Overclocking a 1070 or 1080

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XenithRai

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Jan 27, 2014
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I'm looking at upgrading my gtx 970 to a 1070 or 1080. After researching, it seems like the evga 970s weren't stellar for overclocking and getting one of the new cards would be better than SLI 970. So I don't end up getting another card that can't be overclocked as well compared to others, I was wondering if there were any particular models of the 1070s or 1080s that are better for overclocking compared to their competitors.
On a side note, reading reviews it also seems like the new cards have a coil whine / fan issue with them not running properly. Can anyone chime in with experience there too?

Edit: system specs are as follows
MB - asrock extreme z97
CPU - i5 4690k oc to 4.3ghz w/ h100i gtx water cooler
Ram - 16gb DDR3 corsair vengeance
Storage - 500gb Samsung ego 850 ssd
1tb WD HDD 7200
Dual monitor (main) 1440p 77Hz and 1080p 60hz
 
Solution
JackNaylorPE
The EVGA SC series always came up short in the overclocking department because of their propensity to use reference PCBs and stick VRMs. The 970 design was defficient (1 of the 3 heat sinks missed the GPU). later versions fixed it but they still had other issues, one of which was a weak VRM. The EVGA FTW and SC series (ACX versions) are also deficient, You can fix this by getting the missing cooling pads, then disassembling, installing the pad and reassembling.

With the 10xx series, AIB card vendors are still making better than reference cards.... all FE cards throttle, most AIB cards don't. And yes, there are vendors with better designs, which should overclock better. The problem with 10xx series is twofold"

1. Boost 3.0 is...
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well for coil whine / fan issues there's my theory:

with 1.000.000 GPUs sold (fictional number) some cards will have issues. thing is, you only hear the ones reporting coil whine, not the ones that have a fine working card
also fan issues are more than often also user/case related.
furthermore it also depends on your sensitivity towards noise and certain frequencies.

as for the cards: generally the cards with 2x 8 Pin connectors OC better as they usually come with more power phases and a higher power target.
if they're worth the extra cash, well, hard to answer.
the Zotac AMP! Extreme is the current champion I think in terms of overclockability

however I haven't yet seen a real reason to oc these cards. with Boost 3.0 every 1070 will clock around 2000MHz if sufficiently cooled. no matter what their official base/boost clock is.
 
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The EVGA SC series always came up short in the overclocking department because of their propensity to use reference PCBs and stick VRMs. The 970 design was defficient (1 of the 3 heat sinks missed the GPU). later versions fixed it but they still had other issues, one of which was a weak VRM. The EVGA FTW and SC series (ACX versions) are also deficient, You can fix this by getting the missing cooling pads, then disassembling, installing the pad and reassembling.

With the 10xx series, AIB card vendors are still making better than reference cards.... all FE cards throttle, most AIB cards don't. And yes, there are vendors with better designs, which should overclock better. The problem with 10xx series is twofold"

1. Boost 3.0 is the serving as the speed policeman. You could get much higher OCs but Boost 3 is not letting tusers take advantage of the improved componentry.

2. AFAIK, no one has as of yet cracked the 10xx series BIOS.... and while many folks have had success swapping 1 cards BIOS for another, we can not as yet go into the card's BIOS and edit it ourselves.

So yes, there are cards with better componentry, better designs, better VRMs, etc.... but in practice, they haven't been able to distinguish themselves because Boost 3 is reigning them in.

Be aware that any advice in this vein requires one thing ... monitor resolution. I'll assume 1440p

perfrel_2560_1440.png


As you can see, at 1440p, a single 1070 is faster than two 970s in SLI. At 1080, the gap widens a bit.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1080_Gaming_X/24.html

The other thing we see here which I think is weird is that there will be like 4 cards on the same PCB. IIt's been a while since I looked so i may have this slightly off, but

MSI 1070 Aero is a good card, lowest price
MSI 1070 Gaming is a good card, for a lil more and lets you use an app to pick between 3 OC presets
MSI 1070 Gaming is a good card, for a lil more and lets you use the app and has a LED
MSI 1070 Gaming is a good card, for a lil more and lets you use an app , has the LED and a slightly higher OC.

In all likelihood, you can manually OC the Aero to the Z. I am finding that with 10xx, peeps are picking which one they want based upon color as much as anything else. Design wise, I like the MSI Gaming (red) or OC (white) designs.

Hardware.info reported that it ha the best design of any they had seen 'so far'. Where I might recommend otherwise in the past for a certain card, if someone asks for advice, and had one in mind, (Asus Strix, MSI Gaming, Gigabyte Windforce, Zotac amp), I'll just leave it be ... only ones we don't recommend are the EVGA SC and FTW,

MSI 1070 is a good card, lowest price
 
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the MSI Aero is a single fan blower type design. it throttles just like the FE which is logical as they basically use the same cooling.
also prices differ. there are places where MSI is more or less cheap, where I live MSI is in the upper third or prices.



 
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Depending on pricing, looks like the 10 series is pretty significant and to avoid evga for overclocking. Also to look for dual 8pins. Thank you all for your input. Is there a better time of year to purchase an nvidia card?
 
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