What are the basic of GPU OC?

[mrtoesterman]

As some may know, im OC my system right now.... and why im working on that i would love to get some basic info on GPU OC.....

POST WHAT YOU KNOW and you will like FOREVER, through your information!!




GIGABYTE Super Overclock Series GV-N470SO-13I GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card


GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi)
Core Clock-700MHz
Shader Clock-1400MHz
Stream Processors-448 Processor Cores

Memory

Effective Memory Clock-3348MHz
Memory Size-1280MB
Memory Interface-320-bit
Memory Type-GDDR5





give a fish to a person, feed them for that meal, but teach them how to fish, feed them for a life time!!


-MRtoeMAN

 

[sharr]

hey again m8, glad to see u solved the CPU OC issues u encountered.

now on the GPU OC subject, u will need to provide us with your specs (even if u did already but on another thread) and be sure to include the manufacturer and the version of your GPU. for example if u use nvidia's gtx 460, which version, the 768mb one, the 1gb one or even the 2gb one.

as soon as u get those specs posted, be sure some suggestions will pop up.

GL and HF doing it

 

[mrtoesterman]

thanks for the help!! im glad i got it to 3.8ghz, now i want to pus this gpu a little bit. i don't see any pop ups?

 

[sharr]

1st. u have a very good and powerful GPU as it is. oc-ing the GPU at this point is more or less useless/useful. i doubt u will find any games, until Crysis comes out, which will need more processing power than your GPU can offer. usually its best to hang on to your base configurations until u actually need more from them.

2nd. your GPU has a very good cooler mounted on top of it so u should be, relatively, safe when thinking about the temps it will reach when under the OC.

3rd. your GPU is already factory OCed so it should give a decent ~10-12% performance increase over the reference model. going over that would mean pushing the GPU to its limits for only 3-5% of performance increase.

4th. pushing that already OCed GPU to its absolute limits means tweaking/raising the voltages which i, personally, DONT recommend especially on the FERMI series without watercooling on it. not to mention doing so means, if u dont find some software to allow voltage adjusting, flashing the BIOS of the GPU which isnt exactly "beginner overclocking".

5th. there are a couple of programs out there to help u OC the GPU. MSI Afterburner, Riva Tuner, etc. some of them are easy to use, others a little more complex, using driver manipulation, which again i dont recommend as a "beginner overclock".

6th. OCing a GPU is pretty much the same as OCing a CPU. u raise the frequencies in little increments of 5-15mhz at a time, hit apply, stress test for a little while, 15-30min and then raising/lowering them depending on the results. most of these programs, such as MSI Afterburner, come with with adjacent stress tester (Kombustor in MSI Afterburner's case). stress testing a GPU OC means looking out for high temps AND "ARTEFACTS". "artefacts" are "unusual" renderings which pop up on the screen. messed up pixels firing up the wrong way. they are pretty easy to spot, dont worry (most of the time )

my advise to u is to forget about OCing the GPU for now since u dont really need it and to return to this subject a few months from now when maybe there will be some games who actually need the extra juice. whatever u decide ...

GL and HF doing it

 

[mrtoesterman]

Sharr, with that being said about my GPU, i won't OC it at this time, i will tho when i get crysis. so for now, i will leave it as is!


the fan on this card kinda upset me in a way.... fo where heat moves up, not down.... the fans are facing down when i placed this GPU in my system.... kinda sucks in my view, because if the fans where mounting facing up, i think it would extract a couple more of *C better. only problem i have with this...


can i ask you about SLI?

can i SLI my GTX470 with a GTX460? if so, i was thinkin about the gigabyte gtx460 SOC

 

[mrtoesterman]

Best answer selected by mrtoesterman.

 

[sharr]

hmm ... i know for the past models (8000 and 9000 series) SLI bridging was possible where the higher clocked card would downclock to run at the same specs as the lower one (i.e. 9800 with 8800, the 9800 would run at 8800 specs).

I dont know if its still the case for the FERMI series.

my advice would be to stick to same card models for SLI since SLI isnt exactly bulletproof. there still are driver/software glitches here and there and the scaling for the two boards isnt always (near) perfect. i think, paring two different cards together is gonna cause more pains than satisfactions, but its my own, personal suggestion on the matter. the price difference between the two isnt that high anyways.

As always, whatever u decide ....

GL and HF doing it

 

[mrtoesterman]

thanks again sharr..... i was just considering the gtx460 SOC because the price, its >100 then the GTX470. but i guess i will stick to my single card until down the road... when they make something like a GTX 870... lol then the 470 would be nice n cheap then!... lol