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How is this possible - GTX 1660 Ti VRAM Overclock grew by +450Mhz

naxan90027

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I purchased my Gigabyte 1660 Ti about 2 years ago, and I've had it running on the same MSI afterburner overclock the whole time.
Core clock +150Mhz (would crash at +165)
RAM Clock +1000Mhz (would crash at +1050)
My GPU fans started making a ton of noise so I bought replacements. They took 3 weeks to arrive and didn't even work so I decided to just remove the shroud with the fans and put CPU fans on the heatsink (Linus style). Everything worked great and I was even running 5 degrees cooler, so I then decided to also remove the plastic backplate and stick some little heatsinks with thermal pads on the back of GPU, VRM and RAM. This took the temperature down 2 more degrees for a total of 7 and I decided to revisit the overclock. Now the GPU clock still maxes at a stable +150 Mhz, like before, but the VRAM didn't crash this time at +1050Mhz. So I kept adding little by little to the RAM clock until it reached the MSI Afterburner max of +1500Mhz and It never crashed or even flinched.
Please understand, this is my first built PC, and definitely my first disassembled GPU, which you will see by the horrible picture below. Please don't laugh too hard. How is it possible that the same GPU now overclocks the VRAM by+450 Mhz more than it ever could before. Can a simple 7 degree improvement cause this, or did I most likely break some sensor on the board and am probably frying my VRAM like an egg?
Here is what I did to test it:
I ran Heaven at extreme in the background with the GPU fans off at +150Mhz GPU Clock (total 2145Mhz) and +1500MHZ VRAM (total 7500Mhz X2) Once it reached 71 degrees with the GPU clock throttled to 2085Mhz, I turned the fans on full power and it actually came back down to 63 degrees compared to my previous average of 70. Once the degrees settled at 63 (GPU clock settled at 2100Mhz), I started the actual rated benchmark so it ran for quite a while with no issues at all. First screenshot below is the GPU, and second one is of the afterburner setting and graphs, the Heaven benchmark results, and Techpowerup GPU-Z stats.

Thanks!
 

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Nope you didn't break anything, you modded it for the better. Plastic backplates need to go away forever.
 

naxan90027

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You're right, I was a bit paranoid to run games on it but I took the risk and play Forza Horizon 4 at 4k Ultra for like 4 hours and it was working better than ever. I forgot to initially mention this, but I did also replace the original thermal pads and paste too. But it's still very surprising to learn how much is lost with poor manufacturing decisions. That ridiculous plastic backplate provided no rigidity, and was basically a soft cozy blanket for the GPU. I am a bit disappointed in myself for not realizing this sooner.
 
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Those GTX 1660s really seem to beg for VRAM OC'ing!

OTOH, my Zotac GTX 1660 Super with the GPU core, keeps running into the power limiter. Power limit in the VBIOS of my Zotac, is very low!

No lick of instability that I saw, (what often looks like slash-lines/slash-marks on the screen, often hard to spot) when I had my GTX 1660 Super VRAM at +206 in Afterburner. Really looks like I can go higher!

But the Super, is GDDR6. But looks like both VRAM variants of GTX 1660, definitely get more with a VRAM OC.
 
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Nope you didn't break anything, you modded it for the better. Plastic backplates need to go away forever.
They sure do. Glad MSI fitted mine with a graphene backplate so it helps cooling. That thing is very warm after a long gaming session.
 
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7500mhz x2 = 15ghz, if your ram is samsung (you can see in gpu-z what type of ram your gpu has) then you might be able to go even higher. I benched my 2080 samsung gddr6 at 16.9ghz in Crytek Noir without issue but could only do 16.4ghz in 3DMark without issues and for gaming I can't go above 16ghz without issues but 16ghz is fine for long periods of gaming.

As long as you're only increasing clock speed and not voltage your oc should be safe for your card.
 
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They sure do. Glad MSI fitted mine with a graphene backplate so it helps cooling. That thing is very warm after a long gaming session.
Y'all get backplates?
My graphics cards
Lucky!

Back on topic, congrats OP!
The max I could get on my cards was +575 MHz, but I'm running 2GB of GDDR5 on a 192-bit bus.
I also got +15 core.
Plus the cooler is VERY efficient for a blower.
 
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I suspect the power limit being exceeded with more than +15 Mhz for the core.
I also have the "Superclocked Edition" that gets me a +100 MHz boost to both base and boost clocks.
Max power limit is 110%.
 
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With my GTX 1660 Super, I had to accept defeat with the core, because I kept getting "pwr" as the reason for throttling every time in Unigine, it will do that at default boost.
 
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