Overclocking noob, have questions

[hahler2]

Ok so I've been doing a lot of reading over the last couple of weeks on overclocking. I decided to try my hand at it finally. Here is my rig:

Core i5 4690k
MSI Gaming 4G GTX 980
Gigabyte Z97MX-Gaming 5 motherboard
Phanteks PH-TC12DX cooler
EVGA 750 G2 power supply
NZXT H440 case

So I installed GPU-Z, MSI afterburner, and unigine heaven. I opened up afterburner and started the process. Started just like you're supposed to. Increased power limit to 122 percent which is max on my card. Then started turning up the core clock and testing with Heaven for instability. Finally got it stable in Heaven so I decided to try it out. Opened up Witcher 3 and started playing. Everything was good for about 15 minutes or so. Then I started getting artifacts and then the game froze. By this time it was 2 in the morning so I decided to take a break.

After some research this afternoon I decided to install Furmark and really push the card and make sure my temperatures weren't getting out of hand. Sure enough, it crashed right off the bat. So I decided to restart the whole process and get it stable in Furmark. Ended up with these settings:

Core Voltage 40
Power Limit 122
Core Clock 138
Memory Clock 135

That is as high as I can push anything before it starts crashing Furmark. Temps are holding steady right at 78 to 79C. Those numbers seem really low compared to what other people are getting with GTX 980's. Especially the memory clock. So here's my question. Did I do something wrong, did I lose the silicon lottery, or am I just generating too much heat and so the card is throttling?

 

[Tradesman1]

Could be a lot of things - do you have the latest BIOS and mobo drivers? Latest GPU drivers? How are CPU/mobo temps? Also most tend to start OCing the GPU slow and taking things up a bit at a time to ensure things remain balanced rather than jumping to big numbers from the get go

 

[hahler2]

Yeah I've backed my numbers off a little more. It seems from testing that my setup doesn't seem to like extra voltage very much. I am running all the latest drivers and bios. I did not monitor cpu temps while I was testing my card since I haven't done any kind of an Overclock on the processor so I don't know where it was running at.

Any one have any other ideas?

 

[Tradesman1]

Oc it like most, start low and work your way up, it obviously has stability problems the way it's set, so starting from scratch and moving up slowly - one thing at a time and checking for stability as you go is how to attain the best and highest stable OC you can get

 

[hahler2]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread. Real life got in the way and I've been way to busy to mess with my overclock anymore. Finally had some time to come back to it. I started with the processor. After a lot of trial and error and a lot of testing I was able to get it to 4.5 ghz. I know it's capable of more, but it's stable where it's at and it's running pretty cool too. During Prime95 would get to 68 C. Most of the time during gaming doesn't break 55 C. Very very happy with my processor.

So now I'm starting in on my GTX 980 again. I reset everything to factory and then started watching a bunch of videos and reading guides. A few of the ones that I saw said to set your power limit to max, set a custom fan profile to help with heat, and then start turning up your core clock in small increments until Unigine Heaven just crashes right on the start. I got my core clock to +155 before Heaven started crashing. I backed it off to +150. Heaven runs now, but I get some blue and green artifacts coming up on screen. Does this mean that it's still not stable? If not what do I do now, do I keep lowering core clock until the artifacts go away, or do I add voltage until the artifacts are gone? Also what kind of GPU temps should I be shooting for? I know I read that a GTX 980 won't start throttling until 81 C, but I'm sure I don't want to have it running 80 C when gaming as that would be awfully close to temp limit.

 

[Tradesman1]

initially try a little voltage, idf no joy, dial it down

 

[hahler2]

So the artifacts are a symptom of instability then. That's what I figured. What about GPU temps? Thanks for the help tradesman!

 

[Tradesman1]

Looks OK