Caporegime
Bit out of touch, what's the best way to do this? 100mhz at a time and a 3dmark run to check for artifacts?
GTX 1060 3GB overclocking
- Thread starter PiKe
- Start date
You can do that although above 1900MHz I'd use 25MHz increments just to be able to see any artifacts while avoiding a bad crash.
New method for sweet spot overclocking is using the voltage/frequency curve and OC Scanner (incorporated into Afterburner, must be recent version, 4.6.0 Beta 12 or newer). It's fun if you've never tinkered with it and allows you to choose the best voltage point for your particular card/chip.
Afterburner with icon leading to curve editor marked in green
Curve editor with OC Scanner button
OC Scanner
Run about 3 scans with Power Limit on different values (110%, 100%, 90%). See which one gets you the best recommended overclock. Reset Afterburner to stock settings each time.
Depending on the card's cooling efficiency and power delivery, a lower Power Limit can be better and get you a better curve. Was the case with my EVGA SC 1070 and others have found the same. Later on, you'll set the Power Limit higher again for headroom in games. After every OC Scanner run, the settings will be copied to clipboard but won't be applied till you hit apply in Afterburner.
Run Unigine Heaven in windowed mode and let it do one run so the GPU gets hot before clicking apply in Afterburner. Increase Power Limit to 110% or max as you prefer, and apply again. Then it's time to check which voltage point is best for the card/chip. Can do this by highlighting one of the points in the curve editor, and hitting L on the keyboard to lock it to that frequency. Say you choose 1075mv which I think is max for the 1060 as well:
Locked at 1075mv.
And now keep your eye on the voltage and the frequency it should be at while Heaven loops. Is it not able to stay at that frequency? Then the voltage is too high, power can't deliver for that frequency, and the extra heat it is generating will be downclocking frequency more than if you choose a lower voltage. So hit L again to unlock, and try a different point, till you see which one can run Heaven holding the same frequency without downclocking. On my 1070 it was 1000mv @ 2050MHz. And on an ITX GTX 1060 I played with, it was 993mv @ 1975MHz.
Once you find the sweet spot, lower all the points to the right of the Locked point. Then unlock and hit apply, so card can idle normally while never exceeding the chosen voltage. Then test with 3DMark etc.
Just my way of doing it (and having fun messing with it). And making sure that the clock doesn't fluctuate once it's at a certain temperature. There's many ways to skin this cat, feel free to experiment.
New method for sweet spot overclocking is using the voltage/frequency curve and OC Scanner (incorporated into Afterburner, must be recent version, 4.6.0 Beta 12 or newer). It's fun if you've never tinkered with it and allows you to choose the best voltage point for your particular card/chip.
Afterburner with icon leading to curve editor marked in green
Curve editor with OC Scanner button
OC Scanner
Run about 3 scans with Power Limit on different values (110%, 100%, 90%). See which one gets you the best recommended overclock. Reset Afterburner to stock settings each time.
Depending on the card's cooling efficiency and power delivery, a lower Power Limit can be better and get you a better curve. Was the case with my EVGA SC 1070 and others have found the same. Later on, you'll set the Power Limit higher again for headroom in games. After every OC Scanner run, the settings will be copied to clipboard but won't be applied till you hit apply in Afterburner.
Run Unigine Heaven in windowed mode and let it do one run so the GPU gets hot before clicking apply in Afterburner. Increase Power Limit to 110% or max as you prefer, and apply again. Then it's time to check which voltage point is best for the card/chip. Can do this by highlighting one of the points in the curve editor, and hitting L on the keyboard to lock it to that frequency. Say you choose 1075mv which I think is max for the 1060 as well:
Locked at 1075mv.
And now keep your eye on the voltage and the frequency it should be at while Heaven loops. Is it not able to stay at that frequency? Then the voltage is too high, power can't deliver for that frequency, and the extra heat it is generating will be downclocking frequency more than if you choose a lower voltage. So hit L again to unlock, and try a different point, till you see which one can run Heaven holding the same frequency without downclocking. On my 1070 it was 1000mv @ 2050MHz. And on an ITX GTX 1060 I played with, it was 993mv @ 1975MHz.
Once you find the sweet spot, lower all the points to the right of the Locked point. Then unlock and hit apply, so card can idle normally while never exceeding the chosen voltage. Then test with 3DMark etc.
Just my way of doing it (and having fun messing with it). And making sure that the clock doesn't fluctuate once it's at a certain temperature. There's many ways to skin this cat, feel free to experiment.
Wow, very thorough reply, thank you 
Just noticed is this just core clocking? Does afterburner test memory speeds as well.or does that have to be done manually?
Also, I assume I unlink the power limit and temperature sliders?
I'm hitting temperature limits at default core so it doesn't look great for overclocking much, 82c is pretty toasty!
Also, I assume I unlink the power limit and temperature sliders?
I'm hitting temperature limits at default core so it doesn't look great for overclocking much, 82c is pretty toasty!
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Manually.
I like doing that and setting temp limit to 92.
Yeah, in that case that's where the temporarily lower Power Limit (for OC Scanner scan) and later undervolting can really help. At stock, the Zotac ITX 1060 I played with ran at 1836MHz and in the 70s temps. Undervolting to 0.993mv got it to 1975MHz and 60C.
You can just set that manually without having to do scans all the time, just by having the curve editor open, locked on 0.993mv (or whatever), and then entering an overclock figure manually in Afterburner. Then smooth the points to the right, and unlock once you're done.
Looks like I've managed 2050mhz on core with a more aggressive fan curve and higher power limit.
Clocked memory +500 as the stuff is generally rates to 9000mhz anyway.
Helpful little boost in performance for FH4
Clocked memory +500 as the stuff is generally rates to 9000mhz anyway.
Helpful little boost in performance for FH4
That's very good for a 1060 single fan model.
The memory on my 1070 isn't Samsung, and the card has cheap thermal pads which had sweated silicone already (looks like black grease) when I bought it (second-hand) so I don't trust keeping the memory overclocked this time around (though it did clock +500 with a brief test). When warranty expires, might drench it in Arctic Clean liquid and clean it and replace with better pads. Till then, I don't want to change the stock pads.
The memory on my 1070 isn't Samsung, and the card has cheap thermal pads which had sweated silicone already (looks like black grease) when I bought it (second-hand) so I don't trust keeping the memory overclocked this time around (though it did clock +500 with a brief test). When warranty expires, might drench it in Arctic Clean liquid and clean it and replace with better pads. Till then, I don't want to change the stock pads.
Had a driver crash whilst playing FH4 so I've dialled the core back slightly.
No artifacts just a locked screen.
No artifacts just a locked screen.
Hitting vrel in gpuz, the curve always ends up going higher than I set it when I hit apply.
Yep, it's advisable to let the GPU get hot again (one run of Heaven for example) before hitting apply. It'll stay nearer to what you want.