Overclocking my XFX R9 270

[rebelyell06]

What numbers have been done safely?

 

[Radu Ionel]

My recomandation is to keep the factory settings when you overclock you loose your waranty,I have a Sapphire 270x with bost and the frequencies are : "Gpu 1070MHz / Memory 1400Mhz (Gpu-Z)" you could use these frequencies for your XFX.I don't make overclock on video cards picose when i am playing games i never set graphics to full load the gpu i keep the card on 80% load.
The frequencies above are the most apropiate ,you can go 1050MHz on GPU.The funny thing is that video cards gain more performance usualy from memory overclock but it is not recomanded in this case picose 1400 is high translated in to effective memory clock is 5600Mhz,personaly i am scared of overclocking memory with such high numbers.

 

[meat_loaf]

I have an Asus DirectCU II R9 270 and i overclocked it to max. XFX should overclock without problems like MSI and Asus. Here is my spec on R9 270 overclock stability test using MSI Afterburner:

Auto fan, auto voltage (doesn't matter because no matter how hard i stress the card it wants to run at 1.215v and base VDDC=1.190)
Power limit: +20% @ 120%
Base clock: 950 core, 1400 memory
Boost clock 975, 1400

Overclock limits:
Max memory = 1500 mhz.
I tested if its over 1500 mhz there is actually a decrease in performance and anything beyond 1520 mhz the display gets corrupted.

GPU overclock max = 1180 mhz, anything beyond it you see artifact, random direct x error, and display turning off.

My overclock for games = 1170 core and 1500 memory. It runs fine with fan around 55% and temp ~68-75 celsius.

These numbers I got are the best reference as I tested it and stressed it to the max while playing multiple games. Your XFX should run just as good without any crash, but you may only be able to run at lower clock than mine because the Direct CU II cooler is better than XFX cooling solution and depends on how XFX clocked your card when they manufactured it.

Basically I got about ~10% increase in performance at my settings which is good since it is beyond an R9 270X performance.

 

[meat_loaf]

My recomandation is to keep the factory settings when you overclock you loose your waranty,I have a Sapphire 270x with bost and the frequencies are : "Gpu 1070MHz / Memory 1400Mhz (Gpu-Z)" you could use these frequencies for your XFX.I don't make overclock on video cards picose when i am playing games i never set graphics to full load the gpu i keep the card on 80% load.
The frequencies above are the most apropiate ,you can go 1050MHz on GPU.The funny thing is that video cards gain more performance usualy from memory overclock but it is not recomanded in this case picose 1400 is high translated in to effective memory clock is 5600Mhz,personaly i am scared of overclocking memory with such high numbers.

Dude there is something called MSI Afterburner use it and stress your gpu. Your card will not break. If you're scared of overclocking then no point in buying a graphics card designed for overclocking and you'll be wasting money away on lost potential performance.

 

[Brian Blair]

It will not void the warranty if you use ccc to overclock. Besides even if it did void the warranty, All you would have to do is not be dumb enough to tell them you overclocked it. Besides there is no way they can know you overclocked it. Unless you flash it with a different clock speed. But other than that they will never know. But if it is a 270 nonX model I would not go over 1050mhz, And I would not overclock the V-Ram at all! The 270's are already overclocked on the V-Ram from the 7870 and the 270 non X models have no V-Ram heatsinks. So overclocking the V-Ram is just going to ruin your card very quickly. Stupid bit miners can get away with it longer since they do not see artifacts as quickly. But it eventually happens to them too after it gets so bad. And then once the solder in the V-Ram chips melt more they will get red hot almost as soon as you turn on your PC causing blue screens. So never OC V-Ram without heatsinks.

 

[meat_loaf]

It will not void the warranty if you use ccc to overclock. Besides even if it did void the warranty, All you would have to do is not be dumb enough to tell them you overclocked it. Besides there is no way they can know you overclocked it. Unless you flash it with a different clock speed. But other than that they will never know. But if it is a 270 nonX model I would not go over 1050mhz, And I would not overclock the V-Ram at all! The 270's are already overclocked on the V-Ram from the 7870 and the 270 non X models have no V-Ram heatsinks. So overclocking the V-Ram is just going to ruin your card very quickly. Stupid bit miners can get away with it longer since they do not see artifacts as quickly. But it eventually happens to them too after it gets so bad. And then once the solder in the V-Ram chips melt more they will get red hot almost as soon as you turn on your PC causing blue screens. So never OC V-Ram without heatsinks.

I would advise against using CCC to overclock. You don't get much functions out of CCC. The preferable software that everyone uses is MSI Afterburner because it comes with RiverTuner and whole lot of functions generally not available even to other ones like Trixx.

MSI Afterburner allows extra options to extend overclocking ability, this means it allows you to push your card beyond the set limit which gives you more free performance. My R9 270 is able to achieve an additional 120mhz on the core resulting in 1190mhz, more than 25% than the stated overclock of 1050mhz on the chip. It also has OSD which allows the user during gameplay to view the current FPS, GPU temp/usage, VRAM, CPU, system ram, etc...

CCC is for basic amateurs who doesn't have a clue how to overclock so you can set the sliders all the way up and hence you limited your card's potential.

And no, if you do overclock beyond the stated OC limit, the manufacturers can actually detect the past settings your chip has been running in. They have a method of extracting back log usage that users can't. Hence when you do have issues, they can refute your warranty and its up to them if they want to send you a new card. That is why people who do overclock use benchmarking softwares like Unigine to stress their gpu to know the limits and not push too far.

 

[karthikmothukuri]

What numbers have been done safely?

What overclock settings are you using? I have double dissipation edition. Wondering what overclock settings are stable for xfx r9 270.

 

[JoelEspinoza]

I hit 1300 core and 1500 memory on my Asus R9 270 (non x version), I did get it up to 1325/1600, but there were some artifacts with the memory that high, I ordered $2 worth the ram coolers and I will see if they make higher memory clocks possible.

On my card the core clock and voltage scaled perfectly together all the way up, it always wanted 75 mV more than the core speed. So at 1100Mhz core it took 1175mV, and at 1325Mhz it took 1400mV, it is currently set to 1300Mhz/1375mV. The core is water cooled and never gets above 40C during normal use and 48C was the highest I have seen stress testing it with Valley/Furmark.

Time will tell how long it lasts at 1375mV.

Since the stock voltage was 1215mV base/1245mV cap my card was capable of running at 1140Mhz with the base voltage and 1170Mhz with the maximum allowed voltage. The even the Asus overclocked frequency at 1215mV was 975, 1140-975 = 165Mhz 17% overclocking above Asus overclock on the stock voltage is a pretty wide margin.

 

[meat_loaf]

I hit 1300 core and 1500 memory on my Asus R9 270 (non x version), I did get it up to 1325/1600, but there were some artifacts with the memory that high, I ordered $2 worth the ram coolers and I will see if they make higher memory clocks possible.

On my card the core clock and voltage scaled perfectly together all the way up, it always wanted 75 mV more than the core speed. So at 1100Mhz core it took 1175mV, and at 1325Mhz it took 1400mV, it is currently set to 1300Mhz/1375mV. The core is water cooled and never gets above 40C during normal use and 48C was the highest I have seen stress testing it with Valley/Furmark.

Time will tell how long it lasts at 1375mV.

Since the stock voltage was 1215mV base/1245mV cap my card was capable of running at 1140Mhz with the base voltage and 1170Mhz with the maximum allowed voltage. The even the Asus overclocked frequency at 1215mV was 975, 1140-975 = 165Mhz 17% overclocking above Asus overclock on the stock voltage is a pretty wide margin.

How did you manage to change the core voltage? My Asus R9 270 OC edition using MSI afterburner, the core voltage seems locked. Custom bios flash?

 

[JoelEspinoza]

Yea, VBE 7 and atiwinflash. As long as you only change the last set of clocks its pretty safe, assuming it works with your card. I flashed mine about 20 times before I settled into my final clock.

The performance frequencies are seperate from the boot and low power frequencies, so even with a badly overclocked bios the card will still boot into windows, it will just freeze if you try to stress test it.

The best part is that I dont have to start afterburner or gpu tweak, it just runs at those speeds like stock.