Overclocking 1070 Gaming X graphics card... what?

samion

samion

samion

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Hi I have a MSI Gaming X 1070 and am trying to overclock for the first time.

I've installed it and it works but I didn't use the drivers or anything from the CD I just let windows 10 find it as I'm going to be overclockign it myself anyway rather thn using the small overclock it comes with.

I've watched a bunch of youtube vids on how to overclock but they're confusing.

I got afterburner and my gosh it's an ugly bit of software with needlessly confusing dials etc... but anyway I am only pumping up like +160 to it

GPU-Z says the boost speed is gonig up to 1972
but the afterburner graph thing says the core is something like 2075
Unigine Valleys says somethign like 2152 or something like that

Which is it?

Are these numbers good?

I've read people sayign they get into the 2100s, so 1972 seems low for me.

And when I do get it overclocked satisfactorily do I just save the profile and then the GPU will be set at that forever? Or do I need to go into it every tie I want to play a game?
 
The windows driver is basic and poor. You need to download the driver and they update very often. The driver doesn't control the overclocker the gpus bios does and that is something that is already on the card when it is sent to you.

Download a program like msi after burner or precision x and read a guide on what to do with them. I've read that most 1070s do near 200 extra on core so start offrom with smaller bumps like 10 20 or even 50.


EDIT - Didn't read full post.

Precision x is prettier if you want to try that. There should be an option to load program and settings on startup make sure it is ticked
 
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I also have a Gaming X 1070, great card :)

I overclock mine using Afterburner and its classic skin (just green bars, no dials if that makes sense). I prefer it to PrecisionX.

Regarding what clock is correct, Afterburner is the one to go by. GPUZ will report the standard boost clock + any offset you added, but wont show any dynamic boosting above that. Unigine takes the boost reading when it starts and shows that, it will soon drop as temps rise but Unigine will just show the starting value. Afterburner will show you whats happening in real time so this is the one to trust.

As far as what to expect from the card, anything over 2100 is fantastic, over 2000 is very good and is what I would be happy with.

For comparison, for every day gaming and stability I run mine at +110 core and +750 memory, with voltage and power sliders maxed out and 83c temp target. It will go higher for benchmarking with full fan speed but this is plenty for every day. The memory on mine is Samsung which is better than the Micron stuff in later cards, I got mine shortly after release. I believe Micron memory is normally overclocking around +300.

With these offsets and the stock fan profile it boosts up to 2088 max but then drops to around 2038-2050 when it heats up fully. The card stays very quiet with around 65% max fan speed and around 77c.

Like I said early, aim for 2000+ when its fully heated up and you'll be flying :)

As a side note, this tweaking will only really mean a couple of FPS extra over stock, but its fun to do it anyway!
 
samion said:
And when I do get it overclocked satisfactorily do I just save the profile and then the GPU will be set at that forever? Or do I need to go into it every tie I want to play a game?
Click to expand...

Forgot this bit, in Afterburner just save the profile and check the button that says apply overclock at startup, and of course make sure Afterburner is starting when you boot up!
 
Thx d1craig, yes got the latest driver straight from nvidia thanks to you - newer and better.

Daaavee that was incredibly helpful thanks. Armed with that knowledge and confidence I got myself an extra +135/+465 on my MSI Gaming X with Micron starting at 1582.

So it goes up to 2100 or so then down to 2068 heated.

It was higher i.e. +150/+475 and unigine heaven and valley were great but when I tried the 3dmark firestrike it kept cutting out saying "user cancelled the test" when I didn't. I read on forums and tried all the things like uninstalling afterburner etc but no matter how much I tried I realised dropping clock speeds was the only way to get it to get through the whole test so 135/465 it is, and I'm happy with that.

Before I start playign with my Vive I might just put it down to 125/455 just to be extra sure.. or I might wait to see if I get any issues first.

As for MSI afterburner yes I understand ti all now but it's no was as smart and clean as Precision XOC, which I am using instead (partly because there's a great vid by JayZee2cents on youtube which explains it step by step.

Thanks again for your help.

One Q though: my card comes at 1500ish (quiet) 1582 (gaming) 1607 (OC) and the programmes just pick it up as 1582 base clock, so it must be in gaming mode I imagine.

If I install the MSI gaming app and increase it to 1607 (OC mode) will I then get even higher i.e. 1607+135 instead of 1582+135? Or is that irrelevant because I've reached the ceiling anyway so the 1607 version won't manage that offset even if I try?
 
Out of interest what is your card boosting to at stock. Forget the published clocks because from what I have seen most 1070's are boosting to over 1900mhz out of the box. Mine boosts to 2012mhz with no overclocking and as I have it water cooled it stays at 2012mhz because the temps are so much lower. It will overclock to 2152mhz but as it's only a extra 140mhz I just leave it as it is because it only gives a extra couple of fps and isn't worth the bother. Memory overclocks to 9914mhz (Samsung) but again it's rated at 8208mhz out of the box so I left that at stock as well. The only time I have used the overclock is for benching.
 
pastymuncher said:
Out of interest what is your card boosting to at stock. Forget the published clocks because from what I have seen most 1070's are boosting to over 1900mhz out of the box. Mine boosts to 2012mhz with no overclocking and as I have it water cooled it stays at 2012mhz because the temps are so much lower. It will overclock to 2152mhz but as it's only a extra 140mhz I just leave it as it is because it only gives a extra couple of fps and isn't worth the bother. Memory overclocks to 9914mhz (Samsung) but again it's rated at 8208mhz out of the box so I left that at stock as well. The only time I have used the overclock is for benching.
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You see that's the interesting thing.

GPU-Z will say 1782 or whatever which I understand from above is not accurate but on Unigine it displays 1924. Now I know that's not accurate as it will always give a higher reading, but still, that seems higher than I expected as I thought it shoudl just be 1782 liek GPU-Z says. Regrettably I didn't see what the speed was on somethign mroe accurate like afterburner or precision X but I'm sure it'd be in the late 1800s/low 1900s.

You may well be right that it's not worth the bother for a few extra fps.

On the benchmarks I did it actually does give an extra 5% of FPS when I OC it, which is not insignificant.

Because I'm building this whole system for either 3 screens or HTC Vive where FPS is absolutely crucial, any extra FPS I can get can be the difference between nausea and not, hence the effort.
 
samion said:
One Q though: my card comes at 1500ish (quiet) 1582 (gaming) 1607 (OC) and the programmes just pick it up as 1582 base clock, so it must be in gaming mode I imagine.

If I install the MSI gaming app and increase it to 1607 (OC mode) will I then get even higher i.e. 1607+135 instead of 1582+135? Or is that irrelevant because I've reached the ceiling anyway so the 1607 version won't manage that offset even if I try?
Click to expand...

Great results there, you've got a good one, glad to help :)

Regarding the MSI Gaming App, you are correct that the cards come in gaming mode as a default.

If you use the Gaming App to apply any of the 3 presets, it will just overwrite your overclock applied by PrecisionX, at least that's what it did when I tried after using Afterburner to overclock.

I ended up uninstalling the Gaming App as I would always have to go back in to Afterburner on startup to re-apply my overclock, and it also overrode my ICC colour profile for my monitor which was annoying. Its a shame as I cant have the RGB logo red like I would like, but default white is still fine.
 
pastymuncher said:
Out of interest what is your card boosting to at stock. Forget the published clocks because from what I have seen most 1070's are boosting to over 1900mhz out of the box. Mine boosts to 2012mhz with no overclocking and as I have it water cooled it stays at 2012mhz because the temps are so much lower. It will overclock to 2152mhz but as it's only a extra 140mhz I just leave it as it is because it only gives a extra couple of fps and isn't worth the bother. Memory overclocks to 9914mhz (Samsung) but again it's rated at 8208mhz out of the box so I left that at stock as well. The only time I have used the overclock is for benching.
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Out of the box my MSI Gaming X will hit 1974mhz, and drop to 1925mhz when heated up :)
 
samion said:
Because I'm building this whole system for either 3 screens or HTC Vive where FPS is absolutely crucial, any extra FPS I can get can be the difference between nausea and not, hence the effort.
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I also use mine for the Vive and even stock its plenty powerful enough for that. You only need the extra grunt when you start adding supersampling, and you defo need all the power you can get for that :D
 
Daaaveee said:
I also use mine for the Vive and even stock its plenty powerful enough for that. You only need the extra grunt when you start adding supersampling, and you defo need all the power you can get for that :D
Click to expand...

Thanks again for this and above comments too, very helpful. I shall uninstall the MSI gaming app it's pointless.

Yeah supersampling I think I'll need that based on what I've seen. I spent ages deciding between the Rift and the Vive and havign tried both the Rift game graphics seemed much silkier than the Vive's. It could have been due to the Titan X I tried the Rift on vs the 970 I tried the Vive on but it could be that Vive games aren't as good... so one thing I read is to do supersampling to get it good.

Can you supersample effectively with your 1070 for Vive? Does it make a good difference?
 
samion said:
Thanks again for this and above comments too, very helpful. I shall uninstall the MSI gaming app it's pointless.

Yeah supersampling I think I'll need that based on what I've seen. I spent ages deciding between the Rift and the Vive and havign tried both the Rift game graphics seemed much silkier than the Vive's. It could have been due to the Titan X I tried the Rift on vs the 970 I tried the Vive on but it could be that Vive games aren't as good... so one thing I read is to do supersampling to get it good.

Can you supersample effectively with your 1070 for Vive? Does it make a good difference?
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Yes I can normally run 1.5 without issues, some games are more intensive though so be prepared to drop it some times.

It makes a pretty massive difference to clarity in menus and overall image sharpness :)

Not sure what games you were using as a comparison but the GPU difference definitely would not help the Vive out. In my experience all games I've tried have been silky smooth and no problems hitting the required 90fps/
 
Great thanks again.

By silky I meant the polish of the graphics but yeah SS seems to be the answer and this card can clearly do it. Yay!
 
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