First Overclocking

[Bulbucel]

Hi, guys! 

 

Justin here with a small question. 

 

It's my first time doing overclocking and after some intensive weeks of research (done this summer) I decided that is time to try it out. 

 

So. I've got a gtx 1060 gigabyte g1 gaming and oc'ed it using evga precision x. I didn't touch the memory speed yet, only the core clock. Now, I found out that at +160mhz it crashes in some games (I did the testing on heaven and it still worked but when I opened Rotr it crashed instantly). So I decided to leave it at +155mhz. 

 

I did all this in a day(I know that overclocking takes even more time) and, in the evening I left it for 2 hours on heaven at +155mhz.

 

Here comes the part that intrigued me. It didn't crash, however after 10-15 minutes the gpu clock dropped from 2152(which was supposed to be at) to 2139 mhz. After 5 or 10 minutes it dropped to 2126 MHz and remained here for 1 hour and a half so I stopped the test running. 

 

I think you see where I'm going with this. Is this ok/normal to happen? Since games don't crash (only tested for gta and Rotr, didn't have time for more) I thought it was. It doesn't look like a stable overclock (but I have no experience so that's why I'm here). 

 

I have to say that the volts are at maximum (1.093 as that's the highest for Pascal architecture) and the temperature remained constant at 64-65°C so I don't think this is what causes the drops in the  clock. Although, when the core clock drops, the voltage does too. So it's like 

2152 MHz - 1.093v

2139 MHz - 1.084v

2126 MHz - 1.071v (I don't remember this one exactly but I know it is .07)

 

Long text, I know. But I'm a beginner so I considered giving all the information available. If you guys could give me your thoughts and advices, I will be grateful. Thanks in advance!

[WereCat]

Pascal cards can only change clocks by 12.5MHz at a time so you going from +160MHz to +155MHz did nothing, that's also why your clock is 2152MHz instead of 2139MHz.

Also, when the GPU temp goes up, the clocks will go down by about 12.5MHz-25MHz by about every 6°C-8°C.

More volts and power = higher temperature which may result in lower clocks.

[Bulbucel]

27 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Pascal cards can only change clocks by 12.5MHz at a time so you going from +160MHz to +155MHz did nothing, that's also why your clock is 2152MHz instead of 2139MHz.

Also, when the GPU temp goes up, the clocks will go down by about 12.5MHz-25MHz by about every 6°C-8°C.

More volts and power = higher temperature which may result in lower clocks.

I didn't know about that 12.5 thing, thanks. 

So, by a simple math calculus, I should keep it at +150mhz(it's divisible by 12.5) and try to keep the temperature as low as possible? I have the vents at 70% at 60-65°C, I can raise that up a bit I quess. 

Also, do you have any tips on overclocking the memory (like the 12.5 thing I didn't know about on the core clock)? I will start as soon as I get back home. 

[WereCat]

13 minutes ago, Bulbucel said:

I didn't know about that 12.5 thing, thanks. 

So, by a simple math calculus, I should keep it at +150mhz(it's divisible by 12.5) and try to keep the temperature as low as possible? I have the vents at 70% at 60-65°C, I can raise that up a bit I quess. 

Also, do you have any tips on overclocking the memory (like the 12.5 thing I didn't know about on the core clock)? I will start as soon as I get back home. 

Yes, lower temperature helps with higher clocks, as long as you can get past the clock lowering temp bump, increasing the fan speed is a good idea (as long as the noise is in bearable levels).

 

VRAM OC is simple enough, increase the clock unless you start seeing any graphical glitches. VRAM OC rarely leads to crashes like Core OC.

And you can increase it by 1MHz at a time.

 

One thing to note though.

VRAM can be power hungry and if your Core OC alone approaches the power limits of your card, the VRAM OC may result in significant core clock drop.

 

Example in FireStrike Ultra with my 1080ti:

[Bulbucel]

1 hour ago, WereCat said:

Yes, lower temperature helps with higher clocks, as long as you can get past the clock lowering temp bump, increasing the fan speed is a good idea (as long as the noise is in bearable levels).

 

VRAM OC is simple enough, increase the clock unless you start seeing any graphical glitches. VRAM OC rarely leads to crashes like Core OC.

And you can increase it by 1MHz at a time.

 

One thing to note though.

VRAM can be power hungry and if your Core OC alone approaches the power limits of your card, the VRAM OC may result in significant core clock drop.

 

Example in FireStrike Ultra with my 1080ti:

At the current level of speed, the noise is in bearable levels but when they reach 75% they start to get a bit noisy. I will see if I give acoustics for power. 

 

Talking about VRAM oc, I will start as soon as I get home and do it patiently, as you suggested.

 

From your experience, which is better? Keeping the core as high as possible and adjusting the VRAM according to the power limit, make a balance between them or get the VRAM as high as possible then adjust the core clock? 

 

Thanks a lot for you effort!! 

[WereCat]

11 minutes ago, Bulbucel said:

At the current level of speed, the noise is in bearable levels but when they reach 75% they start to get a bit noisy. I will see if I give acoustics for power. 

 

Talking about VRAM oc, I will start as soon as I get home and do it patiently, as you suggested.

 

From your experience, which is better? Keeping the core as high as possible and adjusting the VRAM according to the power limit, make a balance between them or get the VRAM as high as possible then adjust the core clock? 

 

Thanks a lot for you effort!! 

Make core a priority. If you have still some power left before reaching power limit, throw some VRAM OC into the mix if you can.

 

Some games love VRAM OC (Witcher 3 for example) but usually, you won't see the benefits of VRAM OC because it will eat into your power limit and will result in core clock to drop which will cause loss of performance. So in the best case scenario, you will see no or very small benefit.

I unlocked the power limit on my card with custom BIOS and now I have no problem doing both, the issue now is cooling as the card alone goes to a 400W+ territory.

 

Don't let this fool you though. Just because you hit power limits at (for example) 2100MHz core and 8000MHz VRAM in benchmarks, doesn't mean that this will happen in some games.

You can easily sustain your max OC clocks in some games, really comes down to what kind of load the game puts on the GPU. (Again, Witcher 3, for example, WILL put a massive load on the GPU, Rise of the Tomb Raider as well).

It's best to create and save profiles in the EVGA Precision XOC or MSI Afterburner and before launching game, changing to whatever settings for it is best.

 

But I can tell you for sure, that if you will be hitting power limit, your 0.1% and 1% lows will suffer a lot. It may even make a 10FPS difference in the minimums.

[Bulbucel]

14 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Make core a priority. If you have still some power left before reaching power limit, throw some VRAM OC into the mix if you can.

 

Some games love VRAM OC (Witcher 3 for example) but usually, you won't see the benefits of VRAM OC because it will eat into your power limit and will result in core clock to drop which will cause loss of performance. So in the best case scenario, you will see no or very small benefit.

I unlocked the power limit on my card with custom BIOS and now I have no problem doing both, the issue now is cooling as the card alone goes to a 400W+ territory.

 

Don't let this fool you though. Just because you hit power limits at (for example) 2100MHz core and 8000MHz VRAM in benchmarks, doesn't mean that this will happen in some games.

You can easily sustain your max OC clocks in some games, really comes down to what kind of load the game puts on the GPU. (Again, Witcher 3, for example, WILL put a massive load on the GPU, Rise of the Tomb Raider as well).

It's best to create and save profiles in the EVGA Precision XOC or MSI Afterburner and before launching game, changing to whatever settings for it is best.

 

But I can tell you for sure, that if you will be hitting power limit, your 0.1% and 1% lows will suffer a lot. It may even make a 10FPS difference in the minimums.

I see your points. 

 

Getting into details with the power limits unlocking from bios is too much for me at the moment (I'm in the last year of highschool - overclocking is a way of "cooling off" from studies). 

 

Also I don't know if I have the time and patience to get the maximum for each game - I'm sharing the pc with my brother,  when I will get to university next year I will have my own. Investing in an aftermarket cooler is again, not an option. I just wanted to have an idea how this works and be ready when I will invest myself in a good rig. So I'll just try to achieve a middle ground between all these factors.

 

Thank you for your time and quick answers, it really helped me a lot. 

[WereCat]

1 minute ago, Bulbucel said:

I see your points. 

 

Getting into details with the power limits unlocking from bios is too much for me at the moment (I'm in the last year of highschool - overclocking is a way of "cooling off" from studies). 

 

Also I don't know if I have the time and patience to get the maximum for each game - I'm sharing the pc with my brother,  when I will get to university next year I will have my own. Investing in an aftermarket cooler is again, not an option. I just wanted to have an idea how this works and be ready when I will invest myself in a good rig. So I'll just try to achieve a middle ground between all these factors.

 

Thank you for your time and quick answers, it really helped me a lot. 

You're welcome

And no, you don't have to push the max OC, even minor OC helps. Overclocking can be fun even without breaking records.