Questions about overvoltage when overclocking

[Benbass]

Hi, I know that the overvoltage of graphics cards puts more heat and reduce the life time of the card but I couldn't find clear answers to my questions on the interweb so I'm asking you guys:

When do I have to overvolt my GPU during an overclocking? (When do I know I have to crank the overvoltage to continue overclocking?)

How do you use the overvoltage, directly maxed out or do you have to increment?

 

Thank you.

[Hirad123]

Well, after raising the frequency you will need to over volt when you see that:

A) Your driver crashes

B) There is a direct X error

C) There are a lot of artifacts

D) Any other graphical issues

 

And remember to raise voltages and frequencies in intervals.

 

EDIT: Ignore the smiley face. You can figure out what went wrong there lol.

[Hans Christian | Teri]

If you max out you will kill your card. To put it simply you start overvolting when you're starting to reach clocks that aren't stable anymore, however overclocking is a game with many variables and it will take a while to find good values for all the settings in order to reach the maximum stable clock.

[Benbass]

Thank you guys, as usual LinusTechTips forum users are super fast.  :wub:

[MegaTechPC]

You don't need over voltage unless you are crashing at the OC you want to use.  Typically I try to find the max OC I can run at stock voltage first then the max OC I can run at max voltage.  Certainly higher than stock voltage contributes to premature failure of the GPU but typically software voltage limits for cards are very conservative and shouldn't be any cause for alarm.  My Titans, for instance, are capped by Nvidia at 1.212V over voltage but ustilizing the AB hack allows for 1.3V (1.325V with LLC disabled) and I'm more than comfortable running that voltage.  Just remember that when you OC go up in small increments and when you start crashing, add voltage to stabilize.  Or do what I do and set max voltage first, then add clock speed until you crash...