Asus GTX560 DCII (For Battlefield 3)

[aaron_c]

Hey guys, I'm tinkering with MSI Afterburner and working on overclocking this new graphics card I got to run Battlefield 3 as the highest possible level. I have slowly bumped it up from 850 core/1700 shader MHz (factory) to 900/1800 and, with the GPU fan speed at 100%, have only reached 50*C for a few seconds at a time before dropping back off to 49*C. So far, as this is my first time to ever OC anything, I have two questions.

1. Why is it that this MSI Afterburner, even though I save the settings, just reverts to default settings if I change profiles? I'd like to have one standard/non-overclocked setting that will run quietly, and one overclocked with 100% fan speed for BF3..but it won't save. Is there potentially a better, but still user-friendly, program that I could use? Smartdoctor and other Asus OC programs crash BF3 for some reason.

2. Maybe more importantly, other than running into temps of 85+ or graphical errors, at what point should I stop increasing my clocks? How much is just too much, or can I theoretically just keep bumping it up no matter what until I get a reason not to?

Thanks in advance!

 

[saint19]

1. AFAIK that overclock only work with the active profile (the profile that did the OC) and not all overclocks at least that you change the BIOS of the GPU. Afterburner is the most friendly and used.
2. Your limit are the temps and voltage, so, as long as you can go with good temps and keep the GPU and rig stable try to do it.

 

[aaron_c]

So with Afterburner, should I be able to set up profile 1 and profile 2, and alternate between the two? Or should I just maintain the overclock only with Afterburner and just leave it turned off when I'm not gaming (and thus needing the increased performance)?

 

[saint19]

Sure, you can create five profiles and change among then as you want and depending of the use that your want.

 

[Amphoteric]

I use nBitor (really user friendly GUI based bios editing program for nVidia GPU based cards) and am currently running a basic EVGA GTX560Ti with 900/1800 clocks (800/1700 stock). I have so-so ventilation in my case, an office ambient temperature of 78F/25C and my card idles at 30C with 30% fan speed. I run folding at home which maxes the card at 100% GPU load and temps hit 69C~72C with 80% fan speed. You can edit fan/loads/temps in nBitor for any load/temp situation. You can also edit voltages and I currently use stock voltages. At stock voltages the best bump I was able to achieve was 950/1850 but I didn't care for the fan noise or the 81C temps. Hope this helps!

 

[thewizkid]

hmm... the normal GTX 560 from nvidia works PERFECT on my pc ... its like a miracle for a boy who played crysis 2 and BF3 with 8400 GS :lol:

 

[aaron_c]

Is it not possible to unlock the voltage adjustment for this card or something? I checked the box to unlock it in MSI Afterburner settings but it still won't let me adjust. ASUS' GPUTweak did let me, but the ASUS software causes BF3 to crash at the end of every round.

I can get around 35-40fps with the GTX560 clocked as it is out of the box with graphics set to high, but would like a bit better than that.

 

[saint19]

To got the MSI Afterburner folder and look for the cfg file, open it with notepad and change the "unlock voltage" option from 0 to 1

 

[verstings]

I just maintain the overclock only with Afterburner and just leave it turned off .

 

[aaron_c]

Thanks Saint! I initially hoped to not need the voltage boost, but it already started getting unstable at around 925mhz (as in, frequent random crashes with both BF3 and Unigine benchmark). Tomorrow, I'll toy with the voltage as well and see how it responds.

 

[aaron_c]

To got the MSI Afterburner folder and look for the cfg file, open it with notepad and change the "unlock voltage" option from 0 to 1

Actually, it tells me 'access denied' when I try to change it in notepad. Any workarounds?

 

[saint19]

Actually, it tells me 'access denied' when I try to change it in notepad. Any workarounds?

Close the program before do that.

 

[aaron_c]

Yeah, I made sure it was closed before trying and was still unable to change it. I can access it and change from '0' to '1', but when I click save, it doesn't save and says 'Access is Denied.'

 

[saint19]

Disable UAC, reboot the rig and try again. Make you sure that you have admin right in the rig.

 

[aaron_c]

Well, that sort of worked! Haha, it did let me save the value at '1' for 'unlockvoltagecontrol' in the CFG file and I did go into the settings and check the boxes, but still nothing so it may be some sort of compatibility issue.

I can, of course, use ASUS GPUTweak and it works for voltage but the max allowed overclock on that one is 950mhz and I was wanting to see if I could get it a bit higher than that.

 

[saint19]

What afterburner version do you have?

 

[aaron_c]

Mine is version 2.1.0

 

[saint19]

Try with this version:

http://www.4shared.com/zip/8JIg7Tmp/MSIAfterburnerSetup150_Extreme.html

 

[aaron_c]

Tried it, still no bueno! I don't know what the deal is on it, but who knows, maybe I don't need to push my overclock any further than GPUTweak allows me anyway haha. I'm running BF3 right now at 925MHz core clock with 1075mV on voltage, 1063MHz memory, and have my user defined fan speeds set up as well (though they look far less appealing than the smooth, rounded out user defined settings do when you're done).

 

[saint19]

Uhmmm so, could be the GPU himself

 

[aaron_c]

Best answer selected by aaron_c.

 

[saint19]

This topic has been closed by Saint19