Questions on Overclocking Sapphire R9 280

[darian465]

I recently got an r9 280 and i had some questions on overclocking this thing.
First my pc specs are:
CPU:Core i5-4440
Psu: XFX 550W
Mobo: Gigabyte B85M- Gaming 3
And obviously my GPU is a sapphire R9 280

I new to the whole overclocking ordeal. but i have some knowledge on what overclocking is, i have just never done it before.

 

[thor220]

Overclocking is really easy for AMD GPUs.

Open up the catalyst control center
Click "Performance" and then "AMD Overdrive"
Click "Enable Graphics OverDrive"

Increase the GPU Clock and memory clock. It's best by 50 Mhz increments.

Do a stability test. Run a program like FurMark for at least 1 hour Make sure to look for artifacts and watch your GPU temperatures.

Keep increase GPU clocks until either your system crashes, artifacts appear, or temperatures become too high. Be sure that temperatures don't exceed 80c during the one hour stress test.

 

[darian465]

Didnt know it was that easy with amd... I've heard about software like MSI Afterburner, are there any advantages to using that?

 

[neieus]

You can use the control center or MSI Afterburner but all in all the same rules apply when it comes to overclocking.

 

[thor220]

Ok. two more questions,
1. I've heard that my gpu has a dual bios option, and that 1 bios is high performance and another is normal. How do i distinguish one from the other
2. and what about voltage? I've heard that you can do even more overclocking if you have your voltage unlocked, but i do not see any option in amd Catalyst. and if i look into MSI afterburner, the voltage conrtrol is greyed out.

If it is dual bios, there will be a switch or button on the card physically. You may have to look closely as it can be rather small. If the 2nd bios is an overclocked bios, you'll be able to seen the increased speed in the OverDrive section I just showed you.

Changing the voltage is more dangerous and is usually only recommended for experience Overclockers. This is because it carries a very real chance of damaging the card. You do need 3rd party software to up the voltage. In addition to that, your card may not support voltage changes and so even 3rd part software would not be able to help.

MSI afterburner is good if you are going for a very large overclock. It allows you to modify the voltages, which is important for getting more out of a card. The downside is that you now have to have MSI afterburner running all the time. I wouldn't recommend that someone new use MSI afterburner. I personally only use it to see how an overclock would work and then if I like it, modify the bios with the new clock information.