First time AMD RX480 Overclocking Advice needed

First time using an amd video card. Just looking for some advice to get (at least)1400 core 2100 mem.

Whats the max safe voltage for 24/7 operation?

And What is Power Limit, and how does it affect the OC?

Note: The card is https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150774


The Starting Point: 1288 core clock, 2000 Memory clock, stock variable voltage

Display driver : Crimson ReLive 17.1.2

You could start here. http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/777724-8GB-XFX-GTR-overclocking-how-did-I-do

Okay Well, the baseline scored http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/17837776

And....the OC to 1339mhz core scored http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/17837870


hmm...Power limit is maxxed out at 20% on MSI Afterburner and AMD WattMan.

Is it the beta drivers maybe?

And core voltage slider keeps resetting to 0 on Afterburner. Any idea why?


UPDATE: 1339 Mhz core, 2100 mhz memory, http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/17838034

It is having a really hard time keeping the core stable though. Attempting to fix the voltage issue and go from there.

Update: unlocked the power limit to 50%. Current stable test: Stock voltage, 1344 MHz core, 2250 MHz Memory. Tried 1384, but even with +48mV was unable to keep the ball rolling.

Power usage topped off at ~145 watts according to Afterburner. I lack the equipment necessary to test from wall though.

Time Spy: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/17838595

Temps Topped out at 70C but went no higher.

Core fluctuations have also disappeared, was power throttling.

How far can I safely push the mV before I risk damage?

I think there is the same max voltage on all these cards ( I haven't seen more but I can be wrong ) and will be about ~1.25V what is safe.
All you need to OC this card is higher voltage and unlocked power limit which you have. Later all depends on card. Some will make 1350, some will make 1450. My card has 1338MHz stock boost but won't run stable at 1400+ regardless of settings. I can run benchmarks up to 1450MHz but that's all.

Alright, I'll stop where I am then. Gotta test it for extended stability, but I'm happy with the results.

1384+ is out of the question. As a final attempt to get it to work i pushed +100mV on it, just to see if i could get it to go, but no dice. Ah well, from 1288 to 1344/2250 with a DECREASE in voltage by -6mV. Dropped temps to cap at 64C from 70C. May try to drop volts more later, but I don't feel like killing my card just yet, I just got the thing!

I did have a major artifacting issue that popped up as I was applying the 50% power mod though. I launched msi afterburner with the shortcut mod again before the regedit was applied by accident*autostart* and it forced me to restart the pc. Things seem okay, but I really hope I didn't damage anything

Suppressor1137 said:

hmm...Power limit is maxxed out at 20% on MSI Afterburner and AMD WattMan.

Is it the beta drivers maybe?

Click to expand...

Maybe. As far as I know the power limit should be +50%. Try the non beta driver? Your PSU seems beefy enough for +50%. You allow the card to draw more power. I didn't do it because I got my case fans regulated down for a quiet operation but you could also increase the temp target. Both settings should allow you to avoid thermal throttling.

This video should give you some insight.

I would doubt that just by increasing the power limit artifacts appear, maybe the OC was too high.

So 1344/2250 -6mV is your final settings then? 64 °C is pretty cool though, see what you can push with steering towards 70-75 °C. If you don't need to really crank up the voltage for more I'd say there's some headroom left. You didn't post all your steps but if you went from 1344 to 1384 you should use smaller increments as you hit the wall. Try 1350.

At this point, the gains from 1344 to 1350 are so marginally small that it isn't worth the heat generated. I ran 1320 as my first step up from 1288. Had issues until the power limit was unlocked. I have it set to 50%, but I really only need 30% for my clocks.

After that, I pushed it up 24, to 1344. I also lowered voltage from stock, to see if I could. It ran without issues.

Then bumped to 1360, can do it, but couldn't find a happy place for temps/Fan noise level. Cranked it up to 1384, and threw volts at it, locked fan speed to 100% to prevent temps from going over 70C, and it failed to complete even one benchmark.

At 1360, and 80% fan speed it was pushing 72C, Bumping it up to 100% kept it under 68C, but that card is LOUD at 100%.

From what I was reading, 70C is where you want to stop for 24/7 OC's to preserve lifetime.

So I DEFINITELY can't get 1400+ on my card, but from the marginal 1-2 fps potential, I'd say I'm satisfied at my temps/noise level.

The cooler definitely isn't as good as the red devil that I could have gotten, but Whatever, Its now a little faster than their black edition for $209.

I really want another one for crossfire now, but will have to clock it back down for temps for sure. My case is noisy enough as is, and I can't afford a Watercooling setup just yet.


It is worth it to note Mem clock from 2150 to 2250 gave a substantial boost to the final score, from 4287 to 4504. I cranked it down, and score was again 4285, and back up, to 4504

But even that boost to the score was only a 1.5 fps average increase. I'm just surprised it made such a difference.

I'm half tempted to push the memory further, but I nailed a rather high clock in comparison to the average card performance, and I Really don't want to brick this card yet lol.

Sub 70 °C degress seems a little overcautios to me. Personally I'm fine with anything under 80 °C (I don't game all day long though).

When you've hit diminishing returns yet I think that's as far as you should go (except for benching ).

I was suuuper tired last night at 5am.

idkfa said:

Sub 70 °C degress seems a little overcautios to me. Personally I'm fine with anything under 80 °C (I don't game all day long though).

When you've hit diminishing returns yet I think that's as far as you should go (except for benching ).

Click to expand...

When the card gets a bit older, I'll probably be a little less conservative.

I had to clock down the memory to 2150 due to memory errors. I was getting ~ 1.5 errors a second according to HWinfo64 under load.

Final results of Overclocking Last night:

Core: 1350 MHz

Memory: 2150 MHz

Voltage: -6mV

I'm going to push the volts lower today to see how low I can get it to run to possibly reduce heat more.

EDIT: And This morning the undervolt is not accepted.

Anyone care to share their undervolting with similar OC's to see how my card compares?

EDIT: I'm done overclocking this card for now. Satisfied with my results, and boosted its performance by ~ 7-8 fps from stock settings. Temps get to around 73C when the ambient isnt 14C(its 21C right now).

Final numbers:

Core: 1344MHz

Memory: 2150MHz

Voltage: -6mV

Max power draw: ~146 Watts

Max Temp: 73C

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/17850491

Suppressor1137 said:

Ah well, from 1288 to 1344/2250 with a DECREASE in voltage by -6mV. Dropped temps to cap at 64C from 70C.

Click to expand...

These results are great, no point going any higher at the cost of temps and voltage.

Out of interest why the weird number ie 1344?

If it crashes at 1345 then I'd wind it back to say 1340.

Update:

Pushed it to 1350, dropped memory to 2120, upped vcore to +24mV

After ~ 7 minutes of stability testing, a recoreded voltage spike showed 1.263V.

Are little spikes like that okay?

Temps topped off at 72C. I added a lot of voltage to account for some slight artifacts I was seeing, and the added voltage seemed to fix it. But just curious if having those spikes are okay.