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GPU overclocking: core vs memory OC?

Devrij

Devrij

Devrij

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Inspired by this thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18439588

I'm now curious as to the benefits of overclocking memory vs core. I understand core overclocking and how it allows the gpu to do all the work faster (shading, polygons etc). I can see the benefits of it in fps increases.

But what effect does memory overclocking have? I'm guessing that it helps feed the data to the gpu faster so there are less delays and stuttering, but if you aren't experiencing a memory speed bottleneck (how would you diagnose this?), is there any point in overclocking it (and increasing heat/power consumption)?

Does anyone have any solid info on what exactly the effects of overclocking each of the components are, how they work together, and the benefits of each?
 
Rusty0611 said:
Overclocking the memory on the latest generation of cards has a tangible increase in minimum/average FPS.
Click to expand...

But why? I mean, I've overclocked my video ram as far it'll go and I saw gains, but I'm trying to understand the relationship between them. Purely out of curiosity, but if it's useful info that's a bonus too.
 
everything the GPU does is stored / read from and written to the VRAM, by overclocking this memory you are making more bandwidth available to allow the GPU to operate at it's full capacity without waiting for the memory to store or feed it with data to manipulate

for each frame, data is read and written several times in several different ways so there is always the potential for the GPU to be waiting for the memory, just because it doesn't show up as a very clear bottleneck does not mean that it won't have any affect on frame rate or time taken to complete a particular frame
 
I got it, so in theory it really depends on the game as to whether you're memory is bottlenecking your gpu. Wide memory bandwidth cards shouldn't need too much of a memory overclock then compared to narrower bandwidth cards? And the further you overclock the gpu, the more it would benefit from faster memory speeds to feed it?

I think I get it now. Thanks all, I may do some testing to see what effect it has on my card (5850, currently at 950/1200 from 750/1000). I have a pretty hefty gpu clock on it so maybe more memory bandwidth would come in handy for games like BF3
 
Overclocking the core will ALWAYS have a better result than VRAM alone. It's best to find a happy medium between the two with priority to the GPU.
 
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