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

[Loxa]

Good stuff that explains it then.

Just uninstall afterburner and you're good to go. Gigabyte have their own overclocking tool but last time i used it, it was absolutely terrible with extremely limited voltage control.

Oh i didn't know Gigabyte had there own, is there any kind of advantage of using the same make OC program as the card make?

 

[LtMatt]

Oh i didn't know Gigabyte had there own, is there any kind of advantage of using the same make OC program as the card make?

I'd try trixx first and if you don't get on with that try theirs. I think its called OC Genie or something. It would only let me increase the voltage to 1.2v from 1.175v stock on my gigabyte hd7770 oc. Afterburner lets me go up to 1.3v on that card though.

 

[Loxa]

I'd try trixx first and if you don't get on with that try theirs. I think its called OC Genie or something. It would only let me increase the voltage to 1.2v from 1.175v stock on my gigabyte hd7770 oc. Afterburner lets me go up to 1.3v on that card though.

Gigabyte released a updated version of there OC program a week ago (Gigabyte OC Guru II), looks interesting.

 

[MrMarvelous]

What voltage should I be using on the Memory Clock? it's at 1700Mhz but i'n not sure what to bump the volts up to.

 

[LtMatt]

What voltage should I be using on the Memory Clock? it's at 1700Mhz but i'n not sure what to bump the volts up to.

One voltage notch at a time, which is typically 6-7 clicks to the right, until you find stability at that memory clock. If you can reach 1700 on stock memory voltage that's pretty good and will be plenty fast enough for todays games.

 

[Zydor]

Lt

Thank You ........ you have put a lot of time and effort into this thread, take a Bow

You have educated an older cruncher where other guides have failed to penetrate rofl

My beast is a 3960x running at 3.9Ghz/2100 memory, and twin 7970s now running at:

Core Volts 1213
Power Limit +20
Core Clock 1225
Memory 1675
Card Fans 66%
GPU Temp 68 degrees (when fully loaded with BOINC GPU Work Units)

Did the Core clocks first as advised, then onto the memory, hit the wall at 1700 memory, and backed off 25. Going to sit on that for while see how it goes, but my Work Units (I mainly Crunch on BOINC - the latter pounds the cards hard, so always a good test in itself - as well as gaming) are validating fine which is always a good sign. I'll leave it at that for a day, then move onto memory voltage and core voltage (still at stock at present).

No matter what I put the GPU Voltage at, it fell over with memory above 1675, so I took that as the subtle hint

So far so good. One question ......

I noted you leave your card "Disable ULPS" unchecked. At present I have mine "checked", and left it as that for consistency. I have heard many (different) explanations on the rational of "Disable ULPS" being checked or unchecked, and would value your take on it.

Regards
Zy

 

[LtMatt]

With ULPS enabled the second card will turn off completely when it's not being used. If you disable ULPS then the second card will stay powered on. Personally id prefer to leave it enabled and make use of the power saving features of zerocore.

AMD ZeroCore Power Technology
AMD ZeroCore Power Technology leverages AMD's leadership in notebook power efficiency to grant our desktop GPUs the ability to power down when your monitor is off, also known as the "long idle state."3


Click to enlarge This is great for those times when you've stepped away from your PC to take a call, watch TV, or pop down to the store. Furthermore, AMD ZeroCore Power allows additional GPUs in an AMD CrossFire™ technology configuration to shut off when they're not in use-even the fan stops spinning!
An AMD-exclusive technology, AMD ZeroCore Power ensures that unused or idle GPUs are as efficient as possible.

Even the most hardcore gamer with an AMD CrossFire™ multi-gpu configuration benefits from AMD ZeroCore Power. Unused or idle GPUs are shut down until needed to conserve power.

Source - http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/gcn/Pages/gcn-architecture.aspx

However if you run into issues with it then just disable it. Probably best off trying both options and see which works best for you. I'm sure other xfire users can offer their 2cents on this and provide better info than me though.

 

[Zydor]

Many Thanks Lt .....

My main use of the beast is for BOINC Crunching, where its on 18-24hrs a day crunching Work Units, so there are few times when it could detect zero use. However, well understood, and I will do the same as you now and leave it enabled, which will enable the power saving on the few times its not crunching BOINC Work Units.

Regards
Zy

 

[LtMatt]

No problem. Let us know how you find Zerocore i should be going xfire soon myself and i was certainly hoping to make use of zerocore.

 

[Zydor]

Just tested it a few times over the last 15 mins with it on/off. "Works as designed" as they say

The latter is impressive as BOINC can be very demanding on hardware at the higher end of "Crunching" its Work Units. The beast didn't bat an eyelid, and dutifully powered down the second card. It also did not affect the run time of the BOINC Work Units when it auto-kicks in again in response to work units running again after a period when they are not running

The latter will not mean much to a "non-BOINC'r", but its significant for BOINC crunching as it means power saving occurs seamlessly without disturbing the BOINC Work Unit Run Times - the latter being "Cultural Heresy" in the World of BOINC crunching

I'll post again if that situation changes, but I doubt it, it seems fine doing its bit not heating up the Planet

Regards
Zy

 

[LtMatt]

Great feedback thanks Zydor.

 

[Lazdaa]

In GPU-Z my memory clocks is at 1200Mhz which is what my card is at. Shouldn't it clock down when idle?

 

[LtMatt]

In GPU-Z my memory clocks is at 1200Mhz which is what my card is at. Shouldn't it clock down when idle?

Are you using more than one monitor or a 144hz screen? If so its perfectly normal that your gpu core will clock down but your memory won't. The memory not clocking down hardly makes any difference to the electricity used either.

To avoid display corruption in all scenarios, the only one-size-fits-all fix is to run the VRAM at max clock. Luckily this represents an extremely small percentage of overall graphics card power consumption.

 

[Lazdaa]

Are you using more than one monitor or a 144hz screen? If so its perfectly normal that your gpu core will clock down but your memory won't. The memory not clocking down hardly makes any difference to the electricity used either.

Oh yea i'm running with 2 monitors and one overclocked to 114Hz

Also i sure hope you have and SSD drive with all that restarting xD
- Doing the process in th OP now.

 

[LtMatt]

Oh yea i'm running with 2 monitors and one overclocked to 114Hz

Also i sure hope you have and SSD drive with all that restarting xD
- Doing the process in th OP now.

Nice i need to do some monitor overclocking myself at some point. I do indeed have a Samsung 840 basic 250gb SSD and Windows 8 so restarting takes about 15 seconds.

Infact when i turn my pc on in the morning windows has fully loaded before my monitor even displays a picture.

 

[Lazdaa]

Nice i need to do some monitor overclocking myself at some point. I do indeed have a Samsung 840 basic 250gb SSD and Windows 8 so restarting takes about 15 seconds.

Well i just got this in yesterday: X-Star Matte.

It's an awesome monitor. 27' 2560x1440 and overclockable!

The drive is also awesome, i got it in my laptop, and a 830 in my desktop.

 

[LtMatt]

Well i just got this in yesterday: ***LINK REMOVED***

It's an awesome monitor. 27' 2560x1440 and overclockable!

The drive is also awesome, i got it in my laptop, and a 830 in my desktop.

My friend Zuma (aka snail master race - its a long story) has one of those monitors. He got 115hz out of his and i think he said he could probably get more. Looks like a good buy. How is the picture quality?

Make sure you edit your post to remove the ebay link or the mods will give you a ticking off.

 

[Lazdaa]

My friend Zuma (aka snail master race - its a long story) has one of those monitors. He got 115hz out of his and i think he said he could probably get more. Looks like a good buy. How is the picture quality?

Make sure you edit your post to remove the ebay link or the mods will give you a ticking off.

Coming from a 1680x1050 display this is ridiculously awesome! i can't believe i could ever you such low resolution The colours are also great, as a PLS panel they are much much much better than my old TN.

Also removed the link.

And just got a BSOD @ 1125Mhz, Stock voltage.

And last, i'm not sure my voltage is changing according to what i set it to in afterburner. my stock voltage is 1135 and when i enter valley i think i was at 1.210 but i'm not sure as GPU-Z isn't showing anything right now. VDDC -0.500 V...

 

[LtMatt]

Coming from a 1680x1050 display this is ridiculously awesome! i can't believe i could ever you such low resolution The colours are also great, as a PLS panel they are much much much better than my old TN.

Also removed the link.

And just got a BSOD @ 1125Mhz, Stock voltage.

And last, i'm not sure my voltage is changing according to what i set it to in afterburner. my stock voltage is 1135 and when i enter valley i think i was at 1.210 but i'm not sure as GPU-Z isn't showing anything right now. VDDC -0.500 V...

Make sure you've got the power level at +20%. Try using the basic preset on Valley so you can have it running in the background. Then open gpu-z and look at the sensors tab. Check the VDDC voltage and try increasing and or decreasing vcore in afterburner and see if it changes the VDDC in gpu-z. Try going from stock voltage to 1.3v and see if it increases from its stock setting. Its important to do it whilst there is a 3d load applied to the card. Expect some vdroop. If it doesn't change then you must be voltage locked.

 

[Lazdaa]

Already had the power limit set. I don't know why GPU-Z isn't working right now, but the power monitoring feature in Afterburner is working and is configured to what i set it to.

So i guess it's working i'm not getting BSOD anymore since i bumped up the voltage.