How well does the 295X2 Overclock?

[JustCallMeVlad]

How far can they be pushed?

 

[Akagi]

As far as it will go.

 

[Panos]

How far can they be pushed?

Depends many factors.

a) How well the chips are binned, and that varies I am afraid.

Earlier this year when the 295X2 was pretty expensive and limited production card, the chips were binned at pretty high standard. Most of us who got them on £800+ onwards can push them to 1150/1625 with the stock cooling solution before we hit throttling.

Some with custom watercooling and the unlocked Sapphire BIOS have the the 1250+/1650 mark.

However when the price hit the floor and now the card is mass produced, seems the chips are not so well binned, and in some occasions they are just hitting the heat limit at 1080/1625.


b) How good cooling you have.

The AIO cooler is good if your chips are good. After that is just adequate.
Replacing the fans is a good start, I have found on mine that 2 Enermax Magmas Quiet at 80% speed, are OK for 1100/1625 overclock. Temps are at around 59C max.

I can push my card to 1190/1625 with 100% fan speed however, but having a system running at 28db (very silent) is the most "addictive" feature

Custom watercooling is much much better though and I know can hit higher speeds. But for me that is a cost that currently cannot justify (£270) because I can sell the 295X2 at loss and buy a single GPU of next gen ones.

c) How good PSU you have. 1000W platinum or better is must.

d) How many GPUs going to be used.

Apparently that matters.

If the game support Xfire then you are going to need more power through the PCB and more heat generated. But if your game supports 1 GPU only you can have a profile at MSI AB to push it more than when in Xfire setup.


Would I buy one now?
Depends what GPU and monitor you have and what you need.

Regarding the later, at 1080p or 2560x1440 the card going to be wasted. You need 3440x1440 or 4K to stretch it's legs.

 

[VincentHanna]

1000w psu isn't a must.

I had an 850w super flower gold psu and it worked fine with that. Haswell i7 CPU was overclocked to 4.5ghz as well.

 

[subbytna]

Tbh you don't really need to oc a 295x2 - it's a dual card setup which is plenty strong.

 

[nails666]

I got a gigabyte card in the black Friday sale and I've got it to 1100/1650 on the stock fan with a slight voltage increase but any more and I get throttling in benchmarks. For day to day usage I've dropped it back to 1050/1600 with a slight undervolt and in games there is no difference, only in benchmarks.

 

[Gerard]

You'll notice bugger all in gaming by overclocking it anyway. Benchmarks will see small bumps that's about it. For the amount of arsing around its pointless really.