Discussion Performance decrease with memory overclock?

[SteelStruck]

So I am running a gtx 1650 super with an i5-4440 (12gb of ddr3 1600mhz), and I noticed my CPU was not maxed out in certain GPU intensive titles, so I decided to overclock to get the most performance I could, to do this I used MSI afterburner (as one should) and tested it with MSI kombuster and uniengine heaven benchmark (I only wrote down the MSI kombustor scores) so at stock clocks, I got a score of 1602 in MSI kombuster, so I found my max stable core clock increase was around +140mhz so I went with that and with that increased (no memory increase) I got a score of 1690 in MSI afterburner. So then I decided to increase the mem clock, I did +100mhz for a score of 1707, then +200mhz for a score of 1715, but then when I went to +300mhz my score dropped to 1702, then with +400mhz my score was 1684, which is lower than at stock memory clock! I finally decided to go with +200mhz because that's where I got the highest score, I saw my performance in games go up quite a bit, but I am still puzzled at why my performance was less with a higher memory clock. I would like to hear your input on why this might be happening and maybe learn some performance-boosting tips on the way. (I have the Asus tuf model of the gtx 1650 super if you need that information) Thanks so much for the input!

 

[ibear07]

I got a score of 1602 in MSI kombuster, so I found my max stable core clock increase was around +140mhz so I went with that and with that increased (no memory increase) I got a score of 1690 in MSI afterburner. So then I decided to increase the mem clock, I did +100mhz for a score of 1707, then +200mhz for a score of 1715, but then when I went to +300mhz my score dropped to 1702, then with +400mhz my score was 1684, which is lower than at stock memory clock!

So there are many people who are more qualified to answer this question than I am, however when you’re over clocking your gpu and you start to receive lower benchmark scores it could be many different reasons but because you’re talking about mem clocks it’s most likely memory errors. At certain points efficiency begins to outweigh simple brute strength increases in mem clocks. Meaning stability and efficiency can give you better results at lower clocks than oc’ing can. What’s happening is at the higher mem clocks (200-400mhz in your case) is causing memory errors resulting in gpu error correction thus resulting in lower bench scores/FPS drops. (I believe, it at least sounds good).

Point being that more oc doesn’t necessarily mean better results. OC in general means you need to be patient and test your results in very small increments and very thoroughly. Furthermore, you could be stable in bench but in-game you could see issues, especially in different games. Often, one game that may be stable at x oc clocks, doesn’t mean the second game will be stable at x clocks as well.

By the way, I by no means am knowledgeable with overclocking, I’ve just been interested recently, played around on my own systems and noticed that no one had responded. I’m sure tons of people have the same issue with the same question and other people have given better responses who have way more experience (level up!) and knowledge. just thought I’d help if you’re still interested in an answer.

Best of luck! Stay safe.

 

[SteelStruck]

Thanks so much for the reply I will probably increase the memory clock in very small increments to find the exact spot where performance starts to decrease.