Twofold:
I'm not an Amd engineer and don't know for sure there would be any long term damage (if any) running at +50% and don't want any grief for anything that goes wrong by doing so.
well... you could literally say that about anything... Don't overclock your card, you don't know for sure if any long term damage running at 1000mhz, dont underclock your card you dont know for sure if any long term damage running at 800mhz, don't use your card, you dont knowf or sure if any long term damage if you use it!
Using a card will always 'damage' it, but it'll still live a good 10-20+ years. Obviously, using +50% power throttle will cut the lifespan, but in the same way that running your card at all will degrade it more than never using it. Using something takes a toll on the engine, but using +50% power limit isn't going to do that.
Like running 800mhz@+50 power limit is better than running 1200mhz with 0 power limit due to smooth performance vs massive throttling, and it'll also probably live longer as well (ie higher 'speeds', voltages, logics, etc, always more harmful than lower).
A much higher chance of introducing coil whine kicking in too running at 50%.
wut? This sounds completely made up. If you mean by there's a higher chance of introducing coil whine, or you really mean VRM overheating, not coil whine, coil whine is a byproduct of overheating VRM (though can happen in odd other instances like menu in BF4, when you hit 200+ fps, etc), because you are actually utilizing your card, sure, but saying that +50% power limit inherently has a higher risk of coil whine (dont you mean VRM overheating...?), no, that it simply untrue and unfounded and complete conjecture. Again, 800mhz/1.1v/+50 will not have any more VRM overheating than a 1200mhz/1.25v/+0.
The main aim of the thread was to negate boost spiking, higher oc's was just a bonus tbh.
Well raising your power limit will 'lower' your overclock, but really it shouldn't affect your overclock at all, just in practice it does because people don't know what they are doing. If your card throttles heavily, it's going to pass stress testing much easier because running at 1200mhz+0 will run an average of ~800mhz, much easier to do than running 1100mhz 100% of the time and not throttling.
I understand that if you raise your power limit, you no longer have throttling on your card and thus your card, operating at it's full potential, will run hotter, a hotter VRM, but the +50 power limit inherently does not cause higher VRM temps or cause degradation. The same things as always cause degradation - high voltage, high temps, and the same things as always cause higher VRM temps - more power being consumed by the GPU.
I was just quite confused and it was a little misleading to say things like "dont jump to +50 right away", etc, in the guide, with no clarification on why. I thought there was actually a legit reason that I was missing out on.
Of course, overclocking, not overclocking, power limits or not, make sure your card's temps stay reasonable. Just because you dont mess with the power limit, doesn't mean these factors aren't important.
Thanks for the compliment, your guide is great as well. I have it posted over at Anandtech and there's literally a bunch of people in there saying their cards don't throttle with +20 "because it runs good in bf3". It's amazing how stupid some people are.
), modify your own.
