• 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.

Nvidia overclocking noob - how much voltage is safe?

Goose

Goose

Goose

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
4,773
Location
Kent
I got an EVGA 980 SC yesterday and its my first Nvidia card in a very long time and i have no idea how far i can safely push it. At the moment I have left 'Core Voltage' untouched and pushed the power limit to 110%. Temps in Heaven and games are pretty good, getting about 65c with the fan profile i've made.

How far can I push the Power Limit and should I ever actually bother changing the Core Voltage?

Thanks
 
Max voltage is about 1.3V with a bios mod, but on the safe side 1.27V constant when playing games is perfectly fine.

ps We have the same card
 
Thanks dude.

Just ran in to a weird issue just now. Loaded up GTA5 to find that it was being capped at 30 fps somehow and I dont really know why. I checked the in game settings and its defintely on 60hz, and I certainly didn't set a cap in the control panel or RTSS or anything like that.

Any ideas?
 
Five.Stars said:
Is it perhaps set to v-sync at half refresh rate either in nvidia control panel or in game (cant remember if gta has a 1/2 refresh rate option)?
Click to expand...

Vsync was set to 'On' rather than 'Half' so that wasn't the problem. Curiously though simply toggling Vsync off then on again cured the issue.

Silent_Scone said:
On air I'd suggest 1.25v on water no more than 1.3v for daily use and stability to avoid reducing longevity of the card
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. Is it best to increase voltage manually in Afterburner or leave it stock and just increase the Power Limit?
 
Silent_Scone said:
On air I'd suggest 1.25v on water no more than 1.3v for daily use and stability to avoid reducing longevity of the card
Click to expand...

Nope 1.275v is fine on air as long as the temps don't go over 70C this has been proven by many on the official bios mod site. 1.3V is certainly a water temp, however most would probably say you wont get very much in the way of beneficial clocks with volts that high any way
 
Stock voltage seems to be 1.206 for my card. If i wanted to go to 1.25 would i incrase the 'Core Voltage' slider in Afterburner to +44?
 
Adding more Core Voltage doesn't seem to have any effect, the highest reading in Afterburner and GPU-Z is always 1.206. I've doubled checked to make sure voltage control is enabled in the AB settings.
 
Find your max stable overclock without altering voltage and boot up your favorite games and note your fps. Then ramp up voltage a lot and find a higher stable OC and check your games again and you may well find you don't gain much if anything from the slightly higher overclock while running on air so their is not much point bothering with upping voltage for very minor gains if any. The only time i touch voltage is if i get a dog of a card that won't clock to a decent amount without a voltage boost. In fact i'd just return the card and hope i got a better one. You can safely up the power limit as it just means the card has access to be able to draw more power from your psu, the only reason you should leave at default 100% is if you are on the edge of maxing out your psu wattage from your system draw under load.
 
Goose said:
Adding more Core Voltage doesn't seem to have any effect, the highest reading in Afterburner and GPU-Z is always 1.206. I've doubled checked to make sure voltage control is enabled in the AB settings.
Click to expand...

My titan x for example has it's max voltage allowed set in it's bios. The max setting in afterburner that has effect is +50v, any higher and the voltage readings and thus overclock won't get any higher or better. I could be wrong as i'm no overclocking expert but that's what i have observed on my gpu.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom