AMD - How To Overclock The Official Way Using Afterburner + Step By Step Overclocking Guide + Comple

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 13:27

LtMatt said:
Up to you Tom. Just remember to go safely and slowly so you can diagnose easier what's causing the problems. Just use small clock changes followed by a nice long stability test.

What's the best thing for stability testing then? Just let Unigine run over and over for a while?

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 13:32

Tom_D said:
What's the best thing for stability testing then? Just let Unigine run over and over for a while?

Games! Farcry 3 is great for finding instability on the core. Its my gpu core testing game of choice.

Swifty55 · 17 Mar 2013 at 13:34

Planetside 2!

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 13:39

1150/1225 seems to be ok benchmark wise. The score is actually the same as 1175/1225 so I'm really hoping all is fully stable now and I won't have to continue to tweak further.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, need to get Far Cry 3! Need to download PS2.

EDIT - Also, GPU usage seems to be about 70% max when playing Sleeping Dogs. Should it be higher?

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 19:28

Tom_D said:
1150/1225 seems to be ok benchmark wise. The score is actually the same as 1175/1225 so I'm really hoping all is fully stable now and I won't have to continue to tweak further.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, need to get Far Cry 3! Need to download PS2.

EDIT - Also, GPU usage seems to be about 70% max when playing Sleeping Dogs. Should it be higher?

If the gpu usage is that low its either a cpu bottleneck or unstable gpu. Seeing as you only have a dual core cpu im going with cpu bottleneck.

Is it over clocked?

Just keep testing that gpu over clock tom. We'll get there in the end.

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 19:32

LtMatt said:
If the gpu usage is that low its either a cpu bottleneck or unstable gpu. Seeing as you only have a dual core cpu im going with cpu bottleneck.

Is it over clocked?

Just keep testing that gpu over clock tom. We'll get there in the end.

Can only overclock the i3 by 200Mhz so it's a bit pointless really. It could be just a game issue aswell right? GPU Usage maxes out in benchmark and I know sleeping dogs is a bit temperamental.

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 19:35

Tom_D said:
Can only overclock the i3 by 200Mhz so it's a bit pointless really. It could be just a game issue aswell right? GPU Usage maxes out in benchmark and I know sleeping dogs is a bit temperamental.

I doubt its a game issue. Sleeping dogs is incredibly well optimized for AMD hardware. What res are you playing at?

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 19:36

1920x1080

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 19:40

Tom_D said:
1920x1080

What in game settings are you using? What is SSAA set to ?

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 19:48

LtMatt said:
What in game settings are you using? What is SSAA set to ?

What's the best application to use to actually see GPU Usage INGAME? Because when I alt and tab and look at Afterburner, GPU usage drops anyway as it's back to desktop so may not be getting an accurate reading?

EDIT - Found out how to read GPU Usage. Doesn't like to use more than 60% of the GPU it seems.

Cheers

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 19:53

Tom_D said:
What's the best application to use to actually see GPU Usage INGAME? Because when I alt and tab and look at Afterburner, GPU usage drops anyway as it's back to desktop so may not be getting an accurate reading?

EDIT - Found out how to read GPU Usage. Doesn't like to use more than 60% of the GPU it seems.

Cheers

Have you enabled hyper threading on your cpu?

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 19:56

LtMatt said:
Have you enabled hyper threading on your cpu?

It's enabled auto isn't it? How do I find out?

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 20:02

Speedstep and hyperthreading are both enabled.

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 20:03

Tom_D said:
It's enabled auto isn't it? How do I find out?

I'm not sure but i find it strange that sleeping dogs is not getting 99% gpu usage. Try using the extreme preset in options and then turning SSAA down to High or normal.

Tom_D said:
Speedstep and hyperthreading are both enabled.

Well we can rule a bottleneck out then.

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 20:13

GPU Usage was pretty much always over 90% with these settings, however it wasn't as smooth on the benchmark... What do I do?

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 20:22

Tom_D said:
snip

GPU Usage was pretty much always over 90% with these settings, however it wasn't as smooth on the benchmark... What do I do?

Extreme AA will be pushing it on a 7850. Use extreme settings but go into advanced settings and change SSAA to high. Run the test again with those settings and report back.

Enable the afterburner osd overlay so that you can monitor gpu usage, fps etc whilst running the benchmark. You can enable gpu usage, see screenshot below.

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 20:30

Cheers mate.

Ok, so I turned AA down to High. GPU Usage was 50%-60% until the last part of the benchmark (inside the house) where it went up to between 80-90%.

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 20:32

Tom_D said:
Cheers mate.

Ok, so I turned AA down to High. GPU Usage was 50%-60% until the last part of the benchmark (inside the house) where it went up to between 80-90%.

snip

Try running your gpu at stock clocks + volts and report back on the gpu usage + score plox.

Drake5 · 17 Mar 2013 at 20:37

Ok, this is totally stock.

It was roughly the same, although it was between 60%-70% this time and again climbing up to 90% on the last part of the benchmark.

LtMatt · 17 Mar 2013 at 20:40

Tom_D said:
Ok, this is totally stock.

It was roughly the same, although it was between 60%-70% this time and again climbing up to 90% on the last part of the benchmark.

Lol, silly me. I just realised you had vsync on. I guess AMD performance has risen a fair bit in this game as i used to get 99% gpu usage constant when i played this with vsync on. Try running the benchmark at stock + overclocked with vsync disabled.

I'm going to re-download the game myself so i can test it tomorrow.