Author Topic: Help with Overclocking Various Computer Components (Read 3582 times)

funxion · « **on:** Sat, 09 June 2012, 21:41:52 »

Is there anyone on GH willing to help me out with overclocking my GPU and possibly my CPU (even further than it already has been overclocked)?

I can read guides, but I would prefer to have someone who knows what they're doing walk me through it. It would help if this said person had Steam, Xfire, Skype, or any other method of almost-instant communication.

Thanks!

itznfb · « **Reply #1 on:** Sat, 09 June 2012, 21:52:55 »

What is your current setup and how far have you overclocked? I'm guessing you're looking for 24/7 settings?

bavman · « **Reply #2 on:** Sat, 09 June 2012, 22:17:16 »

Gpu is easy depending on how well its cooled. If it has a nice cooling solution turned voltage to max, core/memory speed to where you think they should be (google is your friend) and stress test it. If it fails knock back speed a little, if it works knock back voltage till you have the lowest stable voltage or keep pushing core speed!

Thats my quick-n-dirty way, probably not super safe, but as long as your getting good temps and arnt trying to overclock your core 100% you'll be fine.

funxion · « **Reply #3 on:** Sat, 09 June 2012, 22:23:32 »

Setup
CPU: i5 750 OC'd to 3.8GHz from 2.67GHz
GPU: EVGA GTX 560 Ti Classified 448-Core
MB: EVGA P55
RAM: 8GB G.SKILL RipJaws
HD: Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB
Monitor: Alienware AW2310 23" 120Hz
Case: Antec 900

I don't have liquid cooling or anything too crazy, just six or so fans. The temperature inside my case right now is 35°C, GPU is at 36°C right now with about a 100MHz overclock so far, and I haven't really looked at my CPU's temperature in a while.

Quote from: itznfb;610592

What is your current setup and how far have you overclocked? I'm guessing you're looking for 24/7 settings?

There's my setup and I've overclocked only my core clock from 797MHz to 900MHz. I was told to use Heaven as a benchmark program on the EVGA forums (results below). And yes, I'm looking for everyday settings. I'm not really looking to take down buildings with this thing, I just want a nice, stable overclock to get a little extra performance out of my GPU (and CPU if I can go further with my current setup).

I'd also like to get some more information on what exactly it is I should be overclocking. I was told that the core clock is the primary area of interest, but I've also seen people with my current core clock (900MHz) sitting with a 2150MHz memory clock.

797MHz (Stock) @ 1.013V
FPS: 50.3
Scores: 1267
Min FPS: 12.5
Max FPS: 106.1

850MHz @ 1.013V
FPS: 52.5
Scores: 1322
Min FPS: 13.6
Max FPS: 111.0

860MHz @ 1.013V
FPS: 51.9
Scores: 1308
Min FPS: 11.8
Max FPS: 110.8

870MHz @ 1.013V
FPS: 53.3
Scores: 1343
Min FPS: 14.4
Max FPS: 112.9

880MHz @ 1.013V
FPS: 53.6
Scores: 1350
Min FPS: 10.4
Max FPS: 113.7

890MHz @ 1.013V
FPS: 54.0
Scores: 1360
Min FPS: 13.3
Max FPS: 114.5

900MHz @ 1.013V
FPS: 54.4
Scores: 1370
Min FPS: 19.6
Max FPS: 115.3

funxion · « **Reply #4 on:** Sun, 10 June 2012, 12:36:01 »

Help?

IvanIvanovich · « **Reply #5 on:** Mon, 11 June 2012, 07:22:05 »

I have the same CPU and evga P55 SLI motherboard. 3.8ghz is the max stable I could get for everyday without a big increase on voltage. Adding more voltage makes it run too hot for my tastes, and I have water set up. I would leave it alone. For GPU you got a decent oc on that already as well. What I do is run something like occt and keep bumping up in increments until it starts artifacting, then you can either stop and go back down one or switch to bumping up the voltage until the artifacting goes away again. Once you got core set, then do same for memory.
If you want the system to feel faster you should get an ssd. It would make a bigger difference in overall performance than bumping oc up a little more.

modulor · « **Reply #6 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 12:51:25 »

Quote from: lysol;611144

I have the same CPU and evga P55 SLI motherboard. 3.8ghz is the max stable I could get for everyday without a big increase on voltage. Adding more voltage makes it run too hot for my tastes, and I have water set up. I would leave it alone. For GPU you got a decent oc on that already as well. What I do is run something like occt and keep bumping up in increments until it starts artifacting, then you can either stop and go back down one or switch to bumping up the voltage until the artifacting goes away again. Once you got core set, then do same for memory.
If you want the system to feel faster you should get an ssd. It would make a bigger difference in overall performance than bumping oc up a little more.

I agree with this method. From personal experience, the HDD is the biggest bottleneck in most modern systems, and a decent SSD sounds like the next step for your setup. Even a small one for just the OS and some commonly used programs or games will suffice. Note the Caviar Green's are the most energy conservative of that series, which results in slower read/write times. You would get a slight speed increase going to a Caviar Blue or Black (I have one of each and they are similar in transfer rates) but you'll noticed a much larger increase in performance going to SSD. Plus, you can still use your current drive for file storage.

bear95 · « **Reply #7 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 14:42:32 »

Not overall performance. Startup (os and program) performance. Other than startup, games won't benefit much. Not even loading maps because other people will most likely load slower. It is an improvement, but I personally believe that while ssds are worthwhile in notebooks, I don't find them that amazing in desktops.

IvanIvanovich · « **Reply #8 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 19:27:54 »

It does help in overall performance, since most games and other software are still 32bit they end up paging quite often. Makes a huge difference paging to an ssd with 4-5x the speed over a glacial hard drive.

bear95 · « **Reply #9 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 20:02:46 »

Well than, if you're game is being forced to page-file more than normal than you should be getting more ram. With sufficient ram, adding an SSD does not improve framerate.

IvanIvanovich · « **Reply #10 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 20:26:51 »

Except that 32bit can't address more than 4GB total including the vram from gpu (if you have 2GB vram, well you are now down to 2GB system ram), so throwing more ram won't help at all. It's a 32bit problem, which will only be solved by 64bit software.

funxion · « **Reply #11 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 20:35:31 »

Quote from: lysol;611144

I have the same CPU and evga P55 SLI motherboard. 3.8ghz is the max stable I could get for everyday without a big increase on voltage. Adding more voltage makes it run too hot for my tastes, and I have water set up. I would leave it alone. For GPU you got a decent oc on that already as well. What I do is run something like occt and keep bumping up in increments until it starts artifacting, then you can either stop and go back down one or switch to bumping up the voltage until the artifacting goes away again. Once you got core set, then do same for memory.
If you want the system to feel faster you should get an ssd. It would make a bigger difference in overall performance than bumping oc up a little more.

Yeah, I'm going to keep it at 3.8GHz for 24/7 use. Anything higher and I get system errors, blue screens, and the works.

I'm working with ATITool, which also has an artifact scanner, and I can't go above 890MHz on the core clock with stock voltage (1.013V). I don't know why, but Precision X isn't allowing me to up the voltage to 1.025V permanently. It will allow it for my current session, but as soon as I reboot or power off/on, it reverts to stock voltage. I asked around on OCN and was told I'd have to "flash my GPU's BIOS" and up the voltage through there to 1.025V. I'm not sure how much of an increase I'd be able to get with 0.012V more, but if it means another 50-60MHz on my core clock, I may consider it depending on how much more heat is put out.

The air vent in my room was fixed yesterday and actually blows the right temperature into my room, so my idle temps for my GPU have been 32-33°C and max load sits around 50°C at most (47°C after a 3DMark11 run benchmark).

Also, I'm slightly confused as to how I should be OCing my memory clock. As far as I know, I should be OCing my core clock primarily and once I can't go any further (stable) with that, I move on to the memory clock? Same process? Up 50MHz and then increase by 10MHz increments? The confusing part to me is why would my memory clock be able to be increased instead of the core clock with that same voltage?

Definitely looking into the SSD market. I've been eyeing them for a while, but prices have seemed pretty ridiculous. I'm also not too educated on how to transfer my entire OS and my regularly-played games onto it from my current HD.

bear95 · « **Reply #12 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 20:37:39 »

Huh... just remembered that. My bad. I guess that's true. But even than, how much of a difference is it? Max 5fps? In my situation, I have a 64bit os and 16gb of ram and I guess its a bit abnormal. And because at home, startup time does not really matter while it does for my laptop outside home. So I guess it depends on the situation and in my situation is has no effect.

Reptile · « **Reply #13 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 20:44:29 »

Quote from: funxion;613048

Definitely looking into the SSD market. I've been eyeing them for a while, but prices have seemed pretty ridiculous. I'm also not too educated on how to transfer my entire OS and my regularly-played games onto it from my current HD.

The prices are actually a lot better than they used to be. You wouldn't transfer your OS or programs it would be a fresh install. Here is a great guide for setting up an ssd for performance as well as the best way to install windows 7. SSD is the biggest upgrade I have noticed and is definitely worth it
http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds

IvanIvanovich · « **Reply #14 on:** Wed, 13 June 2012, 20:59:59 »

Memory is generally less demanding for voltage. I bump it in bigger increment myself, but if you want to be more cautions 10s is fine.
Flash custom vbios once you know what everything is always a good plan, then you can uninstall all the extra software and don't have to worry about setting profiles and check if the oc is on.
SSD prices have fallen quite a lot in the last couple months due to nand price crash, many around 30%. You could just copy your hdd to ssd with gparted (since you probably will need to shrink partition first, its handy to do it all at same time in same software, and also allows you to align to MiB instead of cylinder like most clone software which is super important), though fresh install is still better.
SSD don't do anything for fps, but can help with other things like reduce texture pop in.

funxion · « **Reply #15 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 00:03:51 »

Lol...I just ran ATITool with the memory clock bumped up to 2200MHz from 2050MHz and it went 5 minutes without any artifacts...

Wish I could get the core clock up to 950MHz-ish :/ I have no idea how to even get into my GPU's BIOS so I'd need help with that.

bear95 · « **Reply #16 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 07:04:45 »

GPU doesn't have a bios. You should test a minimum of 20min. 1hr to be sure.

IvanIvanovich · « **Reply #17 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 07:48:55 »

Of course it does. You'll need nibitor and nvflash.

bear95 · « **Reply #18 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 10:12:06 »

I'm stupid.

bear95 · « **Reply #19 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 10:13:32 »

Well. It doesn't come with a bios.

Panoptic · « **Reply #20 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 10:19:30 »

All video cards have a BIOS on them - they wouldn't work otherwise.

bear95 · « **Reply #21 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 10:32:37 »

Well they do, but what I meant is you normally are not allowed to access them.

funxion · « **Reply #22 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 16:26:13 »

Quote from: lysol;613260

Of course it does. You'll need nibitor and nvflash.

Are these "safe" to use? I think I definitely need to bump up the voltage to 1.025V. How would I go about "flashing" my GPU's BIOS? Do I edit the BIOS first, then flash it? Or the other way around?

Also, after bumping my memory clock up to 2200MHz, I noticed my temps are no longer in the 32-33°C range. They're in the 44-45°C range now. Not sure what I did wrong, but I reverted the memory clock back to 2050MHz after noticing the temps were a little high and that's where I'm at now. Not sure what to do :/

bear95 · « **Reply #23 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 16:45:19 »

You flash it first. A lot of people have problems with flashing their gpu. Cause if there's a problem your gpu is dead. That's why some gpus have a bios switch for dual bioses just in case you made a mistake but not many have em. I wouldn't do it if I were you.

Recently, it was majorly for 6950s flashing to become 6970s. But it was blocked. Even with the ability not a lot of people did it because it was safer and as good as just overclocking it with the options they had.

funxion · « **Reply #24 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 16:57:36 »

So I can't edit the BIOS without flashing it?

bear95 · « **Reply #25 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 17:46:56 »

No. Thats what the flashing is for. Its supposed to replace a bios so that it is visible to the user.

funxion · « **Reply #26 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 17:56:26 »

Staying away from that...lol.

IvanIvanovich · « **Reply #27 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 19:26:42 »

I use those tools which is why I recommended them. It is not hard. Back up bios file, edit it, flash it. If you have a bad flash it is usually possible to recover it by flash again. I've had a bad flash once, and I have done this stuff to every gpu I have had since maybe 2003. It's not really a big deal. it's pretty hard to brick the card unless you put some REALLY wrong setting.
If you increase the volts, its going to get hotter. I would expect to add 10c. Idle temps aren't very important, it's load you need to be concerned with and as long as it stays under 80c it's good.

funxion · « **Reply #28 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 19:48:32 »

It's not worth it to me. I got my 890/1780/2050 overclock down to 33°C at idle, so I'm good for now. Would changing the Power Management Mode to "Prefer Maximum Performance" give that much of a performance increase?

IvanIvanovich · « **Reply #29 on:** Thu, 14 June 2012, 19:53:37 »

No, that just makes it run at 3D clocks all the time instead of dropping to minimal clocks while doing stuff like websurfing.

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Author Topic: Help with Overclocking Various Computer Components (Read 3582 times)