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680/7970 actually overclocked?

Gregster

Gregster

Gregster

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One thing that strikes me is my memory. I have my 680 which sits nicely at 150+ gpu boost but so often I forget to start Precision X (I know you can get it to load on start up) before playing games.

So my point of this thread is because both the 680/7970 and even the 670/7950 are powerfull enough for todays games, does anybody actually bother with the OC or only when benching?

I would say 90% of the time, my card isn't OCed purely because I forget and even when I remember, it plays everything just fine.

Anybody similar or know of a game that needs that lil extra?
 
I wouldn't say I notice it in general, but very occasionally without the overclock in BF3 the minimums can dip to the 50's while at max settings.

I play with Fraps on though and I like to look at the big yellow number :)

Plus, why not have it on all the time anyway? It's not like the voltage is unlocked or anything to a level where it could affect the GPU's longevity :rolleyes:.
 
I can't OC due to my cards being too bloody loud!

However, I just set MSI AB start with windows and auto apply the OC

If you don't see the difference with an OC, then it's a pointless one IMO
 
Rusty0611 said:
I wouldn't say I notice it in general, but very occasionally without the overclock in BF3 the minimums can dip to the 50's while at max settings.

I play with Fraps on though and I like to look at the big yellow number :)

Plus, why not have it on all the time anyway? It's not like the voltage is unlocked or anything to a level where it could affect the GPU's longevity :rolleyes:.
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See with fraps, it does affect performance and will also give you fps drops. You are correct though, I should have it on and generally no other reason than I forget. I just never notice any difference if the OC is on or not being another of my points.
 
gregster said:
See with fraps, it does affect performance and will also give you fps drops. You are correct though, I should have it on and generally no other reason than I forget. I just never notice any difference if the OC is on or not being another of my points.
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Does it? What just running the FPS counter? I'm not sure it does...

The 680 already performs extremely well out of the box. To be fair once you get above 60FPS the difference in going higher is quite small. Some people say they can perceive the difference between say 80, 100 and 120 but I'm dubious. I would love to line them up in front of 100 monitors running at the above FPS fixed and see if they could tell :).

What an overclock can do on most cards is take it from good performance to great performance (like the 7850). For us with high end cards there isn't much point at 1080p if you can't tell the difference and your minimum FPS numbers are in check. But as there's no known down sides why not just have it on?
 
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I only oc my 7970 for benching, plays everything i play fine at stock so i dont realy see the point, if i start playing something more demanding then sure i will open ccc and move all the sliders to the right as mine can do 1125 at stock voltage ok
 
I find with Two cards, I notice when the overclock isnt on as there are bigger gains from overclocking multi gpu setups.
 
Mr. May said:
I find with Two cards, I notice when the overclock isnt on as there are bigger gains from overclocking multi gpu setups.
Click to expand...

Also I imagine 3 screens, you would want to squeeze every frame out possible, so I could see how this would be a necessity over a luxury.

So that would mean a decent set of headphones for you then Cleee :p
 
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Usually overclocking push's the card into the range of diminishing returns, so on normal cards it's very hard to notice. This generation we see the 7970 being severely underclocked at stock and therefore the returns for a sensible overclock are about equal to the performance gained, which might be detected by particularly sensitive people.

However I think Kepler's turbo technology already push's it's chip into the envelope of diminishing returns and therefore it's harder to detect it's overclock.



If you buy a card that has to be overclocked to make it feel smoother, you should/are more likely to buy two of them.
I never really bothered to overclock my 6970's. The power draw, heat and noise it would cause would vastly outweigh the performance gain. I did however push them +40MHz on stock voltages just so I know it's doing the best it can, even if its not beneficial.
 
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Both of my cards run with a overclock at startup (afterburner) but I am running eyefinity and need the horsepower :D I don't think that there are that many games that require these cards to be OC'd to get good frame rates at 1920 x 1080 so I suppose it's dependant on the monitor variable as to whether people will overclock for day to day. I see a huge benefit with mine.
 
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