980Ti overclocking

[Joveice]

Hi, how much can I overclock my 980Ti? I'm kinda new to this and I found stuff like that when you clock your memory do it 10MHz at a time, but if you then are able to clock it 1GHz more, isent that gonna take a while to check?

And same goes for the Clock speed, how much can you push it etc, Using heaven 4.0 for benchmark.

[2FA]

I'd start at +100 MHz and work up by 20. You should probably increase the power limit and voltage or else you get very far. I personally have +240MHz on the core with no overclock on the memory because it doesn't make that big of a difference is makes your overclock more likely to be unstable.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Anywhere from 0MHz to over 9000GHz. Basically, each chip is different. Only way to know is to go through the overclocking process of adjusting clocks small amounts at a time, then testing. You can start by adjusting the core clock and memory by larger amounts, but then move to smaller amounts to fine tune. 

[Djole123]

It's the silicon lottery that decides whether you can OC or not OC well.

[Enderman]

uh

every GPU overclocks differently

there is no way to know how much until you do it yourself

 

10MHz is too little, I usually do 50 or 100 at a time

[TheGamingBarrel]

For GPU Core testing on the 980 Ti, first set it to 1380MHz (Average air OC), if it passes, try 10 Higher, and if it fails add more volts.

[2FA]

Also from my experience, Valley is only good for seeing if the overclock is initially stable. I can't tell you how many times I started to play a game like BF4 and find out the OC is unstable.

[Joveice]

1 minute ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

I'd start at +100 MHz and work up by 20. You should probably increase the power limit and voltage or else you get very far. I personally have +240MHz on the core with no overclock on the memory because it doesn't make that big of a difference is makes your overclock more likely to be unstable.

So my base clock is 1152 and boost is 1241mhz, Should I go so that my base clock is around 1252 and boost is 1341 ish ?

[2FA]

1 minute ago, TheGamingBarrel said:

For GPU Core testing on the 980 Ti, first set it to 1380MHz (Average air OC), if it passes, try 10 Higher, and if it fails add more volts.

If that i average, then that is kind of scary. Mine goes up to 1479MHz and it is basically a reference with the ACX 2.0 cooler on it.

[2FA]

1 minute ago, Joveice said:

So my base clock is 1152 and boost is 1241mhz, Should I go so that my base clock is around 1252 and boost is 1341 ish ?

Just base it off your base clock, the boost depends too much on power and temperature to accurately gauge how much will be added.

[TheGamingBarrel]

Just now, DeadEyePsycho said:

If that i average, then that is kind of scary. Mine goes up to 1479MHz and it is basically a reference with the ACX 2.0 cooler on it.

This is the average air, I have always had cards ( apart from one ) that are much higher by like 200 MHz.

[Joveice]

Just now, DeadEyePsycho said:

Just base it off your base clock, the boost depends too much on power and temperature to accurately gauge how much will be added.

Okey, I'm using the heaven and not the valley

[2FA]

1 minute ago, Joveice said:

Okey, I'm using the heaven and not the valley

Either way, not too demanding.

[Joveice]

1 minute ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Either way, not too demanding.

Hm, what about FurMark?

[TheGamingBarrel]

1 minute ago, Joveice said:

Hm, what about FurMark?

Use 3DMark firestrike ultra, very intensive.

[Joveice]

13 minutes ago, TheGamingBarrel said:

Use 3DMark firestrike ultra, very intensive.

I only have the Firestrike, since I don't have the paid version

[TheGamingBarrel]

1 minute ago, Joveice said:

I only have the Firestrike, since I don't have the paid version

Just use that then.

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Either way, not too demanding.

What are you talking about. It will ping the card at 100% usage. That's all you need. 

[TheGamingBarrel]

1 minute ago, Alexokan said:

What are you talking about. It will ping the card at 100% usage. That's all you need. 

100% Usage doesnt mean that it is under the correct load, I can go and get something entirely stable in one bench then it instantly crashes in another.

[2FA]

2 minutes ago, Alexokan said:

What are you talking about. It will ping the card at 100% usage. That's all you need. 

100% usage on Heaven is nothing compared to 100% on Furmark, for example. You can increase power draw by almost twofold when using that unrealistic piece of software. I personally just use BF4 multiplayer as my test since it is pretty demanding and almost always shows if the overclock is unstable.

[LooneyJuice]

Honestly, there's many ways to do this. No clear consensus, I'll chime in, then two others will probably chime in with a different method. For starters, with Maxwell cards, gains from memory overclocking can be pretty freakin' substantial, so if you wanna eek out as much as possible, you do both. The story doesn't really end here though.

 

Software:

Don't know how familiar you are, but there's a few pieces of software you can use. The more obvious choices are usually MSI AB (my favorite) and EVGA Precision. Additionally there's OC Guru II by GB for their cards.

 

Methods:

 

Note: Regardless of method, it's always best to initially find your core limit on stock voltage, and then ramp up to alleviate instability/artifacts.

 

1. Some will say initially OC the core to instability (in +10 or +20 increments) and then back down (again -10/20) until you're stable, with stock memory. They then follow up with memory OC until instability/artifacting with stock core clock (with an initial bump of maybe +200mhz since memory can be overclocked significantly higher and then continue in 50/25mhz increments), and again back down until the effects/instability subside completely. They then test both and back down incrementally (maybe -5 core/-25 mem)since most of the time you can't run max OC on both due to either voltage, power shortage or just instability.

 

2. Others say OC core first until you find your max stable clock speed, and then you start pushing your memory (same increments). I tend to usually go with this one depending on the board/cooler. The reason is that, although the gains from memory overclocking on Maxwell can be pretty damn big, most of the heavy duty cooling and manual voltage control are focused on the core, whereas cooling for memory may be sub par depending on the cooling solution. So I do it for peace of mind, even knowing how resilient components are nowadays. Additionally, this method helps you eek out some extra mhz out of your core which has a better FPS per clock ratio, whereas an extremely silly memory OC may cause general instability and the need to back down both clock Core and Memory speeds. Case in point my G1 970.

 

 

My Results:

 

I came up with 2 OC presets to test this. One preset was 1505 core boost / 8430 mem (yes, very lucky with the memory sample, not even artifacting at +710 mhz). Heaven AVG framerate for 1080p extreme was 68.5. The second preset was 1525 core boost / 8310 mem, identical heaven score. And the story remained the same as I moved the balance over to the core. Which gave me more peace of mind due to the core cooling. Same deal with 2x MSI 980s I was OCing for a friend's build. Granted, they are GM204 not GM200, but the theory is the same.

 

Again, as a lot of people will say, cannot stress enough how big of a role the silicon lottery plays. Some get silly stable Core overclocks, some get silly Memory overclocks, some even get both. You have to do your own testing to determine your sample's limit. Also bare in mind, on stock GPU bios, you have limited voltage control, regardless of OC software, so it's virtually impossible to fry your hardware. Same goes for damage from overclocking, instability will kick in sooner than damage. Doesn't mean you should go crazy though, hence the methodology.

 

Testing:

 

Honestly, there's no fool-proof benchmark to test instability. You have to test on different software and be very observant. Sometimes you'll get queues before instability, like artifacts, and sometimes you'll get no warning before a crash. Occasionally there's instances where you may be artifacting, but your benchmark will keep looping for ages. Case in point, testing in Heaven, I was letting it run for half an hour. Ran fine, no crashes, but on one of the loops I noticed that as it was going past that copper domed tower with the round windows, I started seeing small blue flashes/errors on the glass as I flew past, backing down the core clock stopped that completely. Therefore, again, you have to be very observant and patient. Marginally unstable core clocks may manifest themselves as missing polygons and rendering errors, marginal or unstable memory overclocks can manifest as momentary flashes, "snow", red stripes flashing across the screen, or even changes in coloration. You can usually get a pretty good warning before crashes, grey screens, black screens etc.

 

Point is, the most time-consuming aspect of any overclocking process, is testing. I tend to use the typical synthetic benchmarks to test initial stability like Heaven or Valley (I avoid firestrike for anything other than scores since it cannot be looped to test stability), and follow up with overtaxed game benchmarks like Metro Last Light benchmark, long sessions in The Division, some Witcher 3, GTA V, and sometimes even lighter titles which can expose instability due to GPU boost causing some instability at a certain voltage step. I tend to avoid stuff like Furmark as it's a completely unrealistic load that also taxes your VRM a lot. All this essentially to validate that you have a usable overclock. I personally find no use in an overclock that can barely hang on to a Firestrike run just for the score. It has to be a usable every day benchmark. Hope this wall of text answers some questions about how to go about overclocking your 980ti.

[Joveice]

Okey, I'm at 110Mhz more than stock (listed above), stable, no grafical problems, and card hits max 70 C, I guess this means I can push it more?

[Joveice]

27 minutes ago, Joveice said:

Okey, I'm at 110Mhz more than stock (listed above), stable, no grafical problems, and card hits max 70 C, I guess this means I can push it more?

I'm at 130MHz, when I hit 150MHz My video drivers crashed, So I backed down to 130 again, Is there something I can do to keep overclocking or is this the top for my card?

[LooneyJuice]

If that was on stock voltage, that's it, that's as far as it'll go. Also, if you deem you're at a stable enough clock speed, you have to loop something like heaven for a good half hour to even have a rough idea of how stable it is. You then have to note at what core clock speed you start crashing at so you can return to that point on higher voltage if you want to. You basically add voltage until you're stable, and you don't get any artifacting where you used to, which may in turn give you a bit more headroom to push a little more.

 

Also, I have to stress that thanks to GPU boost, voltage goes up in steps, so in my case, my max stock voltage is 1.225v, and the max I can ever do with a manual offset is 1.250, without giving me anything in between. So in my case, it'll accept only any offset of +25mV and above. Use either the OSD or the Voltage monitoring in something like MSI AB/EVGA Precision to see what your voltage is doing.

 

Disclaimer: It's excess voltage that wears down your card, but depending on the version you have, you may have very little to play with anyway, so the card will still outlive its usefulness. Nonetheless, playing with it is entirely your responsibility.

[Joveice]

Since I only gained 7 frames on the overclock I whent back to stock, since in my option, there is no diffrence, and I'm locked at 144Hz in most games due to that I only have a 144Hz screen so I see no point if I only get more frames in benchmarks, since what I wanted to happen was that it stopped dropping from 144 to 100 sometimes. 

But thank you all for helping out