Want clear answers on overclocking, 2 questions

[Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis]

So I'm reading multiple forums on the topics, and I do not see answers that are as simple and clear as my fresh-to-overcloking brain would like. So I have two questions, and the simpler and more direct the answers, the better.

 

1. I have an EVGA GTX 1070 FTW, without altered settings (yet). If I don't switch to the secondary BIOS (I've heard something about slave and master BIOS), and only slide the power target and voltage sliders up, will the card still be locked to a safe voltage? So stability and temperature would be my only concerns?

 

2. When chips (regardless of GPU or CPU) break during overclocking, is it overheating that kills them, or the voltage?

[Windows7ge]

Adjusting the voltage slider tells the card that it's OK to draw more power than it normally would. This can help stabilize a high overclock. Technically any increased voltage and resulting heat will reduce the lifespan of the card but this reduction is usually not enough to kill the card before you're ready to replace it. And yes stability and heat would be your concern at that point but you don't want to just slam in the highest voltage it'll let you. You want to tune the core/memory clocks to suit the voltage, not enough power or even too much can cause issues.

 

It's circumstantial but it can be a case of both. Heat wise it'd have to be hot for a very long period of time because nowadays CPU's are designed will thermal cutouts to prevent the chip from killing itself but to much power can damage the intricate circuits inside the silicon. A sudden burst of high voltage to the CPU could kill it instantaneously. This occurred to a you-tuber who was overclocking a CPU. Something went wrong and too much power went to the CPU. Killing it.

[NuclearKing]

8 minutes ago, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

So I'm reading multiple forums on the topics, and I do not see answers that are as simple and clear as my fresh-to-overcloking brain would like. So I have two questions, and the simpler and more direct the answers, the better.

 

1. I have an EVGA GTX 1070 FTW, without altered settings (yet). If I don't switch to the secondary BIOS (I've heard something about slave and master BIOS), and only slide the power target and voltage sliders up, will the card still be locked to a safe voltage? So stability and temperature would be my only concerns?

 

2. When chips (regardless of GPU or CPU) break during overclocking, is it overheating that kills them, or the voltage?

1. If you slide power target and voltage sliders up, it will be locked to a safe voltage. Nvidia has been extreme in voltage regulation and all 10 series cards are locked to a max of 1.092 if you slide it to 100% on voltage, or 1.062 if you dont. Both are perfectly safe, and there should be no issue going to either. Even the second BIOS on EVGA cards won't let you go past that. Therefore temperature and stability will be your only concerns. The power limit does not change voltage, just how much power the card is allowed to draw from the PCIe power cable.

2. Cards that break are usually a combination of varying degrees between voltage and high temperatures. Due to the earlier mention voltage limitations, killing it with too much voltage is pretty much impossible. Heat is the second culprit, but EVGA cards like yours have excellent cooling, and even OC'd it shouldn't be a concern. Up until about 80C is safe, if you go above or near that, just make sure it does not rise further, or dial back a little.

[NuclearKing]

4 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

This occurred to a you-tuber who was overclocking a CPU. Something went wrong and too much power went to the CPU. Killing it.

That was JayzTwoCents OCing an FX-8320 to compare it with the i3-7350K right?

[Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis]

3 minutes ago, NuclearKing said:

1. If you slide power target and voltage sliders up, it will be locked to a safe voltage. Nvidia has been extreme in voltage regulation and all 10 series cards are locked to a max of 1.092 if you slide it to 100% on voltage, or 1.062 if you dont. Both are perfectly safe, and there should be no issue going to either. Even the second BIOS on EVGA cards won't let you go past that. Therefore temperature and stability will be your only concerns. The power limit does not change voltage, just how much power the card is allowed to draw from the PCIe power cable.

Thanks. That is what I wanted to know. Because I can adjust the fan curve accordingly to deal with thermals, but I am a bit queasy about adjusting voltages without the security of knowing what I'm doing is safe.

[Windows7ge]

Just now, NuclearKing said:

That was JayzTwoCents OCing an FX-8320 to compare it with the i3-7350K right?

It was JayzTwoCents but my memory of the video is a bit foggy I just remember his talking about how the voltages in the BIOS went haywire while overclocking the Intel chip and the system stopped working and he explained how he killed the chip. I don't remember if he was comparing it to something.

[NuclearKing]

2 minutes ago, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

Thanks. That is what I wanted to know. Because I can adjust the fan curve accordingly to deal with thermals, but I am a bit queasy about adjusting voltages without the security of knowing what I'm doing is safe.

No problem. Also make sure to give that 6600K some OCing love as well. Although there are no voltage regulations on that. But anything under about 1.38 is safe for Skylake. I got mine to 4.5 @ 1.3 Vcore, runs cool and really fast.

[3 Lions]

2 minutes ago, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

but I am a bit queasy about adjusting voltages without the security of knowing what I'm doing is safe.

Well because this is a Pascal GPU you are not actually adjusting the voltage. Adjusting voltage on Pascal GPU'S means how early in the frequency range the voltage will go to it's max setting. 

[NuclearKing]

13 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

Well because this is a Pascal GPU you are not actually adjusting the voltage. Adjusting voltage on Pascal GPU'S means how early in the frequency range the voltage will go to it's max setting. 

Pascal is fast, but it really isnt all that exciting to overclock. There is only so much you can adjust, and GPU Boost 3.0 pretty much takes your input as a general "suggestion" and makes its own decisions. For example, I have my GPU OC'd to run at 2100 MHz at about 1.082 Vcore, but GPU boost at the perfectly acceptable temperature of 55 decides to go down to 2088 at 1.062 V Core, and this is where it stays. If you bump up the offset a bit, it'll max out at 2113, but eventually throttle down to 2088 anyways even when temps max out at 65C. And there is really nothing you can do about it. 

Well actually you can watercool and keep it below 55C, but that is hardly worth it with a 1060 or even a 1070.

[Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis]

21 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

It was JayzTwoCents but my memory of the video is a bit foggy I just remember his talking about how the voltages in the BIOS went haywire while overclocking the Intel chip and the system stopped working and he explained how he killed the chip. I don't remember if he was comparing it to something.

He rebooted his testbench or whatever, and it overvolted the CPU on top of his overclock, which added up to, well, too much.

19 minutes ago, NuclearKing said:

No problem. Also make sure to give that 6600K some OCing love as well. Although there are no voltage regulations on that. But anything under about 1.38 is safe for Skylake. I got mine to 4.5 @ 1.3 Vcore, runs cool and really fast.

I'm not planning to overclock my CPU. 1) I hear my motherboard chipset is crap at overclocking even though the manual says it's possible. 2) I'm satisfied with how it is, although I have seen it reach 100% usage during some rounds of GTA V.

 

19 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

Well because this is a Pascal GPU you are not actually adjusting the voltage. Adjusting voltage on Pascal GPU'S means how early in the frequency range the voltage will go to it's max setting. 

8 minutes ago, NuclearKing said:

Pascal is fast, but it really isnt all that exciting to overclock. There is only so much you can adjust, and GPU Boost 3.0 pretty much takes your input as a general "suggestion" and makes its own decisions. For example, I have my GPU OC'd to run at 2100 MHz at about 1.082 Vcore, but GPU boost at the perfectly acceptable temperature of 55 decides to go down to 2088 at 1.062 V Core, and this is where it stays. If you bump up the offset a bit, it'll max out at 2113, but eventually throttle down to 2088 anyways even when temps max out at 65C. And there is really nothing you can do about it. 

Well actually you can watercool and keep it below 55C, but that is hardly worth it with a 1060 or even a 1070.

The two of you have good inputs, but the point of this thread was to go with a direct answer to the questions I made, because I have 0 experience with overclocking, and I am rather slow.

[NuclearKing]

9 minutes ago, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

The two of you have good inputs, but the point of this thread was to go with a direct answer to the questions I made, because I have 0 experience with overclocking, and I am rather slow.

No problem, just take what we said earlier, thats all you need to know. I just had to rant about Pascal taking away my divine right to dominion . You'll probably notice something similar with your own experimentation.

10 minutes ago, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

I'm not planning to overclock my CPU. 1) I hear my motherboard chipset is crap at overclocking even though the manual says it's possible. 2) I'm satisfied with how it is, although I have seen it reach 100% usage during some rounds of GTA V.

Yeah, I looked at your PCpartpicker list, and your chipset won't allow for good, safe, or proper OCing. I actually made a mistake like that when building mine about a year ago (I got an H110 board though, even worse), and so I rectified it with a Z270 board about a month ago. OCing it was the easiest thing ever, but in a lot of cases you really wont need it, unless playing with games with ultra high 100+ frames (then your CPU starts becoming a bottleneck).

 

Anyways, good luck in your overclocking adventures.

[Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis]

9 minutes ago, NuclearKing said:

Yeah, I looked at your PCpartpicker list, and your chipset won't allow for good, safe, or proper OCing. I actually made a mistake like that when building mine about a year ago (I got an H110 board though, even worse), and so I rectified it with a Z270 board about a month ago. OCing it was the easiest thing ever, but in a lot of cases you really wont need it, unless playing with games with ultra high 100+ frames (then your CPU starts becoming a bottleneck).

I wasn't tech-savvy when I ordered the parts, my uncle just scrambled together a value build for me and I ordered without doing any research. In hindsight I regret the choice of motherboard (in terms of compatibility and aesthetics), the case (I ordered a CM Elite 430, then bought a used Fractal Design Define R2 within a month, and then a few months later got the Carbide I have now, which I love) and the GPU (cheap blower-style 960), though this left me room to upgrade to the 1070 later on.

 

Now this is a bit off topic for this thread, but since you went on the subject of motherboard upgrade, how much of a process was it for you? Did you have to reinstall every single software, or just the system drive, or what? Just curious, in case I decide to splurge on a Z270.

[NuclearKing]

2 minutes ago, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

I wasn't tech-savvy when I ordered the parts, my uncle just scrambled together a value build for me and I ordered without doing any research. In hindsight I regret the choice of motherboard (in terms of compatibility and aesthetics), the case (I ordered a CM Elite 430, then bought a used Fractal Design Define R2 within a month, and then a few months later got the Carbide I have now, which I love) and the GPU (cheap blower-style 960), though this left me room to upgrade to the 1070 later on.

 

Now this is a bit off topic for this thread, but since you went on the subject of motherboard upgrade, how much of a process was it for you? Did you have to reinstall every single software, or just the system drive, or what? Just curious, in case I decide to splurge on a Z270.

Well, its actually pretty simple. If you do want to do it, make sure you have your Windows 10 system key. This is absolutely critical. First off you just rebuild the system with a replaced motherboard.should boot up like normal, no reinstallation or anything like that required. Just plug in your drives. Make sure the boot order for your drives is correct with boot drive first, but it should do this automatically, and in my case it did. Then you'll need to contact Microsoft support as you'll need to reactivate Windows due to the hardware change. Explain to them you build your PC, upgraded to a different motherboard, and need to reactivate windows. They will ask for the key. Allow them remote-desktop access your PC and it shouldn't take them more than a few minutes to reactivate it. Viola, you have officially replaced your motherboard, and you can move on to overclocking.

 

Just copy/paste this into a file and save it if you feel you cant remember, and keep it for when/if you decide to splurge.

[3 Lions]

38 minutes ago, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

because I have 0 experience with overclocking, and I am rather slow.

Watch this 

 

 

[Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis]

15 minutes ago, NuclearKing said:

Well, its actually pretty simple. If you do want to do it, make sure you have your Windows 10 system key. This is absolutely critical. First off you just rebuild the system with a replaced motherboard.should boot up like normal, no reinstallation or anything like that required. Just plug in your drives. Make sure the boot order for your drives is correct with boot drive first, but it should do this automatically, and in my case it did. Then you'll need to contact Microsoft support as you'll need to reactivate Windows due to the hardware change. Explain to them you build your PC, upgraded to a different motherboard, and need to reactivate windows. They will ask for the key. Allow them remote-desktop access your PC and it shouldn't take them more than a few minutes to reactivate it. Viola, you have officially replaced your motherboard, and you can move on to overclocking.

 

Just copy/paste this into a file and save it if you feel you cant remember, and keep it for when/if you decide to splurge.

I have Windows 8.1, not 10. But I assume all the steps would be the same. In short:

 

Unplug everything from motherboard (RAM, power, CPU and so forth)
Remove motherboard

Put in new motherboard

Plug everything in

Boot up

Enter BIOS and check the boot order

The pc boots into Windows and all the files and programs are present, though the OS is deactivated

 

Is this correct?

[NuclearKing]

3 minutes ago, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

I have Windows 8.1, not 10. But I assume all the steps would be the same. In short:

 

Unplug everything from motherboard (RAM, power, CPU and so forth)
Remove motherboard

Put in new motherboard

Plug everything in

Boot up

Enter BIOS and check the boot order

The pc boots into Windows and all the files and programs are present, though the OS is deactivated

 

Is this correct?

Yup, that is correct. Just curious, why are you still on 8.1?

[Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis]

Just now, NuclearKing said:

Yup, that is correct. Just curious, why are you still on 8.1?

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

 

As for your question:

When I built the pc at first, I got a good deal from a guy on Reddit who buys keys in bulk and resells them. And at the time, Win8 was way cheaper than Win10.

The reason I never progressed was in two parts:

1) My dad and grandpa were forced onto the update when it was free, and were displeased. So I made sure not to update Windows after it got changed to 8.1. After the update stopped being free, I figured Microsoft couldn't force the update on me since that's forcing an expense.

2) My school laptop has Win10, and I utterly despise it. So I never thought to purchase a key for Win10 to put on my rig.

[NuclearKing]

Just now, Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis said:

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

 

As for your question:

When I built the pc at first, I got a good deal from a guy on Reddit who buys keys in bulk and resells them. And at the time, Win8 was way cheaper than Win10.

The reason I never progressed was in two parts:

1) My dad and grandpa were forced onto the update when it was free, and were displeased. So I made sure not to update Windows after it got changed to 8.1. After the update stopped being free, I figured Microsoft couldn't force the update on me since that's forcing an expense.

2) My school laptop has Win10, and I utterly despise it. So I never thought to purchase a key for Win10 to put on my rig.

Fair enough. I've been at peace with it, hasn't bothered me too much, but to each their own. Just keep in mind that support for applications will start to disappear, and DX12 & Vulkan support in particular is non-existent. But you should be fine, and a reactivation process should be pretty much the same.

[Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis]

1 minute ago, NuclearKing said:

Fair enough. I've been at peace with it, hasn't bothered me too much, but to each their own. Just keep in mind that support for applications will start to disappear, and DX12 & Vulkan support in particular is non-existent. But you should be fine, and a reactivation process should be pretty much the same.

I lived happily with Vista for 6 and a half years (except after 3 I transitioned to my school laptop because my Acer was getting slow after years of extensive gaming, but I did use it from time to time because of the nVidia GPU). I can live through a few years of the new "old" OS (Win8.1 if it wasn't obvious, hah) if it means I can use what I prefer.

 

Anyhow, I appreciate the feedback, both on the overclocking and on the motherboard upgrade info.