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**Official GTX680 Overclocking Thread**

Sin_Chase said:
Just an addendum to the above. I think we need to change our mentality towardws overclocking GPUs.

Constant MAX Core Clocks are archaic now in the face of Kepler. Infact they are useful for one thing and one thing only - benchmarking.

For anyone who could not care less about benchmarks (And really, that should be 100% of gamers at the end of the day) the Kepler dynamic approach is far more sensible and, in reality, far more beneficial to gamers.

You want the high boosts when you need them to keep your min/avg frames up, max frames are irrelevant in games. Having fully dynamic voltage is preferential, keeps your heat output down when you do not need that boost to maintain min frames and gives you headroom to boost the crap out of the core when you do.

Rather than fixing your voltage and core and generating heat 100% of the time for the benefit of nothing but max framerates.

I think nVidia got this one spot on and the "Delivering a consistent smooth gaming performance" sentiment is exactly what us gamers should want. At the end of the day does it matter how it does it?
Click to expand...

I 100% agree with that.

I'm finding the GPU Boost to be an awesome addition to this card and that's coming from someone who has never bothered with overclocking the GPU because (a) the upped clocks either proved unstable or only raised the framerate by 1-3 fps; and (b) the thought of altering voltages and frying my card in the process filled me with dread!

I have set the GPU clock offset to +135 MHz and the memory clock offset to 300 MHz on my GTX 680 and so far in every benchmark (Heaven 3.0 and 3DMark11 included) and game (over 40 so far) the GPU Boost has worked beautifully.

Now I play games on a 24" 1920x1200 HP LP2475w monitor with v-sync and triple buffering enabled so my ideal experience is to have a flawless 60 fps. The GTX 680 along with the GPU Boost works to achieve that, giving me smoother running games with higher minimum framerates than my previous GTX 580. And it achieves that by only overclocking when needed so I'm not generating excess heat nor wasting electricity doing it.

Enthusiasts and benchmarkers might gripe about not being able to disable GPU Boost but the majority of people will no doubt be pleased with it. That said, I don't see why NVIDIA can't add an option in their drivers for people to disable it if they want.
 
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wolvers said:
I'll reply because I assume that you're addressing me.

It's a fair point and is why I said that it creates a product that suits some people. As an enthusiast I like to get the most out of the components that I buy, and that means overclocking them as much as possible. The GPU boost feature does some of that for you, and that inflates it's stock performance relative to it's competitors and allows the maker to charge more for it. To be fair to Nvidia, they haven't done that as much as they could have done with the 680, but if they'd released it with the kind of stock clocks that AMD do (and subsequent clocking headroom) they would have had to price it accordingly. In short, you pay them to do some of the clocking for you.
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No, you are mis-understanding how the 680 overclocks.

The standard overclock Nvidia does is the way the card works, they are not charging more because of it. Yes it does clock higher but you can not class it as "overclocking" because it is a function that has been built it. It is simply a dynamic clock.

Say for arguments sake they release a card with 1000Mhz stock & in varying situations this clock can increase up to 1100Mhz. That is a function built into the card. Even though it does clock the card higher, it does not "overclock" it because it is designed to run at that speed.

When you overclock the 680 you are adding to that. If you overclock the core to +150 then the base clock on the exampled card would be 1150Mhz and it will clock in certain situations to 1250Mhz. This is then classed as an overclock because you have pushed the clock above the default specifications.

The dynamic power Nvidia have introduced directly effects their dynamic clock. This is also why they need to have the dynamic clock. The card can handle a maximum power of 195Watts as standard. If a game (BF3 for example) is only using 165Watts of power then the 680s clock will increase to use the full 195Watts available. On the other hand, if you have a card that is NOT the 680, then even though your card has available power it won't be used. Why would a gamer want to sit there not using their card to its full potential? This is why the dynamic clock exists. The 680 is designed to use 195Watts, so if a game does not use that it will up the clock to use all the power available, if a game does use the whole 195Watts then the clock won't increase. When overclocking you can up the max power it will allow to 250Watts meaning the card will dynamically boost the clocks even further.

I am not great at explaining things but I hope this makes sense.
 
wolvers said:
It sounds like you are already adding a voltage bump. Sorry, Nvidia are doing it for you on the fly.

I'm not criticising, it creates a product for a different buyer. I would just prefer to have the control myself.

Did you mean 'I'm not disappointed by those clocks at all'?
Click to expand...

Oops yes not disappointed :-)
 
1280mhz seems to be the stable limit for mine, but to be honest I am going to leave it stock for now as it gives me a solid 60fps @1080p in everything I play with adaptive v sync on, so no need to bump up the clocks. Nice to know there is some grunt left in it though for future titles.
 
Such a shame we can't increase the volts, this card has so much more potential. Only gripe I have with nVidia is them doing this.
 
gregster said:
Power target @ 132%
GPU clock offset @ 184mhz
Mem clock offset @ 451mhz

I could get the GPU offset to 185mhz but this returned 5 points less in heaven. This is unstable at this ("The display driver has stopped responding") but I could complete a run of heaven to beat my previous score.
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Did you've changed voltage at all?
 
gregster said:
I moved the Slider to 1.175. I tried to go further but it just returned it to 1.175 :(

Great card though and no complaints. More under the hood I feel, as temps are low.
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Yeah same - I've changed the fan curve and I can keep it around 60c with a fan speed of around 55-60%. I don't hear it as I have great wopping headphones on but if I take them off it's definitely audible although not too bad. My HD6870 sounded like Concorde taking off at the same fan speed :D
 
wolvers said:
That looks like a good one. :) I still don't understand though how +170=1280 when the stock boost clock is 1058? :confused: Jay's one above makes sense, +140=1199.

So is the general consensus that they'll all do 1200+ on the core no probs?
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I think every card would hit 1215mhz no probs as this only needs gpu clock offset of +100, I have mine set to this and just don't see any need to go any further, mem clock is set at +400 with power target set to max.

BF3 averages 80fps and even goes over 100fps in some parts, everything maxed ultra settings, awesome card. Just wait till they get the hang of the drivers, i'm in gaming heaven :-)
 
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Ok play a little with my EVGA and here we go:


the only thing is annoying me is that, my card buzzing when benchmarking and gaming, do you guys have same problem?
I wonder could be possible to replace it under warranty? it is really loud buzzing.
 
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Blackwhite said:
the only thing is annoying me is that, my card buzzing when benchmarking and gaming, do you guys have same problem?
I wonder could be possible to replace it under warranty? it is really loud buzzing.
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No buzzing here. I have heard it isn't uncommon to hear that though.
 
If I understand Kepler's dynamic overclocking/turbo boost technology this thread is pretty pointless.

It's not the highest numbers you reach but the numbers you can sustain on average. So two people with the same settings could have a different real world and benchmark performance?
 
Does this look alright for stock clocks?

I want to overclock my GPUs too...is it really just a case of pushing the sliders to the right. What slider should i focus on first?

I take it precision is just a wrapper to MSI afterburner?

I run my i7 920 at 3.8GHz

fv0r24
 
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Hard to say with the settings you have used. Try with 4xAA 4xAnisotropy and normal tesselation.

I just ran Precision X and got a score of 2225 with those settings but my settings were:

Top 132%
Middle 184
Bottom 451
 
gregster said:
Hard to say with the settings you have used. Try with 4xAA 4xAnisotropy and normal tesselation.

I just ran Precision X and got a score of 2225 with those settings but my settings were:

Top 132%
Middle 184
Bottom 451
Click to expand...

So you ran heaven with the precision settings above? But you were 4xx AA and 4xAniso, with a single 680?....I'll check later.
 
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