Overclocking 980 with stock voltage.

[testudo]

Hello,

I just purchased a Gigabyte Windforce G1 980. I want to try and overclock to EVGA's 980 SC, FTW or Classified. Obviously, I would choose the highest I can go on stock voltage.

Can I do this on stock voltage? How would I go about doing it? Can I use any OC tool, i.e. PrecisionX, Guru, Afterburner...?

I am really new at overclocking, but I read it is not that bad on this card. I just want a slight overclock to achieve the speed of the cards mentioned above and I don't want to mess around with voltage.

Gigabyte G1 980:
Base/Boost Clock: 1228 / 1239 MHz
Memory Clock: 7 Gbps

I would like to get it to:

EVGA 980 SC:
Base/Boost Clock: 1241 / 1342 MHz
Memory Clock: 7010 MHz

EVGA 980 FTW:
Base/Boost Clock: 1279 / 1380 MHz
Memory Clock: 7010 MHz

EVGA 980 Classified:
Base/Boost Clock: 1291 / 1393 MHz
Memory Clock: 7010 MHz

Thank you in advance for any and all help!

 

[mstenholm]

I'm 100 % sure that you can beat the stock clock of all of these GPUs without raising the voltage. In fact I dout that you can increase the voltage without a dedicated bios tool. Take the MSI Afterburner and raise the core clock 100 mHz. Use GPU-Z and see what Perfap reason says and we take it from there.

 

[testudo]

I'm 100 % sure that you can beat the stock clock of all of these GPUs without raising the voltage. In fact I dout that you can increase the voltage without a dedicated bios tool. Take the MSI Afterburner and raise the core clock 100 mHz. Use GPU-Z and see what Perfap reason says and we take it from there.

Thank you very much!

I actually have PrecisionX installed. That should work the same way, right?

 

[mstenholm]

Thank you very much!

I actually have PrecisionX installed. That should work the same way, right?

As far as I remember yes. I use Afterburner as you might have guessed.

 

[testudo]

As far as I remember yes. I use Afterburner as you might have guessed.

That's cool. PrecisionX has GPU Clock offset and Mem Clock Offset. How would I go about doing that?

 

[DinaAngel]

12329 mhz on boost, lol?

Gigabyte G1 980:
Base/Boost Clock: 1228 / 12329 MHz
Memory Clock: 7 Gbps

 

[mstenholm]

12329 mhz on boost, lol?

Did you ever mistype something? I do it all the time but I'm good at making an educated guess. I'm sure OP meant to write 1329.

 

[DinaAngel]

Did you ever mistype something? I do it all the time but I'm good at making an educated guess. I'm sure OP meant to write 1329.

we all do and its funny when we do such mistakes

 

[testudo]

12329 mhz on boost, lol?

Did you ever mistype something? I do it all the time but I'm good at making an educated guess. I'm sure OP meant to write 1329.

Ha...it's the super-supped up version!
Yeah, I meant 1329. How would I do it with the offset sliders?

 

[DinaAngel]

Ha...it's the super-supped up version!
Yeah, I meant 1329. How would I do it with the offset sliders?

the best way to get a great overclock is to do 10-20 mhz bumps and test each one for stabillity and make sure its artifact free.
memmory isnt something i recomend trying to oc since if it gets unstable then u generally hafto reboot to make clocks reset.
ocing can be super time consuming but do it slowly and u get the most rewarding result!

allways find your max overclock on default voltage. u do this by finding where it gets unstable or artifacts.
use a program like 3dmark vantage, i use that to test ocing on graphic cards. gpu-z has a small tool aswell for stabillity testing, fur test programs is really good too, like catzilla.

i will go to bed now so good luck!, ill check in morning on your replies

 

[testudo]

the best way to get a great overclock is to do 10-20 mhz bumps and test each one for stabillity and make sure its artifact free.
memmory isnt something i recomend trying to oc since if it gets unstable then u generally hafto reboot to make clocks reset.
ocing can be super time consuming but do it slowly and u get the most rewarding result!

allways find your max overclock on default voltage. u do this by finding where it gets unstable or artifacts.
use a program like 3dmark vantage, i use that to test ocing on graphic cards. gpu-z has a small tool aswell for stabillity testing, fur test programs is really good too, like catzilla.

i will go to bed now so good luck!, ill check in morning on your replies

Thank you very much!

Yeah, I am not going to mess with the Memory Clock, only the GPU Clock Offset. That is all have to do, right?

Good night and thanks again.

Okay, so all that I did was tick up the GPU Offset Clock to +63, which brought me to 1293 MHz and it boosted up to around 1455 MHz. I played a lot of Far Cry 4 and I had no crashing or artifacts. The card stayed below70 degrees and did not dip below 60 FPS, at all. In fact, I had really high FPS. Does this mean that I essentially have a Classified card? I mean, I set the clocks based on that card's specification.

I am going to run some more tests, but it seems to be working pretty great.

 

[DinaAngel]

Okay, so all that I did was tick up the GPU Offset Clock to +63, which brought me to 1293 MHz and it boosted up to around 1455 MHz. I played a lot of Far Cry 4 and I had no crashing or artifacts. The card stayed below70 degrees and did not dip below 60 FPS, at all. In fact, I had really high FPS. Does this mean that I essentially have a Classified card? I mean, I set the clocks based on that card's specification.

I am going to run some more tests, but it seems to be working pretty great.

I don't recommend using a game to test an overclock as it doesn't stress the card enough and game related bugs might show artifacts. I have generally coil whine in some benchmarks but not in games.
Make sure to find your max overclock and don't do it quickly, slowly and be ocd about artifacts as its super bad if you get artifacts. well when u want to break world records or become 9th in the world then you ignore artifacts and try get as much out of the cards as they let u before driver crashes. Iv almost killed my cards a couple of times with too high volts 1.55v but they worked after a week with very low power going into them. it generally works to make the copper in the GPU flow back and Relax atom tensions. But can be capacitors releasing theyr gas slowly from too high load and current

But I never recommend volt adjusting. If your card dies then low power probably won't work. Generally it only works if your gpus are classified or kingpin or lightning.


You asked if you have a Classified card. Well that will be better than yours but keep in mind that buying the cheapest 980 u can reach generally 1500 mhz even sometimes reference card can be better than a classified. It's all about sillicone lottery. A classified card might boost much further than a reference card. I could set to 50 mhz overclock and actual boost might go 100 mhz higher than what reference would do at same overclock

 

[testudo]

I don't recommend using a game to test an overclock as it doesn't stress the card enough and game related bugs might show artifacts. I have generally coil whine in some benchmarks but not in games.
Make sure to find your max overclock and don't do it quickly, slowly and be ocd about artifacts as its super bad if you get artifacts. well when u want to break world records or become 9th in the world then you ignore artifacts and try get as much out of the cards as they let u before driver crashes. Iv almost killed my cards a couple of times with too high volts 1.55v but they worked after a week with very low power going into them. it generally works to make the copper in the GPU flow back and Relax atom tensions. But can be capacitors releasing theyr gas slowly from too high load and current

But I never recommend volt adjusting. If your card dies then low power probably won't work. Generally it only works if your gpus are classified or kingpin or lightning.


You asked if you have a Classified card. Well that will be better than yours but keep in mind that buying the cheapest 980 u can reach generally 1500 mhz even sometimes reference card can be better than a classified. It's all about sillicone lottery. A classified card might boost much further than a reference card. I could set to 50 mhz overclock and actual boost might go 100 mhz higher than what reference would do at same overclock

Yeah, I am going to run more tests. I did not touch the voltage. In fact, I didn't touch anything but the GPU Clock Offset.

I just ran Unengine and that is what I scored (Ultra/2x AA/1080p):

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0
FPS:
101.2
Score:
4235
Min FPS:
33.3
Max FPS:
187.9

This is the first time I have ever tested or benchmarked. Is this a good score?

 

[DinaAngel]

Yeah, I am going to run more tests. I did not touch the voltage. In fact, I didn't touch anything but the GPU Clock Offset.

I just ran Unengine and that is what I scored (Ultra/2x AA/1080p):

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0
FPS:
101.2
Score:
4235
Min FPS:
33.3
Max FPS:
187.9

This is the first time I have ever tested or benchmarked. Is this a good score?

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/unigine-heaven-4-0-benchmark-scores.198888/
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/unigine-valley-benchmark-scores.183712/
we have threads for this

 

[rtwjunkie]

Yeah, I am going to run more tests. I did not touch the voltage. In fact, I didn't touch anything but the GPU Clock Offset.

I just ran Unengine and that is what I scored (Ultra/2x AA/1080p):

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0
FPS:
101.2
Score:
4235
Min FPS:
33.3
Max FPS:
187.9

This is the first time I have ever tested or benchmarked. Is this a good score?

Yes, that is a pretty good score.

 

[DinaAngel]

try see if u can beat this without upping the volts! i challenge you!

 

[testudo]

try see if u can beat this without upping the volts! i challenge you!

lol...now way! I am cool where I am. I am just going to keep what I have and get to some gaming! Nice score, though.

 

[DinaAngel]

lol...now way! I am cool where I am. I am just going to keep what I have and get to some gaming! Nice score, though.

yeah its my last bench on these cards, will give them to @Maban when he comes here in may. i will get myself a 390x or a titan x

 

[testudo]

Yes, that is a pretty good score.

yeah its my last bench on these cards, will give them to @Maban when he comes here in may. i will get myself a 390x or a titan x

Thanks!

Alrighty, here is what I have. I switched to 3DMark, and here are my scores. I think they are pretty good, right? And, here is the highest overclock that I could get with stock voltage:

What do you think?

 

[DinaAngel]

Thanks!

Alrighty, here is what I have. I switched to 3DMark, and here are my scores. I think they are pretty good, right? And, here is the highest overclock that I could get with stock voltage:

Spoiler

What do you think?

really good!

 

[MxPhenom 216]

the best way to get a great overclock is to do 10-20 mhz bumps and test each one for stabillity and make sure its artifact free.
memmory isnt something i recomend trying to oc since if it gets unstable then u generally hafto reboot to make clocks reset.
ocing can be super time consuming but do it slowly and u get the most rewarding result!

allways find your max overclock on default voltage. u do this by finding where it gets unstable or artifacts.
use a program like 3dmark vantage, i use that to test ocing on graphic cards. gpu-z has a small tool aswell for stabillity testing, fur test programs is really good too, like catzilla.

i will go to bed now so good luck!, ill check in morning on your replies

no you want to do it in 13-26mhz increments because kepler and Maxwell boost states are in 13mhz increments. So whatever you do, increase the core clock by 13, or something higher that is a multiple of 13.

 

[DinaAngel]

no you want to do it in 13-26mhz increments because kepler and Maxwell boost states are in 13mhz increments. So whatever you do, increase the core clock by 13, or something higher that is a multiple of 13.

then why is the only number on @W1zzard review http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_980_Matrix/31.html
Gigabyte GTX 980 G1
1508 MHz / 13 = 116

but every other one of them is
ASUS GTX 980 Matrix1536 MHz
1536 / 13 = 118,1538461538462

ASUS GTX 980 STRIX1516 MHz
1516 / 13 = 116,6153846153846

MSI GTX 980 Gaming1518 MHz
1518 / 13 = 116,7692307692308

NVIDIA GTX 9801476 MHz
1476 / 13 = 113,5384615384615

i dont see how its
§because kepler and Maxwell boost states are in 13mhz increments. So whatever you do, increase the core clock by 13§

 

[MxPhenom 216]

then why is the only number on @W1zzard review http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_980_Matrix/31.html
Gigabyte GTX 980 G1
1508 MHz / 13 = 116

but every other one of them is
ASUS GTX 980 Matrix1536 MHz
1536 / 13 = 118,1538461538462

ASUS GTX 980 STRIX1516 MHz
1516 / 13 = 116,6153846153846

MSI GTX 980 Gaming1518 MHz
1518 / 13 = 116,7692307692308

NVIDIA GTX 9801476 MHz
1476 / 13 = 113,5384615384615

i dont see how its
§because kepler and Maxwell boost states are in 13mhz increments. So whatever you do, increase the core clock by 13§

there is a margin of error of +- 1mhz, so usually you have to do 13+1 to be at that boost state. If you overclock in other increments you will be in the middle of one of the boost states, and the card will automatically default to the previous boost state. I have done a bunch of experimenting with my 780 on how it works since i did a softmod with the bios to get more voltage. I do believe maxwell has maintained the 13mhz boost increments. Take a look at this from OCN GTX780/Kepler owners thread for OC.

Second Post, http://www.overclock.net/t/1393791/official-nvidia-gtx-780-owners-club "How to OC and Understand the Increments of 13"