Is it safe to overclock my card?

[SPDESIGNS]

Hello there! I got a msi geforce gtx970 4gb oc card and i was thinking of trying to overclock it(have never oc anything before).From videos and posts that i saw, there's not much that can go wrong by oc with msi ab since it has limits.I also read that when oc a gpu in AB, you first increase the power limit to max(110% in this case) and then start increasing (by small amounts) the core clock i.e +100 and when you see that your system crashes,you can go back to the previously set core clock value and leave it there(so that's the stable core clock value) then same goes for memory clock.My question though is,what can actually go wrong here and also how can i test if my system will crash in-game( can i try the valley program ?) and also should i freak out if it does crash?(I really don't won't anything to get fried in my system.) ?Thanks in advance!

Also : if you have oc your gtx970s, can you tell me what was your limit and what rise in temps and fps you saw in games and in overall performance? Thanks!

UPDATE: Ok so, i managed to OC my gpu to : Core clock : 210Mhz+ and Memory Clock : 500Mhz+ . I hope this is good 😀 ! Also the maximu temp i hit was 69 C.
As far as gpu stress testing goes, i didn't see any difference to be honest i was getting the same score at the benchmarks.Idk if this is normal(i guess it is not)!Should i be happy with my results and also,what kind of difference should i expect inside games from my OC?

 

[Gingerbread]

You have read correctly. Yes you increase it little by little. Nothing can go wrong, if it crashes it is to prevent damage so you just go back a little on the overclock, don't worry.

 

[Dunlop0078]

My 760 has been quite heavily overcloked to 1300mhz since the day I bought it three years ago, still runs great. I usually find what the card will do with stock voltage and power limit then I start messing around with voltages and power limits. I have crashed my gpu due to pushing overcloks too far literally about 100 times in its life, usually I just get freezes that a restart cures or simply a driver crash and restart I dont think anything catastrophic can happen from a failed overclok if it can I have never seen it or heard about it, generally heat, age, and excessive voltage is what kills gpu's not overcloking itself. I use valley for stress testing, unigene heaven is also good. Just look at any gtx 970 review they all overclock them as part of the review, they should give you temps. Generally temps wont increase by much until you start touching the voltage. The performance increase you will gain depends entirely on the game and if your cpu can fully leverage the gpu's power.

Here is a decent guide if you haven't already seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUEMS-B1Siw

 

[SPDESIGNS]

My 760 has been quite heavily overcloked to 1300mhz since the day I bought it three years ago, still runs great. I usually find what the card will do with stock voltage and power limit then I start messing around with voltages and power limits. I have crashed my gpu due to pushing overcloks too far literally about 100 times in its life, usually I just get freezes that a restart cures or simply a driver crash and restart I dont think anything catastrophic can happen from a failed overclok if it can I have never seen it or heard about it, generally heat, age, and excessive voltage is what kills gpu's not overcloking itself. I use valley for stress testing, unigene heaven is also good. Just look at any gtx 970 review they all overclock them as part of the review, they should give you temps. Generally temps wont increase by much until you start touching the voltage. The performance increase you will gain depends entirely on the game and if your cpu can fully leverage the gpu's power.

Here is a decent guide if you haven't already seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUEMS-B1Siw

Yeah i saw that video that's why i posted this thread 😀 ! Btw can i run Valley while changing the setting in AB?And if Valley crashes does that mean that i've reached my limit?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

With MSI afterburner installed. I'd suggest:

1. Save stock settings on Profile 1

2. Start with the settings here:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_970_gaming_review,26.html

Temp Target 80 Degrees C
GPU clock +185 MHz
Power limiter 110%
Mem clock +500 MHz (Leave this at +0 for now)
Volatge + 87Mv
FAN RPM 70% (remains silent)

However, hold of on memory just yet. This should leave you with:

Core Clock 1325 MHz
Boost Clock: ~1501 MHz
Memory Clock: 7000 MHz

3. Run some heave Graphics apps like the various Unigine benchmarks and 3D mark to test for artificats, stability issues. Adjust clock up or down depending on results of previous tests.

4. Once clock is settles in, save this as profile 2.

5. Now reset to stock settings, and do the same procedure with clock at factory settings and move memory as per the Guru3D recommendation.

5. Again, adjust up and down as per results of previous test and when done save as profile 3.

Profile 1 - Stock
Profile 2 - Max Core
Profile 3 - Max Memory

These two settings will be valuable when troubleshooting ... if an issue arises in a game, checking 2 and 3 will tell you if it's core or memory related.

6. Now try putting both max settings together, again adjusting one up or down depending on results of previous test. Start with memory, and see how far you have to go down to get max core stable.

REMEMBER: It's not about max core or max memory, you want the combination that yields the best fps results. Save this as profile 4

7. Once both locked in try playing with voltage ... try and get it to the lowest stable setting at your OCs.

The MSI Gaming is one of the best cards out there.... GPU temps will never be an issue on this card unless you have inadequate case cooling. The VRM and other components on the MSI Gaming are well addressed cooling wise, a feature you won't find on many other cards.

As for damaging the card, nVidia has placed so many limits on what 3rd party partners can do with these cards, both physically and legally, that you have 0 chance of doing any damage with MSI Afterburner. Wouldn't matter if you did as it would be covered by warranty as long as you don't physically mod the card or use a custom BIOS,

You also might want to try downloading the MSI Gaming App which will pre-load some MSI developed OC settings.

Yeah i saw that video that's why i posted this thread 😀 ! Btw can i run Valley while changing the setting in AB?And if Valley crashes does that mean that i've reached my limit?

It's not like if you run OK for 40 seconds, you are ready to try a new setting. You want to try each set of settings in various test ... suggest using at least the full set of Unigine / 3D mark Benchmarks ... followed by a Furmark run after you finished step 7


NOTE: There will be games that "ruin your day":

Battlefield 3 / 4 immediately comes to mind. Metro 2033 also had two spots in the entire game I had to turn things down a bit to get through, after which, returning to OC worked fine.