970 gtx poor overclocker!

[romper76]

so i canceled my order for the 780ti and bought evga scc 970 gtx instead, the card runs great and hovers around the 67c mark all good except it really doesn't like being overclocked! one of the reasons i got this card, memory only goes to +150 gpu +75 on boost gives around 1490mhz.
strange thing is i can overclock higher than this in games but as soon as i try to start a benchmark 3dmark firestrike/2011 it crashes as soon as i start it.i keep reading that the samung ram chips can do 8000mhz mine cant even get close to that!

 

[africanos23]

Unlucky silicon lottery, but 1490 isn't bad TBH

 

[romper76]

Just being greedy! Don't understand why I can run higher overclock while running games but benchmarks won't even start.

 

[eyetrip]

That's not terrible.

When I had a couple of KFA2's, they would only go around that.

Honestly, even if you could get another 60, do you think you would notice it?

 

[EVGAdominik]

Hi, RAM do sometimes also have a lot of "dead" spots. So you really need to increase RAM clocks always by 10MHz and have a quick test, it is possible that some higher overclock will work again, you just need to find the spot. 1490 on the core is a good clock if it is stable in games! Did you get that on 1.21V or was the voltage already increase? With the precision tool there is also a small headroom to raise the voltage higher then 1.21V. Do you run the first semi passive BIOS or the second one with higher power target? Did you already proof the usage and if the card was running at the max power target when you overclocked it?

 

[Amatsubu]

1490mhz stable is nothing to sniff at, TBH. Myself, I'm running my strix at 1505mhz (it can do about 1530) on stock volts when I need some extra juice and wouldn't even think about clocking it any further as it's simply a case of diminishing returns. I left the memory at stock and I suggest you do the same, totally not worth straining the chips for maybe 1-2 fps difference at most.

 

[Devious]

I had a similar problem with fire strike crashing and games being ok. Turned out to to be an unstable CPU over clock which I rectified.

 

[romper76]

EVGAdominik thanks i didnt realize the second bios was different thought it was just a copy of the first, card overclocking much better now fully stable at 1545 mhz on full boost and got the ram to +275 not even sure how thats possible considering it was under the power limit before the bios switch change.
finally broke the 11k mark on firestrike with my i5 micro system!

 

[EVGAdominik]

Hey, good to hear! Nice score for a small system!
could be possible that the small power target on the semi passive was limiting the OC of the RAM.