Overclocking...Is this just me?

[Gregster]

Sooooo there I was with the 3DMarkVantage sitting on my computer for the first time and decided to give it some....

I set my clocks for what I used in 3DMark11 and hit 'Start Benchmark' 3 or 4 seconds into the bench, it crashes and I scratch my head and decide to lower clocks. I knocked off 20Mhz on both the GPU clock and Mem clock and blow me, it crashed again after 30ish seconds.

Not to be beaten, I go for a simple overclock and it passes the test without fail. I start upping the clocks and rerun the bench again and Success! I continue doing this untill I reach the clocks I had passed 3DMark11 with and again success! As it was very cold when I was doing the benching, I decided to open the door and go and pop a jumper on bumped my clocks again and another pass.

Now obviously I understand the cold temps allowed me to go higher on the clocks but what puzzles me is how come it didn't want to play at the very start? Is this normal for others...Does the GPU need to warm up so to speak before allowing a decent overclock? This isn't the first time I have noticed this either, as I had to do the same when I ran 3DMark11.

TL: DR

Anybody else find they have to 'warm' the GPU up before hitting big overclocks?

 

[pgi947]

I've been quite the opposite on the 7970, find I can hit my best clocks from cold boot first thing in a morning when the ambients are quite low.

Maybe just the caps needing a little help bedding in to start with?

 

[Tonester0011]

Not at all mate, my pc seems to love the colder weather, as soon as it snows i can imagine the computer getting up and making snow angles outside.

Last night when i benched 3D11 i left the door open to lower the ambient and went straight for high clocks, higher than my single top card can manage and passed without even a single flicker (normally at that clock the top card gets the party vibe on the second GPU test)

 

[Gregster]

Deffo weird and if it was a one off, I would say it was just luck. You could be on to something with the caps though.

Not at all mate, my pc seems to love the colder weather, as soon as it snows i can imagine the computer getting up and making snow angles outside.

Last night when i benched 3D11 i left the door open to lower the ambient and went straight for high clocks, higher than my single top card can manage and passed without even a single flicker (normally at that clock the top card gets the party vibe on the second GPU test)

The colder the better for sure but why wouldn't it pass first or second time with a mediocre clock? MAybe it is the caps that need warming up like PGI says.

 

[pgi947]

iirc a capacitor stores a small electric/energetic charge, if left for a period of time they can discharge, so it may be possible the caps aren't at 100% when you started from cold? May explain it but I have absolutely no idea how caps work on a GPU, a 3 phase motor, no problem

btw if you want to scare the **** out of someone, get a large capacitor, charge it up with a megger then drop a screw driver over the contacts and wait for the big bang*



*Do NOT try at home, if you blow your fingers off I take no responsibility - pgi947

 

[Gregster]

iirc a capacitor stores a small electric/energetic charge, if left for a period of time they can discharge, so it may be possible the caps aren't at 100% when you started from cold? May explain it but I have absolutely no idea how caps work on a GPU, a 3 phase motor, no problem

btw if you want to scare the **** out of someone, get a large capacitor, charge it up with a megger then drop a screw driver over the contacts and wait for the big bang*



*Do NOT try at home, if you blow your fingers off I take no responsibility - pgi947

I will try this later and ignore your disclaimer....See you in court

 

[Kaapstad]

Sooooo there I was with the 3DMarkVantage sitting on my computer for the first time and decided to give it some....

I set my clocks for what I used in 3DMark11 and hit 'Start Benchmark' 3 or 4 seconds into the bench, it crashes and I scratch my head and decide to lower clocks. I knocked off 20Mhz on both the GPU clock and Mem clock and blow me, it crashed again after 30ish seconds.

Not to be beaten, I go for a simple overclock and it passes the test without fail. I start upping the clocks and rerun the bench again and Success! I continue doing this untill I reach the clocks I had passed 3DMark11 with and again success! As it was very cold when I was doing the benching, I decided to open the door and go and pop a jumper on bumped my clocks again and another pass.

Now obviously I understand the cold temps allowed me to go higher on the clocks but what puzzles me is how come it didn't want to play at the very start? Is this normal for others...Does the GPU need to warm up so to speak before allowing a decent overclock? This isn't the first time I have noticed this either, as I had to do the same when I ran 3DMark11.

TL: DR

Anybody else find they have to 'warm' the GPU up before hitting big overclocks?

Mine likes getting warmed up as well.

What I have also noticed with increasing the clocks 5mhz or 10mhz at a time to get warmed up is that the highest overclocks reached don't always equal the highest score in a benchmark.

 

[setter]

Maybe on a slightly different tangent here. But my gtx 670wf wont run the same clocks in heaven as it did in my old i7 920 rig. I had it at +130 core, +770 memory. It fails heaven inside 30 seconds on the spec in sig on those clocks. Yet on my old i7 920, it could run multiple loops of heaven without breaking a sweat.

Cpu wise, i always benched/prime tested my old q6600 @3.8ghz during the early morning hours, lapped cpu and cooler, 1.52 vcore, that thing loved the cold, but me, i had to put a few extra layers on what with being a skinny git.

 

[Kaapstad]

Maybe on a slightly different tangent here. But my gtx 670wf wont run the same clocks in heaven as it did in my old i7 920 rig. I had it at +130 core, +770 memory. It fails heaven inside 30 seconds on the spec in sig on those clocks. Yet on my old i7 920, it could run multiple loops of heaven without breaking a sweat.

Cpu wise, i always benched/prime tested my old q6600 @3.8ghz during the early morning hours, lapped cpu and cooler, 1.52 vcore, that thing loved the cold, but me, i had to put a few extra layers on what with being a skinny git.

The i7 9xx are still very good CPUs, I have posted this a few times but I have a GTX 690 that runs better in my 9xx rig than it does in my 3960x rig. James2k has an i7 920 and the performance he gets out of it is incredable (see the 3dmark11 GPU scores).

Try running your CPU at the same clocks as you used to run your i7 920 at (even if it means running it a bit slower than you do now). Also if your mobo allows it select PCIe 2 instead of 3.

I don't know if the above will work but the CPU may just hold the GPU back enough to stop it going over the edge.

 

[setter]

The 3570k is running at 4.2ghz, (quick n dirty asus ai suite oc, shame on me tbh lol) same as the 920 was Kaapstad. The 920 used to be used with sli gtx 470's, then my current 670 for a few days before i got the 3570k. Yes a bit of a silly upgrade, but i had two i7 9** series rigs, i kept my 930 one. Seen james2k's rig on benches here, a very impressive oc on it. I got a bit of a drop on cpu and physics in 3dm11 with the 3570k compared to the 920, but thats too be expected due to lack of ht. Funds permitting ill be moving to the 3770k as im doing a bit more encoding theese days. The 930 copes well with it, but it would be nice to have two rigs again capable of doing it that little bit quicker. Also i play a lot of bf3, and read things that say it likes more cores, even if virtual. Though, tbh it doesnt feel any different on the 3570k than it did on the 920?

 

[squarehead94]

is there a significant performance gain when OCing graphics cards? Id never dare of it! lol too scared

 

[setter]

Yep, i noticed a nice difference by clocking my 670 wf, stock speed core boost was 1189mhz iirc. I whacked it up to +130 that gave 1320mhz in heaven, the memory went a lot better. +770 at 7586mhz effective in games benches. But as i mentioned above, i had to back the clocks down a touch on my new rig. Tbh, overclocking on the 670 range is very safe, theyre voltage locked, (unfortunately) so you cant exceed the safe limits. Unless you do a hard ware mod on the card itself, but thats a matter for a different subject of discussion. Tbh, a 2gb gtx 670 is a very powerful card that should cope with any modern game with relative ease.

 

[Gregster]

is there a significant performance gain when OCing graphics cards? Id never dare of it! lol too scared

Is your CPU overclocked?

 

[DavidS14]

Is your CPU overclocked?

given the question it's probably stock.......boom tish....

 

[Gregster]

It's probably stock.......boom tish....

I am begging it isn't