Is Furmark overkill?

[xbonez]

I have my GTX470 currently OC'ed to Core: 770, Mem: 1700 and fan at 85%.

Furmark stress test makes my temps go up to about 83 deg, where as folding for 10hrs straight, or Artifact scan in ATI Tool never causes it to get any hotter than 70 degrees.

If I push my clocks any further, I lose display within 10min of Furmark (possibly due to lack of voltage despite having it at 1.087V which is the max), however, the card is still stable with ATI Tool and Folding.

Makes me wonder if Furmark is overkill. If the GPU is fine with ATI Tool, Folding, games, 3D Mark Vantage etc., but not with Furmark, is that recommended, or should I ensure my card is Furmark stable?

 

[Tatty_Two]

Yes it is overkill, it is an extreme stress test, some people wont touch it, it actually eats GPU's

 

[overclocking101]

one word, YES

 

[hat]

Nah. If it's not stable in furmark, then it's not stable. Keep the clocks furmark stable and never worry about gpu instability. It's not like the extra clocks you'll get by disregarding furmark and calling it gaming stable will give you any noticible benefit anyway.

 

[DanishDevil]

Furmark was made to be overkill.

Some people will ensure that their OCs are stable with the most strenuous programs. If you're going to throw a conniption fit and chuck your PC out the window if you crash during a game or folding/crunching, then make sure you're furmark stable. If you're not that anal about a crash here and there showing that your OCs may be a tad too high, then just use Furmark as a guide.

 

[{JNT}Raptor]

If your GPU is stable for folding/games/vantage....then yes your stable.

Furmark= Pure total overkill for GPU testing.

 

[theonedub]

How many WUs in a row has the 470 passed at those clocks? You can check in HFM.

 

[xbonez]

How many WUs in a row has the 470 passed at those clocks? You can check in HFM.

At current clocks, where it is Furmark stable, 100% successful WUs. I'll try pushing clockss a little more and run folding again for an hr or so and report back

 

[theonedub]

It may take more than an hour to see a failed WU.

Just recently I moved my card to 775c @ 1.0v and instead of running OCCT (similar to Furmark) for the usual 30min I ran it for 15mins. It passed so I let it go over night and it failed 2 out of 9WUs. Upped the Vcore to 1.012, ran OCCT for 30mins and let it Fold over night again. No failed WUs. In my experience if it doesn't pass 30mins OCCT/Furmark its not going to Fold stable either.

 

[xbonez]

It may take more than an hour to see a failed WU.

Just recently I moved my card to 775c @ 1.0v and instead of running OCCT (similar to Furmark) for the usual 30min I ran it for 15mins. It passed so I let it go over night and it failed 2 out of 9WUs. Upped the Vcore to 1.012, ran OCCT for 30mins and let it Fold over night again. No failed WUs. In my experience if it doesn't pass 30mins OCCT/Furmark its not going to Fold stable either.

True. I overclocked it slightly more (just beyond the limit of being Furmark stable), and it failed a WU while folding. Temp was at 66 (as opposed to the card's threshold temp of 105), so its probably lack of voltage. I'm at the limit of what the card supports (1.087V), so I'm now going to look into flashing with a custom BIOS.

 

[HammerON]

I would be very careful with trying to push the volts higher. 1.087V is high and is going to really heat the card up. If you are looking at folding with the GTX 470 I would stick with a decent overclock. I am not sure what advantage (points) you will see with a highly overclocked card.

And Yes Furmark is overkill and I have never used it and never will. I usually run Vantage and play games to check stability. I have heard about too many people killing their GPU's with Furmark due to overclocking. Just my two cents!

 

[streetfighter 2]

I checked the dictionary:

furmark
[fur-mahrk]

-noun
1. a software tool designed to exert maximum stress on graphics hardware.
2. Informal . overkill

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

OCCT scares me more than furmark, and has consistently proven itself to me as better at finding unstable clocks. Furmark has passed some really bad clocks, stuff that's unstable in any game. It's just not relevant for today's cards.

 

[xbonez]

Flashed my 470 with a custom BIOS.

@HammerOn: At 1.087V, under full load during Furmark, my GPu doesn't go above 83 deg. I still have headroom temp wise. If increasing voltages allows me to OC further, to the point where I am limited by temps, I'm willing to go liquid cooling.

EDIT

Sigh...so at 770/1700 its stable at 1.075V. If I increase clocks to 800/1700, I lost display within 5min of Furmark even if I increase voltage to 1.15V or more.
Why is it that I can't push my Core clock anymore even if I supply more voltage. There's no problem with temps.

 

[xbonez]

Flashed my 470 with a custom BIOS.

Sigh...so at 770/1700 its stable at 1.075V. If I increase clocks to 800/1700, I lose display within 5min of Furmark even if I increase voltage to 1.15V or more.
Why is it that I can't push my Core clock anymore even if I supply more voltage. There's no problem with temps.

Any thoughts?

 

[HammerON]

Sorry - don't know what to tell you

 

[EarthDog]

Furmark is brutal on cards. I tend to use it as a quick and dirty o/c test and temperature check. WHen I want to confirm GPU stablity for 24/7 I will either run the Crysis bench in a loop for a while, or Vantage looped for a while.

Any thoughts?

You *may* have it the OCP at those clocks and voltages. Either try backing down the voltage a notch, or clocks, or lower temps (even though you said you had no issues, the cooler it runs the higher you can go). You could have hit the top end as well.

 

[wolf]

furmark stable is as good as 110% stble, but I don't run it for more than about 15 minutes at a time, odds are you'd have a crash before then if its going to happen.

I don't like running my gear at 100% for extended periods of time.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Furmark, 2 words, personal taste. Anything past 3 loops at a minute each is more than enough to prove stability.

@xbonez

Just like CPU overclocking, once you get to a certain threshold, you can run into where you just cannot maintain stability no matter what you do. Although, the differences being between the 2 can be strictly just driver set/revision, meaning if you are able to clock more on one set than the other is what I am referring to.

@lan derf ha

In my experience, if you can get through an hour of OCCT Linpack 90% utilized, you are stable.

 

[cadaveca]

Furmark doesn't test vga ram = fail.

Like all other apps, it has it's purpose, but it not the end-all-be-all when it comes to stability testing.

 

[xbonez]

I'm getting rid of this GTX470 and getting another one - an EVGA with a Zalman aftermarket cooler. I'll try my OC'ing luck with that.

 

[AsRock]

Yes, as no game comes near to what the app stresses at. In my case at average it's around 80w more than any game i have seen use.


I have noticed all so some games manage the usage better than others too and have better graphics than some others what have a bigger power usage.

 

[wolf]

I'm getting rid of this GTX470 and getting another one - an EVGA with a Zalman aftermarket cooler. I'll try my OC'ing luck with that.

I'd get a 570 bro, unless perhaps you can get a stellar deal on the now EOL GTX470 or GTX480...

 

[xbonez]

I actually did get a great deal on the 470 I'm getting, so couldn't resist.

 

[driver66]

If it plays the games YOU play..... at the clocks YOU have set........ then it is stable