Zotac Gtx460 AMP edition.

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 14:49

Had this for about a year and never messed with it, however im starting to want to play games at higher settings and was looking at overclocking.

Never overclocked a gpu before, and i was wondering:

A) It is already at 810 Core 1620 Shader and 4000 memory, is there much more I can do without going serious with hydro cooling etc. My Temps are around 80 odd at stress now FYI

B)What is the best program I can buy/download to stress test it.

Sorry i know they are stupid questions but i dont want to kill it just yet lol.

Marine-RX179 · 15 Jul 2011 at 14:56

Along as you are not using crazy voltage you'll be fine on air. Also, for the GTX460 it's not the temp you should be worrying about for overclocking, it's more dependent on whether or not you got a decent GPU chip for your particular card. Some will go as high as 950MHz, while others might start artefacting just a little bit beyond 800MHz.

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 14:56

Actually Just read temps with crysis warhead at full and with full AA (just to max it lol) and its running at 72

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 14:59

Marine-RX179 said:
Along as you are not using crazy voltage you'll be fine on air. Also, for the GTX460 it's not the temp you should be worrying about for overclocking, it's more dependent on whether or not you got a decent GPU chip for your particular card. Some will go as high as 950MHz, while others might start artefacting just a little bit beyond 800MHz.

I feel really stupid asking this, but what do you mean? lol

EDIT: And at the moment it is just a bog standard Zotac Amp edition 1024Mb.

Marine-RX179 · 15 Jul 2011 at 15:03

Chris. said:
I feel really stupid asking this, but what do you mean? lol

Have a look at how to use MSI Afterburner:

As for downloading MSI Afterburner, just google it and download from the official MSI Afterburner site directly...ignore what it says about downloading in the video.

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 15:50

So ive downloaded all three now ill see what happens.

Also, if i force CPU on PhysX on kombustor i get like 300fps its silly. Is it worth setting physx processor to cpu in nvidia options, as my CPU is an overclocked hex core AMD, and probably a bit more capable than my card?

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:00

Its not giving me an option to unlink shader and core clock settings, do i increase those together and test for artifacts based on both options, or is there a setting im missing?

Also, what is more important for graphic performance the core clock?

Sorry i know im a noob with this stuff XD.

Marine-RX179 · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:13

Chris. said:
Its not giving me an option to unlink shader and core clock settings, do i increase those together and test for artifacts based on both options, or is there a setting im missing?

Also, what is more important for graphic performance the core clock?

Sorry i know im a noob with this stuff XD.

I believe the GTX460 the core clock and shader clock are linked and you can't unlink them like some cards do. I would try for 900MHz core clock on your card. If you get crashes, then you might need to up the voltage a bit; however if you are getting artefacts rather than crashes, you might need to reduce your core clock.

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:13

Thanks for the advice, upped now from 810C, 4000M, 1620S to 864C, 4150, 1780 with no artefacts and still under 80 degrees.

Will mess a bit more when im back home later lol.

Im amazed how like 10 mhz can make such a difference to fps in kombustor, my combined has gone from 12 to 20fps on extreme with 16x MSAA (still crap i know)

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:15

Marine-RX179 said:
I believe the GTX460 the core clock and shader clock are linked and you can't unlink them like some cards do. I would try for 900MHz core clock on your card. If you get crashes, then you might need to up the voltage a bit; however if you are getting artefacts rather than crashes, you might need to reduce your core clock.

Oh so there is still more to go then?

Also why does firestorm say that my mem clock is in the 4000's and afterburner say its in the 2000's?

Im guessing then that its the 2000's?

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:18

Also, and i promise this is the last question..

What memory clock should i be aiming at, or is it just the core and shader i should be concentrating on?

Youve been a massive help btw mate!

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:31

Crashed on 900 and not wanting to upset the temps any more, have just settled with the following:

Core: 870
Shader: 1740
Memory: 4200

One last thing though, ive left the fan on auto, but ive user defined the curve so it is at max at around 70, and about 50% from 50.

Is this ok or should i be running it high all of the time?

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:48

Never mind its running kombustor smooth but when playing crysis its worse than before!

It crashed and autodownclocked back to 810 and 1620 shader! argh

Marine-RX179 · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:53

Chris. said:
Crashed on 900 and not wanting to upset the temps any more, have just settled with the following:

Core: 870
Shader: 1740
Memory: 4200

One last thing though, ive left the fan on auto, but ive user defined the curve so it is at max at around 70, and about 50% from 50.

Is this ok or should i be running it high all of the time?

For the fan settings, temp is fine as even up to the low 80C for the GPU. I would say however aim for 78C max. You can lower the fanspeed at long as the temp is not too high when peaked and it would be easier on the ears for you.

As for overclocking, you can keep on trying to push your overclocking higher. I recall seeing one review of the GTX460 AMP they managed to clock it to 925MHz. And no you don't need to worry about damaging the card...as long as the temp is under control, and you are not using crazy voltage, the worst case you gonna get is crashes. By the way can you adjust voltage on your card (think you need to enable it in MSI Afterburner settings first)?

Memory at 4200 is fine for now...focus on overclocking the core instead, as it has direct impact on the frame rate unlike the memory clock it doesn't really do a lot.

If you got any more questions, do feel free to ask

People are always happy to help around it; it is people that asked for advice and then ignore the advice that are given, and then screw up and ask for help again...these are the people that would tick people off

Marine-RX179 · 15 Jul 2011 at 16:58

Chris. said:
Never mind its running kombustor smooth but when playing crysis its worse than before!

It crashed and autodownclocked back to 810 and 1620 shader! argh

Use the game for testing stability of the overclock, not the kombustor, cause artificial stress is different to games, as it stress the card differently:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/zotac-gtx460-amp-edition-review/15/

When I was trying to find a overclock settings that's stable for my 5850, I had to crash through BFBC2 for like about 30 times to find the highest stable overclock

Oh, and try to drop your memory clock back to stock for now, and focus only on the core clock.

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 19:03

Marine-RX179 said:
For the fan settings, temp is fine as even up to the low 80C for the GPU. I would say however aim for 78C max. You can lower the fanspeed at long as the temp is not too high when peaked and it would be easier on the ears for you.

As for overclocking, you can keep on trying to push your overclocking higher. I recall seeing one review of the GTX460 AMP they managed to clock it to 925MHz. And no you don't need to worry about damaging the card...as long as the temp is under control, and you are not using crazy voltage, the worst case you gonna get is crashes. By the way can you adjust voltage on your card (think you need to enable it in MSI Afterburner settings first)?

Memory at 4200 is fine for now...focus on overclocking the core instead, as it has direct impact on the frame rate unlike the memory clock it doesn't really do a lot.

If you got any more questions, do feel free to ask People are always happy to help around it; it is people that asked for advice and then ignore the advice that are given, and then screw up and ask for help again...these are the people that would tick people off

Thanks, and yeah that annoys me on the car forums with people ignoring advice, but like I said I haven't got a clue what I am doing so ignoring advice would be a bit daft.

Ill keep trying with crysis, it did however run the EA logo at 1920x1080 before it crashed so im well happy lol, even if it runs the game fine on full, the ea logo never seemed to work before haha.

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 19:05

Marine-RX179 said:
Use the game for testing stability of the overclock, not the kombustor, cause artificial stress is different to games, as it stress the card differently:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/zotac-gtx460-amp-edition-review/15/

When I was trying to find a overclock settings that's stable for my 5850, I had to crash through BFBC2 for like about 30 times to find the highest stable overclock

Oh, and try to drop your memory clock back to stock for now, and focus only on the core clock.

Ok im going to have another go now, drop the memory back to 4k and just play with core clock. How much of a difference does the voltage make to the heat, i.e. how much do i tweak it by each time?

EDIT: It was at 1000mV at 810C 1620S 4000M, what should I be aiming at for 900?

Marine-RX179 · 15 Jul 2011 at 19:31

Chris. said:
How much of a difference does the voltage make to the heat, i.e. how much do i tweak it by each time?

EDIT: It was at 1000mV at 810C 1620S 4000M, what should I be aiming at for 900?

Temp wise you gonna have to see for yourself, but I seriously doubt the max voltage that MSI Afterburner allows on the GTX460 (think it's 1.087v) is gonna be high enough to damage it. I would say as long as it is below 80C it should be fine. You might want to refer to the following...it might help give you some ideas:
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/781197-gtx-460-default-voltage-max-safe.html

Chris. · 15 Jul 2011 at 19:49

I think im going to make cooling slightly better before messing with voltage.

I have just the basic CM690 ii advanced setup, so one 140mm at the front, one at the top, and one at the back which i dont count as most of that is going to the rad for the H50.

Theres nothing really directed straight at the GPU with the exception of the top, so should i be amping up the voltage? It didnt touch 80C even on the combined cycle on Kombustor, and its only ever hit 80 on metro, which is better than the reviews say.

Am i worrying over nothing?

Marine-RX179 · 15 Jul 2011 at 22:43

Chris. said:
Theres nothing really directed straight at the GPU with the exception of the top, so should i be amping up the voltage? It didnt touch 80C even on the combined cycle on Kombustor, and its only ever hit 80 on metro, which is better than the reviews say.

Am i worrying over nothing?

I think those temp are fine. But if you want to lower the temp further, you could look into investing toward 3 more case fan. Here's how the cooling is setup for my graphic card in my 690 II Advanced:

I have a 140mm fan at bottom middle as intake, and then the 120mm fan on the drive cage mount blowing toward the graphic card, and then with a 120mm fan on the side-panel as exhaust. In case you were wondering, yes the fan on side-panel works better as exhaust than intake. I used to have it as intake, but after switching it to exhaust, my 5850's temp dropped by like 5C! This is because graphic cards that got coolers that "dump heat into case" (you GTX460 AMP is one of these type) instead of exhaust through the back, there's lots of heat generated from the graphic card will get trapped at the lower half of the case...and getting rid of the heat with exhaust works a lot better than bringing in cool air via the side-panel, as not only it doesn't really make the generated heat "disappear", it disrupt the airflow as well.