OC'd my GPU and got a worse score on the benchmarks?

[crxsify]

So I am new to OCing and I just oc'd my gtx 960 SSC 2gb to +115 core clock and +80 memory clock and I got worse on the OC'd benchmark scoring 2493 on stock and 2317 on OC'd I used valley benchmark 2.0. Why did this happen?

 

[techgeek]

Overclocking on nVidia relies on Turbo Boost. Turbo Boost is kind of an automatic overclocker. It monitors two things; temperature and power. There are limits for each of these (you'll see sliders for them in most overclocking software like MSI Afterburner) and as long as neither is close the the limits, Turbo Boost will raise the clocks. However if you are exceeding either limit or getting close to both at the same time, Turbo Boost will lower the clock. This can be further exasperated if you have unlocked voltage control and raised the voltage, this will cause you to hit the power limit and / or the temp limit sooner.

Have a look at your temps when you are running Valley and see if it's getting close to the Temp Limit. If it isn't, try raising the Power Limit to the maximum (probably 125% on Maxwell).

Best Answer deselected by Original Poster's Request - http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3183168/accidentally-solved-forum-post-unsolve.html#18581135

 

[crxsify]

Overclocking on nVidia relies on Turbo Boost. Turbo Boost is kind of an automatic overclocker. It monitors two things; temperature and power. There are limits for each of these (you'll see sliders for them in most overclocking software like MSI Afterburner) and as long as neither is close the the limits, Turbo Boost will raise the clocks. However if you are exceeding either limit or getting close to both at the same time, Turbo Boost will lower the clock. This can be further exasperated if you have unlocked voltage control and raised the voltage, this will cause you to hit the power limit and / or the temp limit sooner.

Have a look at your temps when you are running Valley and see if it's getting close to the Temp Limit. If it isn't, try raising the Power Limit to the maximum (probably 125% on Maxwell).

I was watching a video on this and it said IF the power % gets near 100 I should raise it. The power % never got near the limit but I did raise it to 105 to be safe. Max power % was about 89.

 

[techgeek]

Well 89% is getting pretty close and if you are getting close to the Temp limit too, that may cause your core clock to lower. Also remember that the polling rate of most monitoring software is like a second. A lot can happen in a second that the software misses, but the card itself responds to immediately. What you could try and do is use the RTSS portion of Afterburner to use the OSD and monitor your Core Clock. Do it once while at default clocks and once with your overclock and check to see what Turbo Boost sets for a clock. Remember to watch it over the entire run as it may start out high, but drop off over time. This should give you an idea if the clock is settling at a lower clock while overclocked compared to default.

Technically speaking, raising the Power Limit to the maximum won't hurt anything (Temp is the one you need to be careful of), you are just telling Turbo Boost that it's allowed to use up to XXX% of the Power Limit. I run my 980 at 125% all the time.

 

[crxsify]

Well 89% is getting pretty close and if you are getting close to the Temp limit too, that may cause your core clock to lower. Also remember that the polling rate of most monitoring software is like a second. A lot can happen in a second that the software misses, but the card itself responds to immediately. What you could try and do is use the RTSS portion of Afterburner to use the OSD and monitor your Core Clock. Do it once while at default clocks and once with your overclock and check to see what Turbo Boost sets for a clock. Remember to watch it over the entire run as it may start out high, but drop off over time. This should give you an idea if the clock is settling at a lower clock while overclocked compared to default.

Technically speaking, raising the Power Limit to the maximum won't hurt anything (Temp is the one you need to be careful of), you are just telling Turbo Boost that it's allowed to use up to XXX% of the Power Limit. I run my 980 at 125% all the time.

I'll try that. I haven't messed with any of the voltage controls just core clock and memory clock. Should I pump a bit more Voltage into the gpu?

 

[techgeek]

Well 89% is getting pretty close and if you are getting close to the Temp limit too, that may cause your core clock to lower. Also remember that the polling rate of most monitoring software is like a second. A lot can happen in a second that the software misses, but the card itself responds to immediately. What you could try and do is use the RTSS portion of Afterburner to use the OSD and monitor your Core Clock. Do it once while at default clocks and once with your overclock and check to see what Turbo Boost sets for a clock. Remember to watch it over the entire run as it may start out high, but drop off over time. This should give you an idea if the clock is settling at a lower clock while overclocked compared to default.

Technically speaking, raising the Power Limit to the maximum won't hurt anything (Temp is the one you need to be careful of), you are just telling Turbo Boost that it's allowed to use up to XXX% of the Power Limit. I run my 980 at 125% all the time.

I'll try that. I haven't messed with any of the voltage controls just core clock and memory clock. Should I pump a bit more Voltage into the gpu?

No I wouldn't until you know what is going on. As I said adding more voltage could make it worse as it might hit the Power Limit and / or the Temp Limit sooner. Turbo Boost has made overclocking nVidia GPU's more complex... well in reality, nVidia is protecting the user from damaging their hardware... and that user RMAing what was a perfectly good graphics card.

 

[techgeek]

I don't know why the OP can't deselect the Best Answer themselves, that seems silly. You don't know how many times I've had to deselect the Best Answer for the OP because of that.

 

[crxsify]

I don't know why the OP can't deselect the Best Answer themselves, that seems silly. You don't know how many times I've had to deselect the Best Answer for the OP because of that.

When i ran the benchmark again i got a black screen and had to restart my pc. I'm starting to wonder if its even worth OC'ing if i'll get that big of a performance boost. Idk if it's worth risking damaging my GPU

 

[techgeek]

Well that is the risk anyone takes when overclocking. That said, Turbo Boost does a pretty good job of keeping you from damaging your GPU. What a black screen tells me is your GPU is unable to run at the overclock settings you have without added voltage. And we've already discussed added voltage, it can make things worse. While it may make your GPU more stable, ultimately you may end up with a lower Core Clock which defeats the whole purpose of overclocking anyway.

 

[crxsify]

Well that is the risk anyone takes when overclocking. That said, Turbo Boost does a pretty good job of keeping you from damaging your GPU. What a black screen tells me is your GPU is unable to run at the overclock settings you have without added voltage. And we've already discussed added voltage, it can make things worse. While it may make your GPU more stable, ultimately you may end up with a lower Core Clock which defeats the whole purpose of overclocking anyway.

I think I'm gonna hold off on the whole OC'ing thing. Not ready to waste another 600 dollars. Thanks for helping man. cheers.

 

[techgeek]

No problem. Overclocking is really a hobby and not really a means to an end. Most of the time, the results are only visible in a benchmark unless you are playing a game that is borderline and need a couple extra frames to squeak your minimum framerate over 30 / 60. In your case assuming a default boost clock of around 1200MHz, your overclock would at best net you less than 10%. That is a best case scenario. I would say that unless you can achieve a 20% overclock (or at least 15%), it's almost not worth the effort.