GTX 970 OC too far?

[aeroencychris]

Hi,

I have a lovely rig with a 4690k (4.2ghz) paired with an MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970. I've been running the GPU at stock for a while and it's great, but tonight I decided to be adventurous and overclock it with Afterburner and Heaven Benchmark. I'm a bit scared, because unless I have a godlike card my specs seem too good to be true.

My core clock got to +200MHz, which is good. Wouldn't move much from there.

I kept my power limit and voltage the same for now. Unless anyone has a second opinion on that I'll keep it that way.

The memory clock, however, is at +700MHz, which seems insane. I'm honestly afraid to push it any more.

My Heaven benchmark scores are about a 2300, with an average framerate of 91 and temps never going above 75 degrees. It's on the high preset, 1080p windowed with 2x AA.

Am I doing something wrong here? Destroying my card? Not going far enough? I'm gonna let this benchmark run overnight and see what happens.

 

Thanks,

-Chris

[Gabe]

just stress test, if you hit that stuff stable after like 12 hours that would be insane!

[Guest]

Hi,

I have a lovely rig with a 4690k (4.2ghz) paired with an MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970. I've been running the GPU at stock for a while and it's great, but tonight I decided to be adventurous and overclock it with Afterburner and Heaven Benchmark. I'm a bit scared, because unless I have a godlike card my specs seem too good to be true.

My core clock got to +200MHz, which is good. Wouldn't move much from there.

I kept my power limit and voltage the same for now. Unless anyone has a second opinion on that I'll keep it that way.\

The memory clock, however, is at +700MHz, which seems insane. I'm honestly afraid to push it any more.

My Heaven benchmark scores are about a 2300, with an average framerate of 91 and temps never going above 75 degrees. It's on the high preset, 1080p windowed with 2x AA.

Am I doing something wrong here? Destroying my card? Not going far enough? I'm gonna let this benchmark run overnight and see what happens.

 

Thanks,

-Chris

jesus you got a good card for OCing, memory is normal, I wouldn't push it any further though, its fine as is, I've got a +80 core clock and +550 for mem, I have a below average card TBH

[SPAS-ID]

200MHz on core ? nah my MSI GTX 970 Gaming 2GB can go over +210MHz until it keep crashing

[aeroencychris]

just stress test, if you hit that stuff stable after like 12 hours that would be insane!

Will do

[2FA]

I often find that Unigen benchmarks aren't stressful enough to see if the OC is stable. Often times I'll get artifacting in BF4 and Ark when I get none at all in Unigen.

[aeroencychris]

200MHz on core ? nah my MSI GTX 970 Gaming 2GB can go over +210MHz until it keep crashing

Should I bump up the power?

[aeroencychris]

I often find that Unigen benchmarks aren't stressful enough to see if the OC is stable. Often times I'll get artifacting in BF4 and Ark when I get none at all in Unigen.

What's a good benchmark then?

[aeroencychris]

jesus you got a good card for OCing, memory is normal, I wouldn't push it any further though, its fine as is, I've got a +80 core clock and +550 for mem, I have a below average card TBH

Awesome, thanks

[SxTripxH]

That's a huge overclock. Curious though....is it showing that representative overclock when running the benchmark?

 

Personally, I know a few times when I overclocked my card sometimes (for whatever reason) the o/c tweaks didn't save.

[Mew]

Is that +700 effective on the memory? Or just +175*4 cause of how GDDR5 works?

[SPAS-ID]

Should I bump up the power?

Yeah, and do some benchmark ( to prove that the OC is stable )

[Zayzo]

What's a good benchmark then?

 

Yeah, and do some benchmark ( to prove that the OC is stable )

What are the clocks when running benchmarks? Use Gpu-z or msi afterburner to see the real time clocks. I'd recommend using Valley and one or two AAA games to test stability.

 

My card gets 1600/2100 stable @1.26v

[aeroencychris]

What are the clocks when running benchmarks? Use Gpu-z or msi afterburner to see the real time clocks. I'd recommend using Valley and one or two AAA games to test stability.

 

My card gets 1600/2100 stable @1.26v

 

That's a huge overclock. Curious though....is it showing that representative overclock when running the benchmark?

 

Personally, I know a few times when I overclocked my card sometimes (for whatever reason) the o/c tweaks didn't save.

 

Running Heaven right now. Core clock is a solid 1528, memory clock at 4207, still just under 75 degrees. Measuring with Afterburner.

[aeroencychris]

Is that +700 effective on the memory? Or just +175*4 cause of how GDDR5 works?

Not quite sure. Memory clock is 4207 during benchmarks.

[Zayzo]

 

 

 

Running Heaven right now. Core clock is a solid 1528, memory clock at 4207, still just under 75 degrees. Measuring with Afterburner.

 

Yeah, that's pretty good. You could push the core harder with more voltage and power.

[aeroencychris]

Yeah, that's pretty good. You could push the core harder with more voltage and power.

How much on each? Are temps getting too high?

[Zayzo]

How much on each? Are temps getting too high?

Have you touched fan speed? Temps are fine until 85+ tbh. For voltage you shouldn't go higher than 1.3v on air. Max the power limit.

[aeroencychris]

Have you touched fan speed? Temps are fine until 85+ tbh. For voltage you shouldn't go higher than 1.3v on air. Max the power limit.

I've kept fan speed on auto. I'll try maxing the power limit. The voltage is greyed out for some reason, won't show anything on the slider or show the current voltage.

[SxTripxH]

 

 

 

Running Heaven right now. Core clock is a solid 1528, memory clock at 4207, still just under 75 degrees. Measuring with Afterburner.

 

 

Very nice, indeed  B)

[Zayzo]

I've kept fan speed on auto. I'll try maxing the power limit. The voltage is greyed out for some reason, won't show anything on the slider or show the current voltage.

 

Do this.

[aeroencychris]

Do this.

I did +50MHz, it's hit max 1.243v during benchmarking. I'm slowly bumping up core, I'm at 1592 max so far (it shifts a bit), or +225. Heaven claims it's 1680 which I don't get. Also, is it safe to change values during Heaven?

Edit: Crashed at +250.

[Zayzo]

I did +50MHz, it's hit max 1.243v during benchmarking. I'm slowly bumping up core, I'm at 1592 max so far (it shifts a bit), or +225. Heaven claims it's 1680 which I don't get. Also, is it safe to change values during Heaven?

Don't change values during heaven, not even if the just browser is open. Also, don't trust the readings you see from heaven; ie: clock/mem clock/temp(usually temp is correct).

Yeah, i'd try to make a custom fan curve. One you would feel comfortable with rather than auto. MSI cards are usually super quiet even with fans at high rpms.

[aeroencychris]

Don't change values during heaven, not even if the just browser is open. Also, don't trust the readings you see from heaven; ie: clock/mem clock/temp(usually temp is correct).

Yeah, i'd try to make a custom fan curve. One you would feel comfortable with rather than auto. MSI cards are usually super quiet even with fans at high rpms.

Hopefully +230 will work better, 250 killed it. Does fullscreen vs windowed affect it? Also, how do I make a fan curve? I only see a constant %

[Zayzo]

Hopefully +230 will work better, 250 killed it. Does fullscreen vs windowed affect it? Also, how do I make a fan curve? I only see a constant %

i don't use one because mine is on water. Just run the highest preset. ie: extreme or extremehd. Don't remember the name for heaven, stopped using since i prefer valley.