MAX Overclock for GTX 580 3GB

[Trist_58]

Hey community,

Have been playing around a bit with overclocking my EVGA GTX 580 3GB card using MSI Afterburner with little performance increase and I thought I could get a few tips from the pros.

After a bit of research I found a good oc is 832 Mhz on the core clock but havn't really noticed any difference in Skyrim (or Heaven).

My question is, Does a performance increase only become evident when you dial up the voltage?

Before I go messing with voltages what is a safe level for this card?

Is there anything else I should keep in mind when overclocking?

PS: I know for Skyrim I would probably get better performance overclocking the CPU (i7 860) but I'm not really confident in messing with BIOS just yet.

Thanks in adavance

 

[DelroyMonjo]

http://www.geeks3d.com/20110215/evga-geforce-gtx-580-superclocked-gpu-overclocking-session/
Go ahead, burn that card up!!!

 

[Trist_58]

Thanks Delroy, that was a good read.

Maybe I should have mentioned I only have a 700W PSU to work with and also just factory cooling.

I don't think I would want to push the card that hard without an effective cooling system.

Anyone have personal experience with this card?

 

[Frizzo]

i have had experience with that card and it runs so hot, i would never have the guts to overclock it. unless maybe you are using the hydro-copper water cooling, then maybe. i installed in into a 600t case which has mega fans too, cooling is really great in that case, and that video card was still pushing scary temps at default.

 

[Trist_58]

Thanks Frizzo, I think maybe it's too risky to hardcore overclock this card with my current setup. It was a substatial investment for my work and I need to make some dough out of the upgrade before it gets fried, lol!

At the very least, I have discovered how to manually adjust the fan speed which is pretty useful when things start to heat up.

Thanks to you both for your help but for now I think I leave boosting the voltages to the enthusiasts.

Cheers.

 

[Frizzo]

or just buy cheaper hardware to toy with!

that is one thing i will really miss about AMD chips. spending 85 bucks for a phenom chip, unlocking it and clocking it at 4ghz, with all the voltages set to max and just not caring. love it.

 

[cerealkeller]

I've got two evga 580 3gb in sli. Using evga precision the max voltage they allow is 1.143 on the core. I can only clock my RAM to 4120 MHz max which reads as 2060 on the OC tool. And with max voltage my highest stable over clock has been 925 MHz on the core, with the shaders locked in at 2x. I've seen people go higher, but I've tested this clock at this voltage rigorously and found it to be 100% stable. It does get warm. If you're gonna OC your 580 then you should manually setup a fan profile, or just set it around 70% for mild OC and max it out for higher OC.

However, with skyrim. Clock speed on your GPU does little. You'd be better off over clocking your CPU for the time being to improve frame rate in that game. Although, a single 580 should run that game fine. Maxed out at 1080P with 2x AA you should never drift below 35 fps. That game is very poorly optimized to utilize powerful GPUs. Same goes for AMD GPUs, I have a 5970 I run that game with too on my HTPC.

 

[cerealkeller]

http://www.geeks3d.com/20110215/evga-geforce-gtx-580-superclocked-gpu-overclocking-session/
Go ahead, burn that card up!!!

Don't ever assume that furmark benchmark results are anything even closely related to anything in the real world. First of all, nvidia has code imbedded in their drivers that throttle the cards when it detects fur mark is running. Secondly, even if it did allow the benchmark to run normally it's just for stress testing. If your card will hold up to that. Then you'll never have any trouble in games. And lastly, set your fan speed manually and your temps won't be an issue.

 

[DelroyMonjo]

Show me a repeatable benchmark which isn't synthetic. What can be learned from the review is: how much can I OC?; what FPS will it give me?; what do the thermals look like at the end? If a 3 or 4 minute benchmark was available for BF3, I'd run it. But game developers aren't going to let that happen, Just look at the min and recommended platform requirements for recent games. I'm surprised you can get past the splash screen with suggestions like this:
Minimum requirements for Battlefield 3
•OS: Windows Vista or Windows 7
•Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Althon X2 2.7 GHz
•RAM: 2GB
•Graphic card: DirectX 10 or 11 compatible Nvidia or AMD ATI card, ATI Radeon 3870 or higher, Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT or higher.
•Graphics card memory: 512 MB
•Sound card: DirectX compatibl sound card
•Hard drive: 15 GB for disc version or 10 GB for digital version

Recommended system requirements for Battlefield 3
•OS: Windows 7 64-bit
•Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
•RAM: 4GB
•Graphics card: DirectX 11 Nvidia or AMD ATI card, Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 or ATI Radeon 6950.
•Graphics card memory: 1 GB
•Sound card: DirectX compatibl sound card
•Hard drive: 15 GB for disc version or 10 GB for digital version
http://bf3blog.com/battlefield-3-system-requirements/
At least it will run with recommended requirements.

Tom's doesn't care for Unigine as a benchmark, synthetic ya' know. But if I want to see how my video card reacts to OC'ing and the heat parameters, that's what I use.
If I want to see how SLI scales, Unigine Heaven 2.5.

You can use anything you want, I choose to use a repeatable benchmark.

 

[cerealkeller]

That was completely irrelevant to the subject. You didn't even offer any actual suggestions. Just a link and a list of system requirements. You have no basis for critisizing when you haven't even offered up any viable information.

Hmm... I wonder who I should listen to? The troll, or the guy who actually has first hand experiene using these same cards?

 

[DelroyMonjo]

I suggest you put a little thought into what you are saying. I personnally don't see Furmark as a benchmark but it will give me thermals.
If I want to compare apples to apples, I'll use Unigine and get my thermals from MSI Afterburner and HWMonitor.
If you have SLI'ed GTX 580's, show us your stuff!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Benchmarkreviews got the Classified to 940 Mhz

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=792&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=1

22% OC didn't provide an equivalent increase in benchies tho.....only 10-17%

 

[Trist_58]

I've got two evga 580 3gb in sli. Using evga precision the max voltage they allow is 1.143 on the core. I can only clock my RAM to 4120 MHz max which reads as 2060 on the OC tool. And with max voltage my highest stable over clock has been 925 MHz on the core, with the shaders locked in at 2x. I've seen people go higher, but I've tested this clock at this voltage rigorously and found it to be 100% stable. It does get warm. If you're gonna OC your 580 then you should manually setup a fan profile, or just set it around 70% for mild OC and max it out for higher OC.

However, with skyrim. Clock speed on your GPU does little. You'd be better off over clocking your CPU for the time being to improve frame rate in that game. Although, a single 580 should run that game fine. Maxed out at 1080P with 2x AA you should never drift below 35 fps. That game is very poorly optimized to utilize powerful GPUs. Same goes for AMD GPUs, I have a 5970 I run that game with too on my HTPC.

Hey ck,

Thanks for the informed response! Two GTX 580's in SLI is exactly what I have in mind for my next upgrade. I'm hoping this will destroy everything out there in 3D. I have set up a manual fan profile which is great even if you don't overclock that much.

Do you think my 700W (80+) PSU will handle the max voltage you mentioned?

I have read that my CPU (i7 860) should overclock well but I don't think I'll mess with that until I install a better cooling solution. It is annoying that Skyrim is not really optimized for powerful GPU's - can anyone tell me a game that will take advantage of my setup?

Cheers to everyone who has contributed to this thread so far

 

[mayankleoboy1]

i can get my msi gtx580 to
900/1800/2100
on 1.113V stable on crysis warhead.

but crysis 2 crashes on this setting. so i have to increase voltage tpo 1.163V
temps get very high. they reach 90C on 100% fan speeds.

 

[Trist_58]

Best answer selected by Trist_58.