Benchmarks and OC stability

[Telecaster]

Are any of the popular GPU benchmarks a reliable test of OC stability?

I only ask because I can run Valley and Heaven clocked up without any issue, but I have to massively reduce it for gaming otherwise I get issues.

 

[Telecaster]

Yes, I was talking about GPU OC. My 750ti will run 1385mhz stable no problem in all the benchmarks, but games don't like it until I back it off down to about 1260mhz.

 

[Telecaster]

I can get stable at 1550Mhz on a w/c 980 running heaven all day.

Soon as you put AC Unity on, it crashes (graphics driver) above 1450

Glad it's not just me or my card then!

When gaming it just starts throttling itself down to idle clocks which makes it unplayable, as soon as I back the overclock down it runs sweet.

So apart from some willy waving on the internet, these GPU benchmarks are pretty much useless for real world stability??

 

[Telecaster]

You need to run a CPU stability test AND GPU stability test at the same time, think about it.. games use both CPU and GPU at the same time so why stability test each one separately? loading both of them together (like games do) puts a whole lot more stress on both PSU and case cooling - for example if you have a non-blower cooler think about all that extra heat being exhausted into the case by the GPU going around your CPU heatsink!

But in the games I'm currently playing the CPU is seeing hardly any load, at least nothing serious.

Temps aren't even close to being an issue, barely 10-15 degrees above idle, PSU fan doesn't even come on, I've never heard it once since owning it.