+Mhz increments with Heaven in the background, wait some time after you apply the OC to see if the benchmark crash or has artifacts. If not, keep pushing.

- If it crashes or you see artifacts roll back 5Mhz and run a full loop of Heaven, if it crashes again back another 5Mhz and do a full loop again, if it's stable then you just got your max OC.

Now you have the max Core clock clockspeed, write down that number (Gpu Clock offset) or learn it, now put the card back to stock (0 Core Clock offset, 0 mem clock offset but maxed Power Limit), and do the same with the memory.

A little advice: The memory can be OCed a lot higher (mine has a 500+ offset) so if you want to save some time increase the offset by 50+, if you find an issue, roll back 50+ and do 10Mhz increments to find the stable speed.

After you finished with memory, apply both clockspeeds (core and memory) and do a full loop of Heaven, Valley, 3d Mark Firestrike and Skydiver (skydiver is great for artifacts). If you find issues in your first benchmark, roll back 5-10Mhz in both core and memory and test again. If you still have issues roll back another 5-10 Mhz and keep testing. After finding it just test it with the other benchmarks, you know what to do if you have issues.

When you're done, save your settings to a profile and you're done. Now test some games and enjoy extra performance.

[d6s]

Tools you need:

- MSI Afterburner

- Benchmarks (3D Mark, Unigine Valley & Heaven)

- Time, lots of time.

Install everything, open MSI Afterburner and max out Power Limit, fire up Unigine Heaven in Windowed mode (Extreme preset).

Now, let's OC:

- Only one thing at a time. Start by Core Clock

- Overclock with small 10+Mhz increments with Heaven in the background, wait some time after you apply the OC to see if the benchmark crash or has artifacts. If not, keep pushing.

- If it crashes or you see artifacts roll back 5Mhz and run a full loop of Heaven, if it crashes again back another 5Mhz and do a full loop again, if it's stable then you just got your max OC.

Now you have the max Core clock clockspeed, write down that number (Gpu Clock offset) or learn it, now put the card back to stock (0 Core Clock offset, 0 mem clock offset but maxed Power Limit), and do the same with the memory.

A little advice: The memory can be OCed a lot higher (mine has a 500+ offset) so if you want to save some time increase the offset by 50+, if you find an issue, roll back 50+ and do 10Mhz increments to find the stable speed.

After you finished with memory, apply both clockspeeds (core and memory) and do a full loop of Heaven, Valley, 3d Mark Firestrike and Skydiver (skydiver is great for artifacts). If you find issues in your first benchmark, roll back 5-10Mhz in both core and memory and test again. If you still have issues roll back another 5-10 Mhz and keep testing. After finding it just test it with the other benchmarks, you know what to do if you have issues.

When you're done, save your settings to a profile and you're done. Now test some games and enjoy extra performance.

thanks a lot I just need to benchmark it in Heaven, Valley, and 3d mark but right now I got a 140 Core Clock and a 650 memory clock

[d6s]

 

 

[Doughnutnator]

thanks a lot I just need to benchmark it in Heaven, Valley, and 3d mark but right now I got a 140 Core Clock and a 650 memory clock

 

 

 

 

`That's nice! What are your actual clockspeeds?

[d6s]

`That's nice! What are your actual clockspeeds?

got it to 140 Core and 500 memory, I just dropped memory because that seemed to be causing the crashing and artifacts and its good now....for some reason, 3D Mark won't download

[Doughnutnator]

got it to 140 Core and 500 memory, I just dropped memory because that seemed to be causing the crashing and artifacts and its good now....for some reason, 3D Mark won't download

Not the settings, the clockspeeds that you can see in MSI Afterburner monitor

[Harry Livesley]

 

 

its nice to see that your version of valley works.

[d6s]

Not the settings, the clockspeeds that you can see in MSI Afterburner monitor

oh... Core - 1519

memory - 4001

 

but when I am in heaven it says 

Core - 1659

memory - 4008