Can I overclock a RX-480 on a 550W PSU?

[Wildthorn]

I was wondering whether I can overclock an 8GB RX-480 reference card to something close to its max boost clock. This is not in crossfire (obviously!). Currently it is working with a 2K IPS monitor and at 2K most framerates drop to 40-50 and I need to squeeze the juice outta my card to overcome this. To see how the setup works, Doom gets an average of 50fps with everything set to ultra or high respectively on OpenGL (not vulcan for the sake of this question). And the OC software is either MSI afterburner or the Radeon software. I already did a benchmarking test. When I did attempt to OC the 480 my screen went blank... Is that bad? It still works and I typed this on the same computer. Thanks for the answers 🙂

 

[sadams04]

Yes. A quality 550w PSU is plenty of power for an RX 480 (whether your CPU is overclocked or not). A word of warning... Overclocking your GPU may net you (roughly) up to 10% performance which would translate to 4 / 5 FPS. That is not noticeable in real world scenarios. You are best off with a larger GPU (GTX 1070 / 1080) or running dual RX 480 GPUs if you really want to see noticeable gains.

 

[sizzling]

Depends which PSU. Also the 480 is a little weak for 2k if your aim is 60fps

 

[Wildthorn]

Yes. A quality 550w PSU is plenty of power for an RX 480 (whether your CPU is overclocked or not). A word of warning... Overclocking your GPU may net you (roughly) up to 10% performance which would translate to 4 / 5 FPS. That is not noticeable in real world scenarios. You are best off with a larger GPU (GTX 1070 / 1080) or running dual RX 480 GPUs if you really want to see noticeable gains.

Thanks for the answer!😀 But I currently have a freesync monitor so the 1070/1080 wont be an option. I think I mentioned that the screen goes blank when I crank it up on afterburner or Radeon Settings. It's currently at 800mhz. I need it to go for 1000mhz.

 

[Wildthorn]

Depends which PSU. Also the 480 is a little weak for 2k if your aim is 60fps

Thanks for the reply!😀 but the min frame of crysis 3 at 2K would be 40 or 39. It is actually pretty good.

 

[Wildthorn]

Yes. A quality 550w PSU is plenty of power for an RX 480 (whether your CPU is overclocked or not). A word of warning... Overclocking your GPU may net you (roughly) up to 10% performance which would translate to 4 / 5 FPS. That is not noticeable in real world scenarios. You are best off with a larger GPU (GTX 1070 / 1080) or running dual RX 480 GPUs if you really want to see noticeable gains.

Maybe I have been overclocking wrong? My motherboard has some lighting effects (b150 Aura). My CPU is an i5 and have my fans running at turbo. Any suggestions?(could you also consult me on how to overclock?)

 

[sizzling]

Ok looking on AMD's site the base & boost speed of a stock 480 are 1120/1266 so I have no idea why you are saying 800 to 1000? Remember the gpu will only throttle up to max speed while under heavy load so you may be looking at the wrong numbers. FYI the motherboard has nothing to do with a gpu overclock.

If you put everything back to stock and run a game or benchmark is the PC stable and does the gpu hit over 1120mhz? If everything is stable and working correctly try overclocking in small steps by adding 20-30mhz at a time and retesting until you start to hit issues and then back off a little. From what I read about the 480 it doesn't have a lot of head room and is not a big overclocker, you may get less than 15% or even less than 10% boost

 

[Wildthorn]

Ok looking on AMD's site the base & boost speed of a stock 480 are 1120/1266 so I have no idea why you are saying 800 to 1000? Remember the gpu will only throttle up to max speed while under heavy load so you may be looking at the wrong numbers. FYI the motherboard has nothing to do with a gpu overclock.

If you put everything back to stock and run a game or benchmark is the PC stable and does the gpu hit over 1120mhz? If everything is stable and working correctly try overclocking in small steps by adding 20-30mhz at a time and retesting until you start to hit issues and then back off a little. From what I read about the 480 it doesn't have a lot of head room and is not a big overclocker, you may get less than 15% or even less than 10% boost

Could you recommend a free benchmarking software? 3D mark is out of my price range, considering this PC is new. I didn't think you noticed why I said the 800mhz thing is when I check the radeon settings. There is nothing over 1000mhz, even when I crank that OC lever. Average is like 400mhz. I'm gonna test the thing now.