Help with overclocking MSI 980ti?

[Hazardous Metal]

Hey guys!  Was recommended this site from a friend who has good things to say and had some questions related to overclocking.  

 

So, I tried overclocking the other day and followed this http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2749337/safe-gpu-overclocking-guide-2016.html guide.  I tried adding a 199+ clock speed increase after following the steps provided and my Firestrike score dropped from 16,000 down to 9000.  Needless to say,  I thought I broke my GPU and had a mini-freakout.  I ended up in having to reinstall nVidia drivers and reverting the OC (plus a restart) to get back to normal levels of performance.

 

Today, I tried overclocking again (something about the idea of it is so addicting :P) and have been able to achieve a stable (?) 150+ clock speed increase and a 350+ memory speed increase.  The thing that confuses me is that according to this https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Ti_Gaming/33.html page I'm nowhere near what is supposed to be the max overclock for this card and yet any increase about what I've achieved results in immediate performance drops or "display driver has stopped working and has recovered" errors.  Any time I try to increase the voltage past 20+ I'm met with errors.  Am I doing something wrong here?  My PSU is this http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=220-GS-0650-V1 guy so I dunno if that's good enough for overclocking.

 

Two other things I should mention is that 1. I have the MSI Game Booster feature enabled from within the BIOS to overclock my i7 6700K and 2.  My computer is plugged into a power bar (and then to the wall) because my desk isn't close enough to a wall plug.  Will either of these things affect my ability to overclock?

 

Thanks for reading this thread and thank you to any potential viewers willing to help.  I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but if so I do apologize.

[Imakuni]

4 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

The thing that confuses me is that according to this https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Ti_Gaming/33.html page I'm nowhere near what is supposed to be the max overclock for this card

It's called silicon lottery. Their card is good, your's is bad. Nothing you can do about it, really.

 

Here's the rule: forget what anyone says about your card. Don't expect to get anything out of it, otherwise your heart is just going to get broken once you realize you can't get there.

6 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

Today, I tried overclocking again (something about the idea of it is so addicting :P) and have been able to achieve a stable (?) 150+ clock speed increase and a 350+ memory speed increase.  Any increase about what I've achieved results in immediate performance drops or "display driver has stopped working and has recovered" errors.  Any time I try to increase the voltage past 20+ I'm met with errors.

Aka unstable OC. As I said above, not all cards were created equal.

7 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

Am I doing something wrong here?

Yes. Start with the core: increase it +30 at a time until you see any problems. Once you do, get the previous stable setting and test it extensively. Make sure it's fully functional by doing long benchmark sections and playing lots of different games (if it takes you less than a day to do so, you are doing it wrong) before messing with the vRAM. Only mess with memmory core once you've fully established that your core OC.

10 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

My PSU is this http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=220-GS-0650-V1 guy so I dunno if that's good enough for overclocking.

Assuming it's not defective, it'll be fine.

10 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

1. I have the MSI Game Booster feature enabled from within the BIOS to overclock my i7 6700K

Unrelated, but I strongly suggest you turn that off and do it the proper way. Those auto OC tools shouldn't be used.

11 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

2.  My computer is plugged into a power bar (and then to the wall) because my desk isn't close enough to a wall plug.

Irrelevant, don't worry.

[Curufinwe_wins]

13 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

snip

Ok so +150 on the stock bios should result in a boost clock of around 1519 (I have two of these cards.) That is a decent result on air, and you really shouldn't expect more (on water the best my cards can do is +167 which results in a boost clock of 1534)

 

+350 on the memory on the other hand is a bit lax. +450 should be doable on the model without any issue and the highest I have successfully gotten is +700 (although I game at +450 due to some stability issues at high fps).

 

 

You need to take into account the difference between boost and base clock. Use MSI afterburner if you are not already, jank power limit as high as it goes (I have a modded bios that lets me give more power), throw voltage to +87mV (even though it doesn't actually do anything), then try +150/+450 and get back to me.

 

The performance hit you saw was the result of the card going into safe mode. You need to watch gpu core clocks from the MSI afterburner readout. If the clocks are stuck at 595, unclick apply overclocking at startup, reset to stock speeds, restart computer. Clocks should revert to normal and you will be able to OC again.

[Zyndo]

Your PSU is fine. Solid quality, and enough wattage where you don't need to worry about it.

 

What are the final MHz you can get your card to? my 980ti Xtreme Gaming can get to 1455 MHz on its own out of the box in "OC" mode. I have gotten it as high as 1490MHz stable. I have a hard time increasing voltage, and getting the MHz beyond that without voltage increase is a real pain in the ass (Guru OC software is terrible, and MSI afterburner refuses to work for me)

 

As far as comparing your card to someone elses card.... dont. silicon lottery is just that, its a lottery. sometimes you get a good card that can go to 1550MHz or beyond. sometimes you get one that struggles 1500MHz. that 50 MHz is largely bragging rights anyway, you're not REALLY going to notice the 1 or 2 fps difference that MHz will make

 

EDIT: i guess since this is a relevant thread, does anyone have advice on overclocking a GPU without MSI afterburner? every guide I've seen says to use it, and when I try to use it, the damn thing just ends up crippling my card until I uninstall it. (I'm thinking competing software with my GURU, but if it could work alongside that stuff, that'd be great.)

[Curufinwe_wins]

2 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

snip

1. Silicon lottery is no where near as big of a deal as people make it out to be. No recent GM200 chip will fail to hit 1484 with maxed power target, and very few will fail to hit 1500 (while on the contrary only specific models seem to be capable of hitting over 1520 with regularity.) Thus a 40Mhz difference isn't much at all.

 

2. What temperatures is your card reaching? GM200 has a forced 1-step downclock at 70C (and some others at different temps) and has known stability regression at higher temps. And what kind of issues are you having with Guru OC/MSI Afterburner. I know quite a few people with that card that used each to great results.

 

3. Comparing results with people who own the same variant of the same card is vital in knowing the limitations of the given bios and the boost table of the card (the particular gpu he has is relatively power limited on the stock bios). 

[Hazardous Metal]

So I increased the core voltage and powerlimit like Curu asked me to do and also increased the memory clock to 450+ and this was the result.

 https://gyazo.com/923654089526f937be4f9d50e6ea7e2f

Temperatures stayed under 70c I believe.  

[Zyndo]

5 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

snip

1. I know, especially when it comes to GPU performance. I was just saying that if hes only able to get 1500, and someone else is getting 1525, he shouldn't feel like hes necessarily doing anything wrong. That's why I asked him what his final MHz actually was.

 

2. I've experienced absolutely 0 downstep or throttling when I go above 70 C. and my card maxes out at around 75 C on its own fan curve (which is remarkably quiet btw). It usually sits around 68-72 C though, depending on the game. My issue with afterburner is that It didn't allow me to adjust frequencies or voltages. I mean, the sliders on the program worked, I could move them to wherever I pleased, but it never resulted in any changes to my card. Worse than that, whenever I turned ON msi afterburner, my clock speeds got locked in the 595-600 MHz range and refused to leave until I restarted my computer. even closing and uninstalling MSI afterburner would not release my GPU from its deathgrip. I thought maybe I had a bugged install, but when I tried installing it again, the same result. I also uninstalled and reinstalled all drivers in the event that it was the issue. it was not. The only thing I didn't try was removing GURU, but I want to keep that around because GURU allows me to control the LED's and such on my GPU. When it comes to overclocking via GURU, i'm able to get to about 1490 MHz, but I feel limited since that software doesn't really allow me to push my voltage very far at all. In fact, 0 voltage offset to its max voltage offset (with max power limit) resulted in only about a stable 15 MHz difference, which was seriously disappointing. I never tried memory OC in either program because I was having such issues with base clock anyway. Besides 1455 MHz is enough for me anyway. Maybe someday if I put this card on water I'll try again for that extra 100 MHz. but on air it doesn't make much difference to me. the card can just stay cool.

 

3. this brings us back to point 1... Its not bad to see where you stack compared to others. in fact its often kind of fun to have that sort of competition. All I was saying is that you aren't necessarily doing anything wrong, and your card isn't exactly broken, if you are just not quite able to reach the same frequencies as others.

[Hazardous Metal]

3 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

1. I know, especially when it comes to GPU performance. I was just saying that if hes only able to get 1500, and someone else is getting 1525, he shouldn't feel like hes necessarily doing anything wrong. That's why I asked him what his final MHz actually was.

 

2. I've experienced absolutely 0 downstep or throttling when I go above 70 C. and my card maxes out at around 75 C on its own fan curve (which is remarkably quiet btw). It usually sits around 68-72 C though, depending on the game. My issue with afterburner is that It didn't allow me to adjust frequencies or voltages. I mean, the sliders on the program worked, I could move them to wherever I pleased, but it never resulted in any changes to my card. Worse than that, whenever I turned ON msi afterburner, my clock speeds got locked in the 595-600 MHz range and refused to leave until I restarted my computer. even closing and uninstalling MSI afterburner would not release my GPU from its deathgrip. I thought maybe I had a bugged install, but when I tried installing it again, the same result. I also uninstalled and reinstalled all drivers in the event that it was the issue. it was not. The only thing I didn't try was removing GURU, but I want to keep that around because GURU allows me to control the LED's and such on my GPU. When it comes to overclocking via GURU, i'm able to get to about 1490 MHz, but I feel limited since that software doesn't really allow me to push my voltage very far at all. In fact, 0 voltage offset to its max voltage offset (with max power limit) resulted in only about a stable 15 MHz difference, which was seriously disappointing. I never tried memory OC in either program because I was having such issues with base clock anyway. Besides 1455 MHz is enough for me anyway. Maybe someday if I put this card on water I'll try again for that extra 100 MHz. but on air it doesn't make much difference to me. the card can just stay cool.

 

3. this brings us back to point 1... Its not bad to see where you stack compared to others. in fact its often kind of fun to have that sort of competition. All I was saying is that you aren't necessarily doing anything wrong, and your card isn't exactly broken, if you are just not quite able to reach the same frequencies as others.

I totally get what you're saying and I'm more than capable of handling blunt honesty.  I'm new to the the PC world (built my first rig last month) and I'm having a blast just making mistakes and trying to troubleshoot them.  I don't feel upset that my card might not be as good as someone else's because that's just the name of the game with computer parts, as I'm told.  

[Zyndo]

2 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

I totally get what you're saying and I'm more than capable of handling blunt honesty.  I'm new to the the PC world (built my first rig last month) and I'm having a blast just making mistakes and trying to troubleshoot them.  I don't feel upset that my card might not be as good as someone else's because that's just the name of the game with computer parts, as I'm told.  

Sorry, I know this is your thread but that particular message was more directed at curu than at you. I'm pretty new to this show too. Built my first rig in april. been using bestbuy crap since the beginning of time =)

 

What did you manage to get your GPU OC to anyway? my firestrike scores land pretty close to yours, and we both have 6700k and 980 ti =)

[Curufinwe_wins]

7 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

snip

There are known issues with having OC Guru and Afterburner installed at the same time and trying to use Afterburner. So that is 99.999% chance the issue there.

 

Also memory offset is a huge deal, almost more OC performance gain than core clock (scaling is about .7 Mhz equivalent core clock gain per 1 Mhz memory OC) because there is so much more memory OC to add.

 

I would highly highly recommend jumping at least to 7800 Mhz memory.

 

Not that is isn't useful to ask him, but I know the boost table so well on these specific cards that I could literally already tell you what his boost clock was from +150, so that isn't a big deal. It is clear the issue was he thought the GPU OC was moving the boost clock and he needed to add way way way more to reach the 1507 (+142 offset with that bios BTW) needed to reach the reviewers clock.

[Curufinwe_wins]

5 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

I totally get what you're saying and I'm more than capable of handling blunt honesty.  I'm new to the the PC world (built my first rig last month) and I'm having a blast just making mistakes and trying to troubleshoot them.  I don't feel upset that my card might not be as good as someone else's because that's just the name of the game with computer parts, as I'm told.  

See my first post. Try +150/+450 which should come out to 1519/7800 (actually it should be 7808-7812 but who cares)

[Zyndo]

2 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

There are known issues with having OC Guru and Afterburner installed at the same time and trying to use Afterburner. So that is 99.999% chance the issue there.

That's pretty much what I thought it was. And like I said, I'd rather just keep Guru installed for the aesthetic reasons, than worry about draining every last MHz out of my card. I'm using a 980ti for 1080p gaming, so it doesn't really matter all that much what frequency it is at haha. (yes i'm aware the card is overkill for 1080p, yes I did that on purpose anyway)

 

Perhaps I'll throw on some memory OC. I never bothered trying, but that should prove interesting. good suggestion.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, Zyndo said:

That's pretty much what I thought it was. And like I said, I'd rather just keep Guru installed for the aesthetic reasons, than worry about draining every last MHz out of my card. I'm using a 980ti for 1080p gaming, so it doesn't really matter all that much what frequency it is at haha. (yes i'm aware the card is overkill for 1080p, yes I did that on purpose anyway)

 

Perhaps I'll throw on some memory OC. I never bothered trying, but that should prove interesting. good suggestion.

Yea totally fine enough. 100% recommend the mem oc, but the rest is probably more effort than it is worth (esp since unlike the MSI 8G card, I can't just tell you exactly what settings for the stock bios are likely to work without issue hahaha).

 

That was the main reason this thread was so amusing. I know these particular cards very very well.

[Hazardous Metal]

11 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

See my first post. Try +150/+450 which should come out to 1519/7800 (actually it should be 7808-7812 but who cares)

I did try it and I posted the Firestrike score image.  I'll just post it again along with my GPU-Z readings.

 

 https://gyazo.com/5c9c16dac652f7531775032e1ff5d939 

 

https://gyazo.com/923654089526f937be4f9d50e6ea7e2f

 

Are these numbers good?   I'm sorry I'm such a noob at this stuff haha.

[Curufinwe_wins]

7 minutes ago, Hazardous Metal said:

snip

No problem, I'd say that is exactly where it should be. This was my run at those settings (note it's old so the GPU clock reads incorrectly, but not a big deal.)

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6276247

 

Note the 21038 graphics score for me and the 21390 graphics score for you. Exactly how it should be. I had some issues with thermal throttling since my gpu is so low ASIC (and on this particular run I ran 10Mhz slower), so I'd expect newer ones to do a little bit better here.

 

You can feel free to keep pushing the memory/core higher in increments (50Mhz for memory, 10 for core), but you won't get that much more out of it.

[Hazardous Metal]

2 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

No problem, I'd say that is exactly where it should be. This was my run at those settings (note it's old so the GPU clock reads incorrectly, but not a big deal.)

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6276247

 

Note the 21038 graphics score for me and the 21039 graphics score for you. Exactly how it should be.

 

You can feel free to keep pushing the memory/core higher in increments (50Mhz for memory, 10 for core), but you won't get that much more out of it.

If that's the case then I think I'm done.  I gave the Division a spin and was getting a solid 60 FPS with no dips at 1080p/Ultra settings.  

 

Now to overclock my CPU... *cackles maniacally*

[Hazardous Metal]

Also, I forget to mention that I really appreciate all of the help and advice.  What a friendly community.  I'll definitely be coming back here if I ever have any questions. <3

[Zyndo]

Yeah, my system with 6700k and 980ti gets around 17000. my CPU blatantly refuses to go higher than 4.6 no matter how much voltage I feed it. and with what I said about my GPU oc issues before, i can't really push the limit on that either. You got a good build going, congrats =)

[Hazardous Metal]

Hey, sorry to bump this thread again but I've run into what I think might be an issue.  My 980ti is stuck at 43 GPU Power % and my card refuses to go below 40c even with the fan on (prior to this it was idling at 30c).  Is this normal?  
https://gyazo.com/fd53f34e53d2e82a46b3dab9bc8d6bf4