Gigabyte GTX 770 2BG - Overclocking and Power limit - Confused

[Slomka]

Hi guys.

A few days ago I decided to crank up my 770.
Unfortunately I was able to just get 30 MHz up on Core and 150 MHz on Memory. 
On Valley benchmark I got best score of 2757 min: 32.4 FPS max: 124 FPS
But on stock I got 2700 with 30 and 122 FPS respectively. 
So the performance difference is very small.

 

I moved my power limit to 110%, but I noticed that in MSI Afterburner the power on the chart doesn't exceed 80%. 
Do you know what could be causing that? Is this the reason I can't get any significant overclock and performance boost?

[Philz69]

Your overclock is mostly limited by voltage, did you try bumping it up a bit?

The only two reasons i can think of that would prevent your card from going over 80% power limit is thermal throttling or low gpu usage ( cpu bottleneck ). The later is highly unlikely in Valley, What kind of temps are you getting?

Also, in GPU-Z you can see the reason your card is being held back, its the Perf cap reason in the monitoring tab

[SeanAngelo]

Hi guys.

A few days ago I decided to crank up my 770.

Unfortunately I was able to just get 30 MHz up on Core and 150 MHz on Memory. 

On Valley benchmark I got best score of 2757 min: 32.4 FPS max: 124 FPS

But on stock I got 2700 with 30 and 122 FPS respectively. 

So the performance difference is very small.

 

I moved my power limit to 110%, but I noticed that in MSI Afterburner the power on the chart doesn't exceed 80%. 

Do you know what could be causing that? Is this the reason I can't get any significant overclock and performance boost?

it's normal... i have my gtx 670 power limit to 100 and it never goes to 85+

[Slomka]

CPU bottleneck is impossible. I'm running on i7-6700K.

I didn't mess with voltage on core.
I get temps up to 80 Celcius.

This is what I got by the end of the benchmark.
http://imgur.com/k6nyniy

Seems like the GPU is working on max and just doesn't need all the power it can get wrom PSU am I right?
So if I increase the voltage and clock speed it will be able to use more power?
Vrel and VOp are from what I see realiability voltage and operating voltage and these seem to limit my GPU.

[Philz69]

CPU bottleneck is impossible. I'm running on i7-6700K.

I didn't mess with voltage on core.

I get temps up to 80 Celcius.

This is what I got by the end of the benchmark.

http://imgur.com/k6nyniy

Seems like the GPU is working on max and just doesn't need all the power it can get wrom PSU am I right?

So if I increase the voltage and clock speed it will be able to use more power?

Vrel and VOp are from what I see realiability voltage and operating voltage and these seem to limit my GPU.

You are correct on all three points! Your gpu simply doesnt need to use more power! You will see an increase in power consumption and maximum stable clock speed if you increase the voltage and Vrel and Vop are reliability voltage and max operating voltage limitation. 

 

[Slomka]

Thanks for the answer.
However my stock voltage is 1.2V which from what I've read is pretty high already and on most forums i saw that people didn't recomend to go higher than 1.2V.

[angrymoose]

Thanks for the answer.

However my stock voltage is 1.2V which from what I've read is pretty high already and on most forums i saw that people didn't recomend to go higher than 1.2V.

I've heard of guys going to 1.3v on a GTX 770, but depending on which version you have you may not want to. You could be running pretty high temps, especially on the VRMs

[Philz69]

I've heard of guys going to 1.3v on a GTX 770, but depending on which version you have you may not want to. You could be running pretty high temps, especially on the VRMs

You cant go over 1.212v on stock bios. Everything you can do in stock bios is pretty much 100% safe for 24/7 use if your temps are ok!i used 1.35v daily on my GTX 780 for a long while, except i was watercooling.

[Slomka]

So I guess I'll try to mess with my voltage and see if it does anything. I wonder what will happen if I just increase voltage. Guess there is one way to find out.

If I don't get any significant performance boost I'll just return to my stock values.

Update:
I tried increasing the voltage on my GPU by the maximum amount that MSI Afterburner allows which is 12mV, but when I do it, apply and run benchmark the voltage I see on GPU-Z doesn't exceed 1.2V. Any ideas why?

Update 2: I've done some research on the internet and some people say that WindForce (which is my GPU - Gigabyte GTX 770 2BG Windforce) has locked voltage. Could it be true? Then I would have to change bios on my gpu right? If yes then I will quit messing with this. This is my gpu http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4629#ov

[Slomka]

So guys any ideas?

[Philz69]

So I guess I'll try to mess with my voltage and see if it does anything. I wonder what will happen if I just increase voltage. Guess there is one way to find out.

If I don't get any significant performance boost I'll just return to my stock values.

Update:

I tried increasing the voltage on my GPU by the maximum amount that MSI Afterburner allows which is 12mV, but when I do it, apply and run benchmark the voltage I see on GPU-Z doesn't exceed 1.2V. Any ideas why?

Update 2: I've done some research on the internet and some people say that WindForce (which is my GPU - Gigabyte GTX 770 2BG Windforce) has locked voltage. Could it be true? Then I would have to change bios on my gpu right? If yes then I will quit messing with this. This is my gpu http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4629#ov

When they say locked voltage, they mean you have a limit over voltage control. you CAN control it, but really not much, using a custom bios, you could push as much voltage as your balls allow you to!