Will my GPU Overclock on a better MOBO

[shaggs2riches]

Just as the title says. I installed a EVGA GTX 560ti 448classified ultra in my computer a couple weeks ago. I'm gonna be getting a whole new intel motheboard, processor, and ram setup in 5 months. But I bought card to replace my 8800gt so that I could enjoy some of the current games at a better quality and framerate. Its been running great playing Rage on everything set to the highest setting and only 8xAA with no textures because of my current processor and ram not being able to do it. My current setup is as follows:

HAF-922 Case
M2N-E Motherboard
Coolermaster V8 cooler
AMD Athalon 64 x2 6000+
3gb Kingston 333mhz Ram
EVGA GTX 560ti 448 Classified Ultra
800w psu

Not sure if the rest of the system matters at this point. I'm playing at 1080p resolution on a 40inch Sony Bravia. Last night just for the hell of it I decided to try out the precision settings just to see how easy I could overclock it. I have no reason other than curiosity and figure that its pointless until I can upgrade the rest of my system. None the less I was bored and wanted to give it a try. With precision x and OC Scanner I found no artifacts running the card from the stock 810GPU/1620shader/1950Memory up to 900GPU/1800shader/2050 memory. I was able to run the scanner with furry test for 45minutes fan at 65% voltage at the factory 1.05, showing zero artifacts and only hitting a ceiling of 76 degrees C. I thought that it would be stable, so I ran up 3DMark 11. It only made to the second demo video before the 1st test and it forced a close out of the program with a note that the GPU crashed. My card log only showed it hitting 78 degrees however. I dropped to 890gpu and tried again. This time it closed again halfway through the second video. I dropped the memory back to 1950 and the GPU to 882 and this time it ran smooth and hit a temp ceiling of 78 degrees. I raised the fan to 70% and saved my profile to test it out in game play. In game I can now smoothly run 16xAA but still no textures cause of only dual cores. The frame rate anywhere in the game hasn't dropped below 59fps. I have Skyrim to test it on but waiting till I finish Rage before starting that one. To make a long story short I'm just curious if when I get a better motherboard, processor, and ram (oh and a SS drive) will I be able to push the card farther??? I've read about way better Overclocks on this card, so thinking that it might be the rest of my system holding it back. Again this was just out of curiosity and it was the first time I ever attempted any type of overclocking. Any thoughts thanks???

 

[inzone]

When overclockong the video card did you add any voltage to the core? The classified cards from Evga are supposed to be able to be overclocked a lot higher and naturally you will have to adjust the voltage settings to do so. I don't know at what clock speed you will have to adjust the voltage but it may be that it's 900mhz.

 

[drums101]

no unfortunately getting a better motherboard/ram and cpu will not allow your card to oc any further.

 

[shaggs2riches]

I'll try upping the voltage one tick and see how that handles. Just reading around and others on the standard ti sounded like they started on a lower voltage than 1.05. I'll try that and see how it handles. Would like a stable 900mhz (which sounded like this card should be able to handle) the memory clock sounded like its pointless raising any higher. I'll just go for a higher gpu with slightly higher voltage. If I can go 900 I'll be happy.

 

[drums101]

sounds like you got it all figured out...just keep an eye on the temps when raising the voltage....if they stay within reasonable values you will be set.

 

[inzone]

The Classified cards from Evga were made to be seriously overclocked and part of that overclocking process is adding voltage. Just like adding voltage to a cpu do it in the lowest increments bit by bit it won't take much to make it stable.

 

[shaggs2riches]

tried to run it again at 900mhz and then 890mhz at 1.063v. On the 900mhz it crashed when loading the first demo video, on the 890 it crashed at the beginning of the second test. Is this common??? Should I just try adding another click or two of voltage and see where that brings me??? Just worried about overdoing it. But like pointed out this was suppose to be a good overclocker so not sure what gives.

 

[shaggs2riches]

Got it to run EVGA furry test for 15 minutes at 890mhz with voltage set at 1076mv (err 1.076v). I then ran up 3Dmark11 and it went through everything fine from what I can tell. Here is the score it gave me:

Score
P3373 3DMarks
Graphics Score
6181
Physics Score
1470
Combined Score
1369
PC Health Check
Your PC is performing properly.


Definitely not the greatest but I'll take it. Next I'll monitor everything while playing an hour or so of Rage on 1080p (3dmark is on the 720p cause I'm using the free version). If it seems to run smoothly I'll try the next step at 900mhz. Being this is the first time I've ever tried this , its kinda exciting. Enough for tonight I'll continue tomorrow after work.

 

[inzone]

The thing with overclocking is that when you do get to the point where you need to add voltasge then you have to do it in the smallest increment or click there is in the software peogram. So if one click went from 1.063v to 1.076 then that's what you do one click at a time because you only want to add the amount of voltage that it needs to be stable and then you move on the next mhz you want to get to.
This is why overclocking is a tiedious time consuming process that requires a lot of patience. The end result is being satisfied with your achievement at getting a stable fast overclock, So remember with voltage and mhz also it's one click at a time.

 

[shaggs2riches]

I'll keep that in mind thanks. So far it worked fine at stock volts up to 885mhz when I jumped to 890 it didn't do it with only one volt tick. When I start working up to 900mhz I'll work up to it in 2mhz increments. When I hit a point that it won't run stable at this voltage, I'll back it off one MHz and see if that can run smooth. If it does a furry and tessy test for 30minutes each with good temps. I'll run 3dmark. Then I'll game for a while. Depending how well it's doing I'll decide whether I want to try upping the voltage to clock higher. Makes sense though that you are trying to achieve the highest overclock with lowest voltage and ideal temps.

 

[wolfram23]

You should always adjust the GPU core and memory - as well as testing them - independantly from eachother. Generally you can't add more voltage for the memory, and adding core voltage only very, very slightly affects VRAM stability. So I usually advise adjusting the VRAM speed up first with Furmark tests at 4xAA. Particularily with VRAM you might find a stress test stable, but actual gaming is not. Also know that with GDDR5, if you run Furmark in benchmark mode (say, 5 minutes at specific settings) you can compare scores, if at a certain point the score is the same or lower, then you've reached the max speed of the VRAM. Any higher and it will likely crash. Ideally, lower it 5-10mhz from there.

With GPU core it's a little easier. Just raise it until the temps are too high or it artifacts/crashes. You can decide if you want to raise the voltage or not. With 1.05V stock I probably wouldn't go higher than 1.2V, although IMO for longevity it's best to just squeeze what you can out of it at stock volts.

 

[shaggs2riches]

Best answer selected by shaggs2riches.

 

[shaggs2riches]

Hey thanks again for the help working through this. So over the past few evenings I played with my settings to see where I can get. It was a hot week so my house was at or around 35c so I figured that I would like to get a comfortable clock and temp when its this warm out. Basically it seems that at stock voltage 882mhz and stock memory (didn't try to oc memory on this setting yet though) I was able to see the best returns over-all when I went back to test 885mhz I ran furry stress test and got a no go unless I upped the voltage by one tick. In the furry and tessy benchmarks I wasn't getting much different scores from the 882mhz at stock and a higher temp. From there I went to 888 and found that I had to go another voltage click or else there would be artifacts within 3 minutes of stress tests. 1.76v was good till 894mhz where I quite literally in all my bench tests was seeing a lesser score than before (confused why this would happen). When I jumped to 900mhz I tried to run it up and it would run the tests in windowed mode but not full screen, so I upped the voltage again. This time I saw a better score than my 882mhz profile, but the temps hovered around 86c the entire test. At that point I just decided that it wasn't worth it to me to go any farther and be happy with the 882mhz and stock voltage. When I get the chance I will play with the memory and see if I can get it a bit faster, but not overly worried because my game play is looking smooth and after two hours of rage (I know probably no challenge compared to other games) I was getting a max temp of 71c. I got a phenom ii x945 and 6GB Ballistix BLS2G2D80EBS1S00 DDR2 800mhz memory for cheap from local old stock about to be installed. I'm also upgrading to windows 7 64-bit from 32 bit. Not a super huge improvement but to get me by the next while it will be better than I got. I'll just keep this setup for a bedroom computer and do a completely new build from the ground up.

 

[shaggs2riches]

I've run my card for about a week at stock settings fan 60% in the daytime when my wife and kids are just watching shows or browsing the web. When I play a game I turn the saved 882mhz settings on. The other evening I thought to try upping the memory. On the first try I go from the stock 1950 to 2000. I run the tessy test up and it runs fine for 14minutes then I walk away to leave it do it's thing. I come back and find that the test had stopped and my temps had reached 90c which is where I have the test set to stop if it gets that hot. I didn't try to do it again and set it back to 1950mhz. By this time the card was at 39c so I run a test and it gets over 85c right away. I shutdown the computer and try again at 870mhz and the same thing happens. I put it at stock and it runs about 5-7degrees hotter in tests and gaming in a 20degree room than before in a 35degree room. (I've been recording all my tests on paper as I've been going along. I don't even want to try setting up to 882/1950 like I've been running it fine for a week. I'm worried that it will heat up again. Wondering if the thermal paste went?? Or also thinking of doing a complete driver uninstall and reinstall to see if that corrects thing. Maybe something went a bit off when it got hot there?? Any thoughts??

 

[wolfram23]

That temp doesn't sound unreasonable IMO. With OC's like that you'll want to crank the fan speed up a lot more. Yeah, gets loud... that's just part and parcel of OCing stuff, and is also why people go water cooling.

It's possible that a bit of dust or something with the case air flow has changed as well.

 

[shaggs2riches]

Thanks I played with it back at 882/1950 last night. Ran furry test for 20minutes and then the furry benchmark. I set the fan to 70% and it never got over 75c. When I have time this weekend I will play with the memory again and only up in 10mhz intervals to see where the point of heat starts to climb. Then I'll set my fan profile to 70% base and aggressive climb once it passes 75c. Hopefully I can find a happier point with better gains. I have my computer hooked to my 40inch LCD and sound encoded through fiber to my sound system. No worries about excess noise if I turn the volume higher.

 

[shaggs2riches]

Ugh now I'm just irritated. Haven't looked at news, but went browsing the online store I bought my card from only to find that had I waited three weeks I could have gotten a gtx660ti superclocked for the same price as what I paid for my 560ti. Gotta have the worst timing when I buy things like this.