GPU Cooler?

[PCGuy_5960]

I am thinking of overclocking my GTX 950, but I'm concerned about cooling, as it reaches 75 C when playing games, So I am searching to find a Cooler to fit my GTX 950 and I was not able to find anything but I was able to find a handful of GTX 960 coolers. Will they fit on my card? Or, can you recommend a cooler that will be good for OCing? 

[Oshino Shinobu]

I wouldn't bother with buying an aftermarket cooler for a 950. 75C is more than fine for a 900 series GPU (they tend to run around 82C by design). Overclock with the cooler you have already and see how far you can get. As long as you're staying below 90C, you don't really have anything to worry about.

[SkilledRebuilds]

What cooler is currently on it?

(Use MSI Afterburner's options (Fan control tab) to set a higher fan curve and have lower temps at the expense of some extra noise levels)

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I wouldn't bother with buying an aftermarket cooler for a 950. 75C is more than fine for a 900 series GPU (they tend to run around 82C by design). Overclock with the cooler you have already and see how far you can get. As long as you're staying below 90C, you don't really have anything to worry about.

OK... Just wasn't sure about my temps 

1 minute ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

What cooler is currently on it?

(Use MSI Afterburner's options (Fan control tab) to set a higher fan curve and have lower temps at the expense of some extra noise levels)

I had limited space so I bought the Gigabyte OC Edition, not the windforce 

[Darel321]

I would just change the thermal paste,, if its gonna help lowering for like 2-3°C.. its a waste of money to buy a new cooler...

[PCGuy_5960]

2 minutes ago, Darel321 said:

I would just change the thermal paste,, if its gonna help lowering for like 2-3°C.. its a waste of money to buy a new cooler...

OK 

[SkilledRebuilds]

5 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

OK... Just wasn't sure about my temps 

I had limited space so I bought the Gigabyte OC Edition, not the windforce 

This one.?

 

Have you been reading around the web with what other people have been doing?
https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/3rusei/gtx_950_overclocking/

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2015/08/20/nvidia-geforce-gtx-950-review-gigabyte/12

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_950_OC/33.html

[PCGuy_5960]

4 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

This one.?

 

 

Have you been reading around the web with what other people have been doing?
https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/3rusei/gtx_950_overclocking/

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2015/08/20/nvidia-geforce-gtx-950-review-gigabyte/12

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_950_OC/33.html

Holy fuck!  I bought it just because it was the only one not interfering with my Sata connectors (Lol). I didn't know that! It boosts up to 1.4GHz so I think I will achieve a 1.6GHz Overclock or something like that... Feeling lucky ? 

[PCGuy_5960]

Another thing... Should I be concerned that the VRMs do not have a heatsink? 

[SkilledRebuilds]

11 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Holy fuck!  I bought it just because it was the only one not interfering with my Sata connectors (Lol). I didn't know that! It boosts up to 1.4GHz so I think I will achieve a 1.6GHz Overclock or something like that... Feeling lucky ? 

Go play something, with GPU-Z open in background, find your current performance baseline.

 

Play for a few mins then quit/alt-tab back to desktop and check GPU-Z sensors tabs.. (Click the numbered values to change them from 'Current/MIN/MAX/AVG" and find your Coreclocks Maximum boost and work from there.

 

PLEASE READ MULTIPLE OVERCLOCKING GUIDES (Not just one)

Results will always vary from what you've read on webpages, it's VERY much trial and error, so don't just copy their values either.

Within a few hours of reading/testing, you should be pretty sweet with a nice overclock.

I'd expect 1.35Ghz>1.4Ghz coreclocks without doing much of anything (Thanks to Turboboost 2.0)

You can Up the Power Limit to Max and set a Higher Temp limit (Around 80-85 to start with) and see where that takes you...

If temps are good, and under your limit, push more clocks, if it crash's, reduce clocks or add voltage to get stability (How much, depends on each card) (Nvidia allows 0.87mv+) and even that IMO is VERY safe to use, but try not to just whack voltage to max and chase clocks, do the trial and error method.

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

Go play something, with GPU-Z open in background, find your current performance baseline.

 

Play for a few mins then quit/alt-tab back to desktop and check GPU-Z sensors tabs.. (Click the numbered values to change them from 'Current/MIN/MAX/AVG" and find your Coreclocks Maximum boost and work from there.

 

PLEASE READ MULTIPLE OVERCLOCKING GUIDES (Not just one)

Results will always vary from what you've read on webpages, it's VERY much trial and error, so don't just copy their values either.

Within a few hours of reading/testing, you should be pretty sweet with a nice overclock.

I'd expect 1.35Ghz>1.4Ghz coreclocks without doing much of anything (Thanks to Turboboost 2.0)

You can Up the Power Limit to Max and set a Higher Temp limit (Around 80-85 to start with) and see where that takes you...

If temps are good, and under your limit, push more clocks, if it crash's, reduce clocks or add voltage to get stability (How much, depends on each card) (Nvidia allows 0.87mv+) and even that IMO is VERY safe to use, but try not to just whack voltage to max and chase clocks, do the trial and error method.

 

Sorry for wall of text.

 

Np with that, thx. The previous time I tried overclocking a GPU was with a GT 720 and I was able to get it stable at 1.4-1.5GHz but when I went higher it just crashed and then I freaked out and dialed back my OC... (Lol) 

[SkilledRebuilds]

Just now, PCGuy_5960 said:

Np with that, thx. The previous time I tried overclocking a GPU was with a GT 720 and I was able to get it stable at 1.4-1.5GHz but when I went higher it just crashed and then I freaked out and dialed back my OC... (Lol) 

Yeah, we've all been there

 

EDIT - As for VRM cooling, hopefully the fans would take care of that, GPU-Z sensors MIGHT show your VRM temps (varies card to card)

 

EDIT2 - Using GPU-Z...What does the PERFCAP Value mean?

Using gpu-z for checking temp of gtx950. I see at the "perfcap reason" says "Vrel" and "Pwr"...so what are these two words?

Vrel stand for Voltage Reliability, and PWR is Power Limit, Perfcap is performance cap reason, its telling you the reason its capped at its current performance and wont clock higher which is normal. VREL just means it can't go higher without exceeding comfortable voltage, while Power Limit means if a card uses 300W when you hit 300W usage in the card the performance cap reason is the power limit Pwr.

You can google these terms easy enough to get a better understanding... (Basically, it shows the reason it wont go further, to which you apply whats needed)

[PCGuy_5960]

2 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

Yeah, we've all been there

 

EDIT - As for VRM cooling, hopefully the fans would take care of that, GPU-Z sensors MIGHT show your VRM temps (varies card to card)

 

EDIT2 - Using GPU-Z...What does the PERFCAP Value mean?

Using gpu-z for checking temp of gtx950. I see at the "perfcap reason" says "Vrel" and "Pwr"...so what are these two words?

Vrel stand for Voltage Reliability, and PWR is Power Limit, Perfcap is performance cap reason, its telling you the reason its capped at its current performance and wont clock higher which is normal. VREL just means it can't go higher without exceeding comfortable voltage, while Power Limit means if a card uses 300W when you hit 300W usage in the card the performance cap reason is the power limit Pwr.

You can google these terms easy enough to get a better understanding... (Basically, it shows the reason it wont go further, to which you apply whats needed)

Thx for the info... But I think that if I get to 300 watts the thing will just explode ????

[SkilledRebuilds]

8 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Thx for the info... But I think that if I get to 300 watts the thing will just explode ????

Yeah, just an example.. I wasn't sure if you were aware of the Perf-Cap in GPU-Z, a good tool to find out whats your limiting factor with OC'ing.

Best of luck with chasing 1500-1600+ though, that'd be pretty sweet, probably putting you a lot closer to stock GTX960 performance.

 

More info - Just random google searching... Maximum Overclock Comparison
	Max. GPU Clock	Max. Memory Clock
Gigabyte GTX 950 OC	1543 MHz	1860 MHz
ASUS GTX 950 STRIX	1513 MHz	1955 MHz
MSI GTX 950 Gaming	1530 MHz	2090 MHz
EVGA GTX 950 SSC	1508 MHz	1960 MHz
ZOTAC GTX 950 AMP!	1556 MHz	2040 MHz

Important: Each GPU (including each GPU of the same make and model) will overclock slightly
differently based on random production variances. This table just serves to provide a list of typical
overclocks for similar cards.

 

Essentially, Maxwell overclocking 101. - http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_msi_evga_gtx950/6.htm

I set the power target as high as they would go for each card to start. EVGA had the highest power limit at 135%, while ASUS was at 111%, and MSI falling right in the middle at 118%. Based on the differing original base clock speeds, you see different clock speed offsets were used to reach the maximum boost clock speed. It took +171MHz on the MSI Gaming to reach a final boost clock speed of 1538MHz, EVGA needed a +133 offset to reach 1551MHz, and ASUS needed only a +114MHz offset to take the core clock speed crown.

Memory overclocking was just as easy, but there is the added caveat of knowing when too much memory clock speed is really too much. Each of the cards would get over 1900MHz without failing, but of course the overall performance dropped thanks to memory errors sticking their big head in the works. I backed down the memory clock speeds on the 2GB frame buffers on each card until I saw significant improvements to my final scores in 3DMark. At that point, I would push the clock speed down until the performance again started dipping and bring the memory speeds back up to the level they delivered the best overall results. In this case each card peaked in the 1850MHz to mid 1860MHz range.

 

 

 

Best of Luck.

 

 

 

 

[PCGuy_5960]

4 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

Yeah, just an example.. I wasn't sure if you were aware of the Perf-Cap in GPU-Z, a good tool to find out whats your limiting factor with OC'ing.

Best of luck with chasing 1500-1600+ though, that'd be pretty sweet, probably putting you a lot closer to stock GTX960 performance.

Yeah... I've seen that people are getting pretty similar performance out of an OCed 950 with a 960

[SkilledRebuilds]

When your all said and done, let us know how you went...

If it's a bad OC'r, it happens...My G1-Gaming GTX970 won't go over 1525Mhz at all, but it's memory clock (thank god) makes up for that.

[PCGuy_5960]

29 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

When your all said and done, let us know how you went...

If it's a bad OC'r, it happens...My G1-Gaming GTX970 won't go over 1525Mhz at all, but it's memory clock (thank god) makes up for that.

Sure thing... I am going to start OCing as soon as I have the time (cause you know... Stress testing... Going little by little) 

[SkilledRebuilds]

5 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Sure thing... I am going to start OCing as soon as I have the time (cause you know... Stress testing... Going little by little) 

I'm always like... sure.. 60s will be enough Move on another 25mhz or so...
I usually always rush... I could prob finetune my 970 for more than 1525mhz, but at this point, me chasing another 13-50mhz wouldn't amount to much more and once your happy, your happy

GL.

[PCGuy_5960]

34 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

I'm always like... sure.. 60s will be enough Move on another 25mhz or so...
I usually always rush... I could prob finetune my 970 for more than 1525mhz, but at this point, me chasing another 13-50mhz wouldn't amount to much more and once your happy, your happy

GL.

I am going to try tonight to bump up the power limit to see if GPU boost will give me a benefit, if not, I will manually OC it (GPU Boost had better work, because I am too lazy to manually overclock ) 

[SkilledRebuilds]

2 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

I am going to try tonight to bump up the power limit to see if GPU boost will give me a benefit, if not, I will manually OC it (GPU Boost had better work, because I am too lazy to manually overclock ) 

It's a gaming machine so I usually always (AMD or NV) Use Positive Power limits all the time, I currently don't need it for my games and am actually not using it lately, but if playing intensive stuff, MSI goes on, Power limit goes up to Max, and I leave the rest alone.
Keeps me at 1380Mhz rock solid in game.

Or.. my OC if I ever need it to maintain 60fps+ (AC:Syndicate)