• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Is it worth me overclocking my 5870?

Soldato
Joined
18 May 2010
Posts
23,081
Location
London
I know there are a few out there with experince of overclocking the 5870.

What performance can be gained?

I have no idea about what volts to stay under for safe overclocking etc....


I dont want to screw things up! I had a little go overclocking my 3870x2 before I got my 5870, just by using the in built overcloking in the ccc.

All I managed to do is screw it up so that the card set it self to 59hertz rather than 60hertz of my monitor.....

All I did was use the auto tune on the ccc. It screwed it up on its own!!

Choosing revert to factory defualts didnt work either.

Also does overclocking brake the Power Play?
 
Definitely overclock it. More performance for free.

I had a 4870x2 & it was a nightmare trying to overclock so i didnt bother. Never had an issue with single gpu cards.

Use MSI Afterburner. Monitor your temps & set up a fan profile. You should be fine with volts at 1200mv (if u want to play safe).

I was pretty disappointed with my 5850 when i first bought it as it seemed quite slow. I did come from a 4870x2 so it was kinda a side grade. But increasing my clocks from default to 980/1250 really made the card shine.
 
10%-20% can be gained.
Download MSI afterburner. Its an OC utility. Follow these steps:-
A) Disable all the overclocking options in CCC. Fans / core / memory.
B) Load up MSI afterburner - SAVE the stock basic settings (850-1200) as Profile 1. This will be your BASE speed when in 2D.
C) next move the slider to 950mhz and up the core to about 1200mv voltage. Also move the memory clock to 1250mhz and up the fan speed to 50% switching of the auto. APPLY and SAVE AS PROFILE 2. ( this will be you 3D setting )
D) Go into settings > Profile and set the two saved profiles in 2D and 3D.
E) Get testing find your optimim noise / overclock / happines level.
 
Maybe this will be my little project over the weekend.

Is the above method noob proof?

I dont use CCC so is step one neccessary?

Will I have to have After burner running all the time? Actually thinking about it, thats not a problem...

Shouldnt I do a little bit of testing rather than just applying the volts/clocks and done?

Also my 5870 is the 2gb version, does that mean that the voltages may be different??
 
10%-20% can be gained.
Download MSI afterburner. Its an OC utility. Follow these steps:-
A) Disable all the overclocking options in CCC. Fans / core / memory.
B) Load up MSI afterburner - SAVE the stock basic settings (850-1200) as Profile 1. This will be your BASE speed when in 2D.
C) next move the slider to 950mhz and up the core to about 1200mv voltage. Also move the memory clock to 1250mhz and up the fan speed to 50% switching of the auto. APPLY and SAVE AS PROFILE 2. ( this will be you 3D setting )
D) Go into settings > Profile and set the two saved profiles in 2D and 3D.
E) Get testing find your optimim noise / overclock / happines level.
 
I found this:

http://www.techradar.com/news/compu...ds/how-to-overclock-your-graphics-card-721158


As far as I can see my method for overclocking my 5870 will be:

1. Load up MSI afterburner, and set defualt clock/volts to profile 1.

2. Set voltage to 1200Mv as max safe voltage and set fan to 50%.

3. Start up heaven benchmark running in loop in background.

4. Inch the memory up 10 to 20MHz a time until the machine crashes.

5. Begin raising the GPU speed, just a few MHz until everything locks up.

6. Once max speeds have been found test for a longer period and then save to profile 2.


Can I ask, the 1200mv voltage is that a global voltage or is it core or memory voltage?
 
The performance that can be gained is dependant on what titles you play. Please ignore anyway who makes out you gain 20% performance from overclocking as its simply misleading. Some games respond well the clock increases others only respond when more shaders core are available its not an exact science by any means.

Overclocking does break Power Play unfortunately when you overclock the clocks won't clock down when idle but I see your using Afterburner which allows you to set custom profiles anyway ( 1) for idle 2) for movies 3) for gaming is a common setup). The good news is overclocking on AMD cards DOESN’T break your warranty as AMD allows you to overclock your card via CCC anyway although it’s capped you can bypass it (see the sticky thread at the top of video card forum) but doing so will make the warranty null and void.
 
Back
Top Bottom