Really need help with overclocking a MSI GTX 770 2GB. A bit confused.

[malrats]

So, I've been using MSI Afterburner for probably almost a year now and have had my settings on 100% power, prioritize 80 temperature, and then +130 core and +350 memory clock. I don't know that I've noticed any kind of performance gains at all, but I also haven't had any issues with temperature or stability.

Is there something that I'm doing wrong? Generally the recommended numbers I see when Googling are much lower than mine. I really could use as much of a boost as I can right now and can't afford to buy a new GPU for quite awhile.

Thanks!

Edit: I'm getting very inconsistent and generally bad fps playing World of Warcraft. I'll have 45-60fps at best one minute and then suddenly it'll be dropping to 20fps. Sometimes if I alt tab a few times, when I come back in the framerate will be back up, but I don't know why this is. It's driving me crazy.

 

[scuzzycard]

What are your system specs? A 12% boost in GPU speed wouldn't be noticable if your CPU is a bottleneck.

 

[malrats]

What are your system specs? A 12% boost in GPU speed wouldn't be noticable if your CPU is a bottleneck.

Does this help at all?

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/1608139

UserBenchmarks: Game 71%, Desk 86%, Work 56%
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K - 101.2%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 770 - 71.9%
SSD: Crucial M4 128GB - 66.3%
HDD: Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB - 59.1%
USB: Seagate Expansion 1TB - 37.3%
RAM: Crucial BLS8G3D1609DS1S00. 2x8GB - 63.7%
MBD: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H-CF

I had tried to overclock my CPU for the first time ever earlier (the results shown are without any overclock) and I'm just completely lost with what to do even though I put it through and it had said that I was running at 4.6GHz, I'm not quite sure if I had all of the voltages right and so I was having some issues that may or may not have been a result of the attempted OC.

 

[scuzzycard]

Yes it does. OK, let's address the GPU first. +130MHz is not a huge overclock in the grand scheme of things. The stock speed is over 1000MHz, so you can do the math. It's only going to translate into around 5fps, give or take. You might not even notice that in a game that's already performing well. You might need to run a benchmark test in order to verify your gains empirically - and userbench does not run a particularly thorough GPU test, though I'd expect an extra 130MHz to register, even on that test.

Your CPU shouldn't be a bottleneck, though overclocking both the GPU and CPU in tandem is never bad for performance. What are the issues regarding your CPU overclock? For 4.6GHz, I would expect you to have raised the core voltage at least a little. What exactly happened there?

 

[malrats]

What are your system specs? A 12% boost in GPU speed wouldn't be noticable if your CPU is a bottleneck.

Yes it does. OK, let's address the GPU first. +130MHz is not a huge overclock in the grand scheme of things. The stock speed is over 1000MHz, so you can do the math. It's only going to translate into around 5fps, give or take. You might not even notice that in a game that's already performing well. You might need to run a benchmark test in order to verify your gains empirically - and userbench does not run a particularly thorough GPU test, though I'd expect an extra 130MHz to register, even on that test.

Your CPU shouldn't be a bottleneck, though overclocking both the GPU and CPU in tandem is never bad for performance. What are the issues regarding your CPU overclock? For 4.6GHz, I would expect you to have raised the core voltage at least a little. What exactly happened there?

Well, I'm not 100% sure of what happened but I had increased the voltages a bit following a guide (though one that wasn't really catered to me) and I don't know if it's coincidence or a result of the OC, but loading times were suddenly insanely long, and I started to get these moments in-game where everything would freeze up for a bit as if the game was in the "not responding" status, and then it would come back after a few seconds. Sometimes everything would be the same, other times the FPS would be considerably lower. The only other thing I changed was turning on XMP for my memory, as recommended on UserBenchmark. All I did with that was select "Profile1" instead of "Disabled" in my BIOS, so I'm not even entirely sure of what that did.

Right now, though, I don't have my CPU overclocked as far as I can tell and I'm still getting this new sudden lock-up/recovery issue. Also, should I be trying to push my GPU further or just leave it as-is?

 

[scuzzycard]

What are your system specs? A 12% boost in GPU speed wouldn't be noticable if your CPU is a bottleneck.

Yes it does. OK, let's address the GPU first. +130MHz is not a huge overclock in the grand scheme of things. The stock speed is over 1000MHz, so you can do the math. It's only going to translate into around 5fps, give or take. You might not even notice that in a game that's already performing well. You might need to run a benchmark test in order to verify your gains empirically - and userbench does not run a particularly thorough GPU test, though I'd expect an extra 130MHz to register, even on that test.

Your CPU shouldn't be a bottleneck, though overclocking both the GPU and CPU in tandem is never bad for performance. What are the issues regarding your CPU overclock? For 4.6GHz, I would expect you to have raised the core voltage at least a little. What exactly happened there?

Well, I'm not 100% sure of what happened but I had increased the voltages a bit following a guide (though one that wasn't really catered to me) and I don't know if it's coincidence or a result of the OC, but loading times were suddenly insanely long, and I started to get these moments in-game where everything would freeze up for a bit as if the game was in the "not responding" status, and then it would come back after a few seconds. Sometimes everything would be the same, other times the FPS would be considerably lower. The only other thing I changed was turning on XMP for my memory, as recommended on UserBenchmark. All I did with that was select "Profile1" instead of "Disabled" in my BIOS, so I'm not even entirely sure of what that did.

Right now, though, I don't have my CPU overclocked as far as I can tell and I'm still getting this new sudden lock-up/recovery issue. Also, should I be trying to push my GPU further or just leave it as-is?

Does the locking-up still happen if you disable XMP? As for the 770, a good card can OC to about 1200, while a great one can hit 1300. You won't know until you try

 

[malrats]

What are your system specs? A 12% boost in GPU speed wouldn't be noticable if your CPU is a bottleneck.

Yes it does. OK, let's address the GPU first. +130MHz is not a huge overclock in the grand scheme of things. The stock speed is over 1000MHz, so you can do the math. It's only going to translate into around 5fps, give or take. You might not even notice that in a game that's already performing well. You might need to run a benchmark test in order to verify your gains empirically - and userbench does not run a particularly thorough GPU test, though I'd expect an extra 130MHz to register, even on that test.

Your CPU shouldn't be a bottleneck, though overclocking both the GPU and CPU in tandem is never bad for performance. What are the issues regarding your CPU overclock? For 4.6GHz, I would expect you to have raised the core voltage at least a little. What exactly happened there?

Well, I'm not 100% sure of what happened but I had increased the voltages a bit following a guide (though one that wasn't really catered to me) and I don't know if it's coincidence or a result of the OC, but loading times were suddenly insanely long, and I started to get these moments in-game where everything would freeze up for a bit as if the game was in the "not responding" status, and then it would come back after a few seconds. Sometimes everything would be the same, other times the FPS would be considerably lower. The only other thing I changed was turning on XMP for my memory, as recommended on UserBenchmark. All I did with that was select "Profile1" instead of "Disabled" in my BIOS, so I'm not even entirely sure of what that did.

Right now, though, I don't have my CPU overclocked as far as I can tell and I'm still getting this new sudden lock-up/recovery issue. Also, should I be trying to push my GPU further or just leave it as-is?

Does the locking-up still happen if you disable XMP? As for the 770, a good card can OC to about 1200, while a great one can hit 1300. You won't know until you try

I was going to try disabling XMP next and find out.

Regarding the numbers 1200 and 1300 you mentioned, what exactly is that referencing? +1200 or 1300 to the core clock?

 

[scuzzycard]

No, the final clock speed, not the offset. You'll have to use afterburner to see what speed you're actually running at. The stock boost clock is 1085MHz.