Am I damaging my GTX 780?

[dethstrm]

I just bought my EVGA GTX 780 like 4 days ago

EVGA GTX 780 3G Dual Classified w/ ACX Cooler 993MHZ/6008MHZ 384bit GDDR5 PCI-E 3.0

thats its full name

on the day before yesterday, I tried some overclocking, and got a score over X5300 in Fire Strike Extreme. I used Precision X, and the setting was +133mhz GPU clock and +363 Memory Clock, no overvoltaging. The power target was 106% and temp target was 94 Celcius

But yesterday, when I tried to temper with the over voltage settings, something seemed wrong.

I searched online (since I'm a noob) and found that most people pushed the over voltage to +38mv, I knew that over voltaging might damage the GPU, but since everyone is doing it, I thought I might as well give it a try. So I also set the voltage to +38mv. Ok thats when the shit hits the fan. I tried to run fire strike again, and I got extremely low scores like 4900 or something (remember that it's a OCed 780 so 4900 is definitely not normal) and sometimes I could not even get a score because 3dMark starts crashing. (But there hasnt been a BSOD). Basically it means that putting more voltage did not make my card stronger but on the contrary, weaker???

I figured that the overvoltage is indeed something I should not touch so I reset the settings to default (including the OC settings). Then I ran Fire Strike Extreme again in stock clock settings and voltage, and got a score over 4700+, however I hadn't run fire strike extreme on stock settings before so I don't know if X4700 is normal for a stock EVGA GTX 780. I used both GPU-Z and AIDA 64 to see if the stock clock has decreased because of Overclocking, but its still 993mhz, which is normal.

And then I tried to do some minor OC on the card, but I found that no matter how hard I tried, I cannot go back to +133mhz and +363mhz, because every time I run fire strike extreme under that settings my 3dmark just keeps crashing, it wont even finish the first graphic test.

so i can only start with small tweaking, like +100mhz GPU and +100mhz memory clock. The best result I can get now is +130mhz GPU and +130mhz memory clock, anywhere beyond that will be unstable, 3dmark FIrestrike extreme will crash.

So to sum up the questions:

1. Whats the normal score a EVGA GTX 780 3G Dual Classified w/ ACX Cooler can get in Fire Strike Extreme under stock settings? is my X4700+ score normal?

2. Why is it that I could overclock the card to GPU+133mhz and mem clock +363mhz and run Fire Strike Extreme smoothly without crashing and got a decent X5300+ score, but after I tempered with the over voltage settings it became unstable, kept crashing during FIrestrike extreme tests and could only become stable again by lowering the clocks and resetting the voltage?

3. Did I just Damage my GPU permanently ? Im a Chinese and the saying in our hardware communities is that the Graphic card might "shrink" after OCing, which means its stock clock will become lower than before and cannot run stable under normal voltage again. Its that true?? I just bought the card like 4days!! ;(((


P.S. I updated my Precision X to 4.2.1 before I raise the voltage yesterday. Does that have anything to do with it?
P.S. The temperature of the GPU during all the fire strike tests were very normal, around 50-59 degrees celcius, never over 60, also i did not get any system freeze (maybe once but I cant remember clearly if it happened) and BSODs (I can be sure that there was not one single BSOD). Its all 3dmark crashings.



Im Chinese, this is the First time for me to post a question on tomshardware, please forgive my bad english and long post

thanks!!!!

 

[Rustyy117]

I just bought my EVGA GTX 780 like 4 days ago

EVGA GTX 780 3G Dual Classified w/ ACX Cooler 993MHZ/6008MHZ 384bit GDDR5 PCI-E 3.0

thats its full name

on the day before yesterday, I tried some overclocking, and got a score over X5300 in Fire Strike Extreme. I used Precision X, and the setting was +133mhz GPU clock and +363 Memory Clock, no overvoltaging. The power target was 106% and temp target was 94 Celcius

But yesterday, when I tried to temper with the over voltage settings, something seemed wrong.

I searched online (since I'm a noob) and found that most people pushed the over voltage to +38mv, I knew that over voltaging might damage the GPU, but since everyone is doing it, I thought I might as well give it a try. So I also set the voltage to +38mv. Ok thats when the shit hits the fan. I tried to run fire strike again, and I got extremely low scores like 4900 or something (remember that it's a OCed 780 so 4900 is definitely not normal) and sometimes I could not even get a score because 3dMark starts crashing. (But there hasnt been a BSOD). Basically it means that putting more voltage did not make my card stronger but on the contrary, weaker???

I figured that the overvoltage is indeed something I should not touch so I reset the settings to default (including the OC settings). Then I ran Fire Strike Extreme again in stock clock settings and voltage, and got a score over 4700+, however I hadn't run fire strike extreme on stock settings before so I don't know if X4700 is normal for a stock EVGA GTX 780. I used both GPU-Z and AIDA 64 to see if the stock clock has decreased because of Overclocking, but its still 993mhz, which is normal.

And then I tried to do some minor OC on the card, but I found that no matter how hard I tried, I cannot go back to +133mhz and +363mhz, because every time I run fire strike extreme under that settings my 3dmark just keeps crashing, it wont even finish the first graphic test.

so i can only start with small tweaking, like +100mhz GPU and +100mhz memory clock. The best result I can get now is +130mhz GPU and +130mhz memory clock, anywhere beyond that will be unstable, 3dmark FIrestrike extreme will crash.

So to sum up the questions:

1. Whats the normal score a EVGA GTX 780 3G Dual Classified w/ ACX Cooler can get in Fire Strike Extreme under stock settings? is my X4700+ score normal?

2. Why is it that I could overclock the card to GPU+133mhz and mem clock +363mhz and run Fire Strike Extreme smoothly without crashing and got a decent X5300+ score, but after I tempered with the over voltage settings it became unstable, kept crashing during FIrestrike extreme tests and could only become stable again by lowering the clocks and resetting the voltage?

3. Did I just Damage my GPU permanently ? Im a Chinese and the saying in our hardware communities is that the Graphic card might "shrink" after OCing, which means its stock clock will become lower than before and cannot run stable under normal voltage again. Its that true?? I just bought the card like 4days!! ;(((


P.S. I updated my Precision X to 4.2.1 before I raise the voltage yesterday. Does that have anything to do with it?
P.S. The temperature of the GPU during all the fire strike tests were very normal, around 50-59 degrees celcius, never over 60, also i did not get any system freeze (maybe once but I cant remember clearly if it happened) and BSODs (I can be sure that there was not one single BSOD). Its all 3dmark crashings.



Im Chinese, this is the First time for me to post a question on tomshardware, please forgive my bad english and long post

thanks!!!!

X4700+ seems pretty normal for a GTX 780, you can check on 3DMarks website (Just search for your GPU and select the test from the drop down menu).

If I were you I'd completely uninstall Precision X, and install MSI afterburner and try overclocking again from scratch.

 

[dethstrm]

I just bought my EVGA GTX 780 like 4 days ago

EVGA GTX 780 3G Dual Classified w/ ACX Cooler 993MHZ/6008MHZ 384bit GDDR5 PCI-E 3.0

thats its full name

on the day before yesterday, I tried some overclocking, and got a score over X5300 in Fire Strike Extreme. I used Precision X, and the setting was +133mhz GPU clock and +363 Memory Clock, no overvoltaging. The power target was 106% and temp target was 94 Celcius

But yesterday, when I tried to temper with the over voltage settings, something seemed wrong.

I searched online (since I'm a noob) and found that most people pushed the over voltage to +38mv, I knew that over voltaging might damage the GPU, but since everyone is doing it, I thought I might as well give it a try. So I also set the voltage to +38mv. Ok thats when the shit hits the fan. I tried to run fire strike again, and I got extremely low scores like 4900 or something (remember that it's a OCed 780 so 4900 is definitely not normal) and sometimes I could not even get a score because 3dMark starts crashing. (But there hasnt been a BSOD). Basically it means that putting more voltage did not make my card stronger but on the contrary, weaker???

I figured that the overvoltage is indeed something I should not touch so I reset the settings to default (including the OC settings). Then I ran Fire Strike Extreme again in stock clock settings and voltage, and got a score over 4700+, however I hadn't run fire strike extreme on stock settings before so I don't know if X4700 is normal for a stock EVGA GTX 780. I used both GPU-Z and AIDA 64 to see if the stock clock has decreased because of Overclocking, but its still 993mhz, which is normal.

And then I tried to do some minor OC on the card, but I found that no matter how hard I tried, I cannot go back to +133mhz and +363mhz, because every time I run fire strike extreme under that settings my 3dmark just keeps crashing, it wont even finish the first graphic test.

so i can only start with small tweaking, like +100mhz GPU and +100mhz memory clock. The best result I can get now is +130mhz GPU and +130mhz memory clock, anywhere beyond that will be unstable, 3dmark FIrestrike extreme will crash.

So to sum up the questions:

1. Whats the normal score a EVGA GTX 780 3G Dual Classified w/ ACX Cooler can get in Fire Strike Extreme under stock settings? is my X4700+ score normal?

2. Why is it that I could overclock the card to GPU+133mhz and mem clock +363mhz and run Fire Strike Extreme smoothly without crashing and got a decent X5300+ score, but after I tempered with the over voltage settings it became unstable, kept crashing during FIrestrike extreme tests and could only become stable again by lowering the clocks and resetting the voltage?

3. Did I just Damage my GPU permanently ? Im a Chinese and the saying in our hardware communities is that the Graphic card might "shrink" after OCing, which means its stock clock will become lower than before and cannot run stable under normal voltage again. Its that true?? I just bought the card like 4days!! ;(((


P.S. I updated my Precision X to 4.2.1 before I raise the voltage yesterday. Does that have anything to do with it?
P.S. The temperature of the GPU during all the fire strike tests were very normal, around 50-59 degrees celcius, never over 60, also i did not get any system freeze (maybe once but I cant remember clearly if it happened) and BSODs (I can be sure that there was not one single BSOD). Its all 3dmark crashings.



Im Chinese, this is the First time for me to post a question on tomshardware, please forgive my bad english and long post

thanks!!!!

X4700+ seems pretty normal for a GTX 780, you can check on 3DMarks website (Just search for your GPU and select the test from the drop down menu).

If I were you I'd completely uninstall Precision X, and install MSI afterburner and try overclocking again from scratch.

I will try that thank you very much

 

[zacw]

What are your other system specs? I
have been playing with overclocking this card for 2 weeks and have had some relative success can you also post a link to your scores we can compare if you like

 

[zink937]

could be gpu boost 2.0 , the card overclocks itself when needed. also are you trying to overclock both at the same time? if you are do 1 at a time find the highest core clock ( til it crashes ) then set to default and do the memory til it crashes. after you find the highest both can do set to those and run it if it crashes increase voltage by .13 and run again if crashes back the core and mem clocks down a little maybe 25-50 Mhz and run again. Just repeat the process til its stable. i have a ref gtx 780 and using precision x its at +185 mhz core and +350 mhz memory with no voltage. could be just 3d mark and your gpu , like i stated above of my overclock i can run benchmarks all day long like that but in games its not stable and crashes so it could software or game related. hope this helps

 

[shardey]

You honestly should look into a GPU heatsink to keep that much heat off of your card. I have a 320 watt tdp cooler from prolimatech (mk26) and stacked with 2 120mm static pressure fans and I overclock 140mhz on core and 180 on memory clock and the temps now in my corsair 900d case will not touch over 50C.

NZXT is making a G10 mount for the all in one liquid coolers for CPU to use on a GPU, which is a viable option to look into in a week or so.

Heat is the main culprit to electrical failures and I think you should remedy this situation.

 

[zink937]

You honestly should look into a GPU heatsink to keep that much heat off of your card. I have a 320 watt tdp cooler from prolimatech (mk26) and stacked with 2 120mm static pressure fans and I overclock 140mhz on core and 180 on memory clock and the temps now in my corsair 900d case will not touch over 50C.

NZXT is making a G10 mount for the all in one liquid coolers for CPU to use on a GPU, which is a viable option to look into in a week or so.

Heat is the main culprit to electrical failures and I think you should remedy this situation.

heat is not his problem at at 50°-60° C is pretty good under load and yes a heatsink or the all in one would help buts its not the problem. i have a ref 780 it runs 75-80° C under load which is pushing the high side. 80° C is the max at stock before it throttles and crashes and thats from evga's precision x software so take it as is , its there card and they should know how much heat it can take.

 

[zink937]

found this http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-780-performance-review,3516-4.html (under tab 4 gpu boost 2.0 and troubleshooting overclocking and tab 23 power consumption and gpu boost )
kinda explains precision x and gpu boost 2.0 and a brief mention of the performance log in precision x to help find the problem and the second shows you how much gpu boost can clock a stock card

 

[shardey]

[/quotemsg]

heat is not his problem at at 50°-60° C is pretty good under load and yes a heatsink or the all in one would help buts its not the problem. i have a ref 780 it runs 75-80° C under load which is pushing the high side. 80° C is the max at stock before it throttles and crashes and thats from evga's precision x software so take it as is , its there card and they should know how much heat it can take.[/quotemsg]

At 94C it is, which is why I was recommending a new cooling solution for the overclocking capabilities. Not once did I say that they don't know what the thermal limits are.

When I overclock my card I don't adjust the voltage at all, but there are certain limits that I can reach where the graphics driver will say it crashed and recovered. It's usually when the core is increased beyond 180mhz without any voltage increases.

 

[zink937]

heat is not his problem at at 50°-60° C is pretty good under load and yes a heatsink or the all in one would help buts its not the problem. i have a ref 780 it runs 75-80° C under load which is pushing the high side. 80° C is the max at stock before it throttles and crashes and thats from evga's precision x software so take it as is , its there card and they should know how much heat it can take.[/quotemsg]

At 94C it is, which is why I was recommending a new cooling solution for the overclocking capabilities. Not once did I say that they don't know what the thermal limits are.

When I overclock my card I don't adjust the voltage at all, but there are certain limits that I can reach where the graphics driver will say it crashed and recovered. It's usually when the core is increased beyond 180mhz without any voltage increases.[/quotemsg]

no he is saying he set the power target to 106% and the temp target at 94° C which means if his gpu hit 94° C it would throttle and/or crash hes basically setting how hot his card can get before it stops. in precision x default is what the manufacturer sets it to which i believe is 100% power target at 80° C. like my card cant run and the default because it will throttle when it hits 80º C so i leave the stock core and mem and run power and temp target at 102% and 86° C. im thinking his biggest problem is gpu boost 2.0 is working against him.