(Asus GTX 980 Ti 6GB) Trouble with OC

[Faye]

I'm quite new to GPU overclocking, and mainly only having fun trying to find a stable overclock (i.e. stable in the games I play) for the card I got a couple of days ago. I don't mind playing on the stock OC, but very curious to know what more I could get out of it.

I've come across multiple overclock reviews/articles for this card, but I can't seem to reach any of the boosts these people are using without getting a crash in-game (or when running Heaven).

Questions:

1) Some overclock reviewers are showing, or saying, how they've increased the Core Voltage to +55, or even to +85. My card has a max cap of +50 – why is that? With +50, my V goes up to 1.212, which if I understand correctly is not extremely high? One article showed an OC for this (Asus) card at 1.218 V.

2) With the overclock as seen in the screenshot, I could complete Heaven's benchmark on Ultra without issues, but GTAV and ESO crashed randomly after 5-60 minutes of playing. I then reduced the Core Clock to +70 and Memory to +250, which stopped the crashes in GTA but not in ESO. I then went down even further to +60 / +220, which seems to be stable for ESO. Are these games just not handling OCs very well, or am I doing something wrong? Could my PSU (Corsair CS600W) be too weak? The overclock in the screenshot here is below what a lot of reviews/articles have done for this particular card during their tests, and they seem to have gotten it perfectly stable in all taxing games. Did I just have bad luck and get a card that's not very good for a higher overclock?

My specs:

ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition
i7-4930k at 3.9 Ghz
16 GB RAM at 1600 Mhz
1440p/60Hz monitor, running games/Heaven at native 1440p.
CS600W

 

[Kenrou]

BIOS mod more likely then not, mine made zero difference for OC, but i still use it to stop GPUBOOST throttling down my clocks :




As to the crashing you need to use Heaven on the highest possible quality settings for your resolution, not the default. You can also use the newer Superposition or 3DMark to test for 4K just to make sure its as close to 100% stable as possible.

 

[wellen1981]

Not sure if this helps and what others think but...
I have always found overclocking graphics cards to be a 2 part affair, there is bench stable (eg Unigine stable)...
Then there is game stable...

I found bench stable is always faster than game stable.
When looking at games I find BI games are the best way to see if actually game stable.

I use ArmA 2 DayZ mod as if overclock doesn't cause freeze on DayZ mod main menu screen, then all other games will run stable also.
If you don't own any BI games, you can download ArmA 2 OA demo and it has a benchmark scenario also ;o)

Sorry I don't have more exact advice.

Also, try to find GPU max first before altering mem stock and PWR stock.
Once you know GPU max you can put it on stock then do same test just for VRAM speed to find its max.
Then you will know the limits of your actual GPU and VRAM individually.

Regarding PWR sometimes raising this can actually introduce instability even if the GPU/VRAM clock speeds are stable.
I find doing PWR up in small steps AFTER finding max GPU and max VRAM, allows to see when PWR isn't stable.
It doesn't hurt to test GPU@stock, VRAM@stock and PWR@max to be sure PWR full is stable on its own or not.

I do believe that GDDR5 doesn't tend to allow for much overclocking compared to older GDDR VRAM - it tends to become unstable sooner than oc'ing the GPU. (you may get eg +16% GPU oc but only +5% VRAM oc)

I find GTA V is also a good stablity test but not the bench, you need to play to be sure (driving north-east-east of Franklins auntys house and stealing the buzzard from the govt building roof helps test as swooping and fast turning the buzzard induces crash if oc isn't 'game-stable'

Hope the above waffle helps.

edit: I have also started adding shaders on ShaderToy to my stability testing as these can show instability quicker than game testing (especially regarding memory overclocking of gfx card)

I recommend:
Seascape by TDM
Turn 'n Burn by Ingagard
and
Ladybug by iq (iq has lots of demanding shaders, worth a look)

(I am using Turn 'n Burn on a 7750 to find mem instability currently)

hth

 

[mackerel]

It is up to the card maker how much extra voltage adjustment they allow. If I'm seeing the screenshots correctly, you're trying to run the core at 1500? I can't say what my voltages are, but running at or near stock voltages, I hit stability problems on my two different 980 Ti cards around 1440 core from memory. More voltage may help get past that, but then you're looking at more heat.

 

[Johan45]

In MSI AB settings did you unlock voltage control, enable extended overclocking and enable unofficial overclocking?

 

[Dermen]

Reviewers don't make sure things are game stable like everybody else has said. My cards have never been stable in games after passing many Heaven runs.

Boost makes overclocking more complicated and the voltage slider doesn't work like it does on your motherboard. The card's BIOS has an entire table of boost levels along with a corresponding table of min and max voltages at that boost level. The card will adjust the boost level depending on temp and power consumption.

When you set +50mV it only adds that if there is room in the boost level your card decides to run at. If your card is stock 1.2v and you set +50 that is 1.25v. If the card is at boost level that only allows a max of 1.22v then you will only get 1.22v. If it is at a level that allows only 1.2v you will only get 1.2v. Usually this is limited by temps. In my specific case I can get 1.25v if my card is below 60C, from 60-78ish the max I can get is 1.212, above 78C the max is 1.199.

You can get around this by modifying the voltage table in the bios and flashing it to the card. The v table has an idle range, a load range, and then a range for each boost level. You can change the load range minimum to be lets say 1.25v. Then it overrides all the boost level voltages and you will get 1.25v under load at all boost levels. The voltage slider in afterburner will then do nothing. You can also edit the voltage in the individual boost tables. I think that might let you still have voltage control with afterburner but I haven't tested that so I'm not sure.

Sometimes you are also limited by power consumption. My card hasn't been so I have no experience with this. It can also be changed by modifying the BIOS. There is no giant table though, you can set the max and then set the max you want the afterburner slider to go to if you want to be able to use the afterburner slider.

 

[Kenrou]

Don't modify the voltage, instead change the TDP as Maxwell hates voltage and heat (unless you're watercooling the GPU). Also second Heaven not being enough, this is why i said use 3DMark or Superposition at 4K instead, i also had game crashes even after passing Heaven 2h stable (i game at 1080p).