Overclocking almost no performance increase?

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Kokoloco

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Hello. I wonder if anyone could help me with this, because I don't know why. So I can overclock my GTX 1060 (laptop), 1405 > 1600MHz, which is almost a 14% increase. The laptop seems to run stable on this oc. My problem is that I have seen almost no performance increase with this oc, just a few fps in Ac unity (like 3-4 fps), even when the fps is over 60. Heaven benchmark showed almost no performance increase either. Could anyone explain/help? Thanks.

My CPU is an I7-7700HQ, RAM is 16GB of DDR4, I use Win 10 and I run the latest NVIDIA driver.
 
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Jester Maroc
I believe you are overthinking this. Laptop GPU's are notoriously difficult to overclock (because of thermal and power constraints) and gains are normally below 5%. You should not expect to see more than 4-5fps gains from games that used to run at 60fps. Nividia were only able to gain 3FPS on their minimums when they ran a OC demonstration (116 stock - 119 OC'ed) for the mobile 1080. That is less than 1% gain. Will you notice a 1% difference in minimums on a laptop monitor? I don't think so.

It is hard to find any data on laptop 1060 OCing because people tend to not OC laptops. However, for a 1070 I have found this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/overclocking-nvidia-pascal-gtx-1050-1060-1070-1080-on-a-laptop.802768/...
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Jester Maroc

Jester Maroc

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I would strongly advise against OC on a laptop. Laptops never (I have never seen anything I would trust) have sufficient cooling to OC. Most do not have sufficient cooling for a sustained 100% CPU/GPU load.

However, to answer your question. It is rare to get more than a 15% performance increase even with a substantial OC. You should expect to gain 0 - 5% in most games, with 5-10% in games that are optimized to take advantage of the higher clock rate on the GPU. If you see a 3-4fps gain, you are in the 5-10% margin.
 
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13thmonkey

13thmonkey

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The 1060 is less likely to be the constraint than the 290 would be, therefore increasing the 290 will give a bigger benefit.
 
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Jester Maroc

Jester Maroc

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It varies a lot from game to game and GPU to GPU. Some OC very well while others OC well but provide zero performance gains.

What games are we talking about? Have you checked out benchmarks for those exact games with your GPU?

My advise would still be to avoid OCing your laptop since the potential for failure is quite high.

I have a 1060 in my desktop and a quick OC provided 5 extra FPS in Tomb Raider 2013 benchmark. I did not bother to try to tweak the OC yet as I am hitting 60fps at 1080p on a 60hz monitor. The 1060 is such a good card IMO that an OC is not something I need yet.

Another question, do you have the 3gb or 6gb version? The 3gb version does cause performance bottlenecks in some games.
 
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Kokoloco

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Constraint?

The same games that were tested were Heaven benchmark (not a game, but a benchmark) and Metro last light (Redux on the gtx 1060, have definitely tested the "normal" Metro LL benchmark on my r9 290 but idk about redux). On these I saw a significant increase with my R9 290 but barely any on my 1060, even when the difference percentage wise is only like 1% when it comes to their overclock.

The only programme where I have seen a somewhat decent increase on my gtx 1060 was 3DMARK Time Spy.

My gtx 1060 has 6GB.
 
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Kokoloco

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GPU usage was 98-99% in Metro LL Redux. CPU usage was at around 38-42%, one of the cores would go up to over 50% at times.

 
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Jester Maroc

Jester Maroc

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I believe you are overthinking this. Laptop GPU's are notoriously difficult to overclock (because of thermal and power constraints) and gains are normally below 5%. You should not expect to see more than 4-5fps gains from games that used to run at 60fps. Nividia were only able to gain 3FPS on their minimums when they ran a OC demonstration (116 stock - 119 OC'ed) for the mobile 1080. That is less than 1% gain. Will you notice a 1% difference in minimums on a laptop monitor? I don't think so.

It is hard to find any data on laptop 1060 OCing because people tend to not OC laptops. However, for a 1070 I have found this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/overclocking-nvidia-pascal-gtx-1050-1060-1070-1080-on-a-laptop.802768/ http://voltground.com/haven/threads/169/ As you can see the gains on the laptop 1070 is less than 1% even after significant experimentation, including undervoltage to enable higher frequencies on the OC.

The bigger question is why would you want more than 60fps (unless you are playing CSGO) on your laptop considering your monitor caps performance at 60hz (I am assuming you do not have a 100hz or 144hz monitor on your laptop)?

What laptop model do you have?

Lastly, remember that Unigine Heaven is an old engine which could explain the more "significant" performance gains with your old R9 290.

Be happy with the OC that you are currently getting and the performance gain. But, be very VIGILANT to monitor your temps at all times especially when gaming for long sessions. Heat that builds up inside a laptop (even when around 70c) can slowly affect the plastic chassis and over time deteriorate it which could lead to catastrophic failure (I am talking from experience).
 
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Kokoloco

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I see, thanks Jester. What are considered "dangerous" temps on a modern laptop? I obviously don't wanna end up with fried components, I don't touch the voltage on this laptop when overclocking the gpu (on this laptop you can't as far as I know). My laptop is an ASUS ROG GL502VM-DS74.
 
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Jester Maroc

Jester Maroc

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That is a good laptop. I do not like my laptop temps to be above 80c. However, if you plan on extended gaming sessions I would suggest you aim for 70c by adjusting your fan speed.

If you use MSI Afterburner for overclocking, the GPU voltage can be adjusted. Afterburner is also a great tool to create a fan curve to manage your temps.
 
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