Tips for SLI GPU overclocking please?

[Ro-Tang Clan]

Hi,

I have two MSI GTX 770 Lightning edition cards and looking for some noob friendly tips on overclocking them please?

I use MSI Afterburner to overclock and Furmark and 3DMark Firestrike to benchmark afterward. So far I've managed to use the settings in the screenshot below which work when benchmarking but cause games to freeze.

http://i.imgur.com/R9LY38m.png

What software is the best so I can constantly run a benchmark on the background and keep an eye on the graphs of what each GPU is doing?

Also, can someone teach me how to read the graphs so that I know what is the limiting factor each time? Whether it's power limit or voltage etc and if it's voltage how do I know if I need more Core Voltage or Memory Voltage?

 

[Sanjay Srivastava]

its better you do not mess up with voltage settings,.,.,.,. also make sure both the gpus have EQUAL and ample access to fresh cool air since if one gpu gets heated more it olso downclocks the other gpu

 

[Ro-Tang Clan]

its better you do not mess up with voltage settings,.,.,.,. also make sure both the gpus have EQUAL and ample access to fresh cool air since if one gpu gets heated more it olso downclocks the other gpu

Cheers for the reply, but why not mess with the voltage settings? I know enough about overclocking to not be stupid with it. I have experience with overclocking CPU's and have managed to stably overclock my AMD FX-8320 to 4.8GHz The only difference being is that I've never used software to overclock before and I can't get to grips with what MSI Afterburner is telling me.

For example, increasing the core clock on Afterburner by +55 MHz actually does increase the core clock by 55MHz, but changing the memory clock by +200MHz doesn't actually increase the memory clock by 200MHz (it goes from 1753MHz to 1853MHz) ~ it's slightly confusing.

Because of that I suspect increasing the core voltage by +12mV (maximum allowed by Afterburner) won't actually increase the core voltage by 12mV.

To answer your question, yes I have made sure they have got breathing space ^^ My PC case is the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe which has the 200mm front fan by default. I've config'd it to act as a PWM fan increasing it's speed in tandem with the CPU fans so when under load (gaming) it'll kick in and give the GPU's fresh air

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Start by seeing what's already worked. here you see Guru3Ds results

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_770_lightning_review,25.html

Core Clock: 1225 MHz
Boost Clock: 1306 MHz
Memory Clock:7806MHz

We applied this as a profile:

Power Target 109% (priority)
Temp Target 95 Degrees C
CPU clock +75 MHz
Mem clock +400 MHz
Mem voltage +0.50 Mv
GPU Voltage Memory +12 Mv
Fan RPM, 55%

nVidia limits the voltage which manufacturers can "allow" using both physical design limitations and legal restrictions. You simply can not harm the card by adjusting the voltage in MSI Afterburner. Without that additional voltage, you are basically wasting your time..... no doubt some DPUS that come off the line will work w/o it but the reason that slider is there is because it is expected to be used. Going beyond that point is another issue. Load up HWiNFO64 or GPU_z. On the latter set it to record max temp, max power, max voltage, max clock. Before starting, save the "stock profile" in Slot No. 1. Have a pen / paper or, better yet, use a spreadsheet to record your Valley / Firestrike scores for each setting.

1. Start with the above Guru3D settings, Save in Slot No.2 ("Guru3D settings") .

2. Adjust memory down to original "stock settings".

3. Run Furmark for an hour and test for heat issues

4. Run Unigine Valley / Firestrike Benchmarks ... look for artifacts,

5. Depending upon results, increase or decrease the core by say 20. If you see artifacts in Valley / Firestrike, crash, or get to hot, back down 10 and try again.

6. Rinse and repeat till you find a stable core setting. Save this in Slot 3 ("Stable Core Clock")

7. At this point, do the same thing but with memory.... start by setting core clock back to "stock settings" and find out what maximum stable memory is. Save this in Slot 4 ("Max. Memory Setting)

8. So now we know your limits for each criteria. So lets restore Slot 3 settings and move half way up from the stock to the max memory settings and test..... keep going up until you get artifacts or fail.

9. You will notice from your spreadsheet, that your highest core and memory settings will not produce the highest benchmarks. On the 780s, my highest stable memory setting w/o artifacts was 7412....my highest core was 1089 (1267 boost). I wound up at 1083 core / 1254 boost / 7220 memory after all tweaking

Now to your problem .... some games just steenk. Battlefield 4 is one of them that has crashed our systems every time it's been played. My sons use MSI AB to restore stock settings whenever that game is played. It doesn't stop the crashes but it does lengthen the time it takes to get them. This is on 3 builds... twin Asus 560s , twin Asus 780s (water cooled) and twin MSI 970s .... sometimes the kids even turn SLI off in their frustration but again.... that just seems to lengthen the time between crashes.

When I played Metro ... there was a spot where I came out from underground and overlooked a flooded junkyard.... it would stall at that spot every time. But, you could restore stock settings, climb out and eneter the junkyard, restore the OC'd settings and you'd be fine.

Some games are just dorky in this respect. Like certain AV programs, my guess is between all the DRM stuff and rush to get it out the door, the optimizations are just not what they should be. So save that stick setting for use when necessary if ya hitting the same problem in the same spot in any individual game.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

To answer your question, yes I have made sure they have got breathing space ^^ My PC case is the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe which has the 200mm front fan by default. I've config'd it to act as a PWM fan increasing it's speed in tandem with the CPU fans so when under load (gaming) it'll kick in and give the GPU's fresh air

My son has the Luxe also.... w/ two 970s in SLI.

(3) 140mm fans on top
(2) 140mm fans on bottom (Lower HD cage removed)
(1) 140mm fan in rear
(1) 200mm fan in front

He put the (6) 140s on the fan Hub connected to one header and the (1) 200m on another. If ya get more fans, it's a good idea not to mix rpm's on the same channel.

 

[Ro-Tang Clan]

Start by seeing what's already worked. here you see Guru3Ds results

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_770_lightning_review,25.html

Core Clock: 1225 MHz
Boost Clock: 1306 MHz
Memory Clock:7806MHz

We applied this as a profile:

Power Target 109% (priority)
Temp Target 95 Degrees C
CPU clock +75 MHz
Mem clock +400 MHz
Mem voltage +0.50 Mv
GPU Voltage Memory +12 Mv
Fan RPM, 55%

nVidia limits the voltage which manufacturers can "allow" using both physical design limitations and legal restrictions. You simply can not harm the card by adjusting the voltage in MSI Afterburner. Without that additional voltage, you are basically wasting your time..... no doubt some DPUS that come off the line will work w/o it but the reason that slider is there is because it is expected to be used. Going beyond that point is another issue. Load up HWiNFO64 or GPU_z. On the latter set it to record max temp, max power, max voltage, max clock. Before starting, save the "stock profile" in Slot No. 1. Have a pen / paper or, better yet, use a spreadsheet to record your Valley / Firestrike scores for each setting.

1. Start with the above Guru3D settings, Save in Slot No.2 ("Guru3D settings") .

2. Adjust memory down to original "stock settings".

3. Run Furmark for an hour and test for heat issues

4. Run Unigine Valley / Firestrike Benchmarks ... look for artifacts,

5. Depending upon results, increase or decrease the core by say 20. If you see artifacts in Valley / Firestrike, crash, or get to hot, back down 10 and try again.

6. Rinse and repeat till you find a stable core setting. Save this in Slot 3 ("Stable Core Clock")

7. At this point, do the same thing but with memory.... start by setting core clock back to "stock settings" and find out what maximum stable memory is. Save this in Slot 4 ("Max. Memory Setting)

8. So now we know your limits for each criteria. So lets restore Slot 3 settings and move half way up from the stock to the max memory settings and test..... keep going up until you get artifacts or fail.

9. You will notice from your spreadsheet, that your highest core and memory settings will not produce the highest benchmarks. On the 780s, my highest stable memory setting w/o artifacts was 7412....my highest core was 1089 (1267 boost). I wound up at 1083 core / 1254 boost / 7220 memory after all tweaking

Now to your problem .... some games just steenk. Battlefield 4 is one of them that has crashed our systems every time it's been played. My sons use MSI AB to restore stock settings whenever that game is played. It doesn't stop the crashes but it does lengthen the time it takes to get them. This is on 3 builds... twin Asus 560s , twin Asus 780s (water cooled) and twin MSI 970s .... sometimes the kids even turn SLI off in their frustration but again.... that just seems to lengthen the time between crashes.

When I played Metro ... there was a spot where I came out from underground and overlooked a flooded junkyard.... it would stall at that spot every time. But, you could restore stock settings, climb out and eneter the junkyard, restore the OC'd settings and you'd be fine.

Some games are just dorky in this respect. Like certain AV programs, my guess is between all the DRM stuff and rush to get it out the door, the optimizations are just not what they should be. So save that stick setting for use when necessary if ya hitting the same problem in the same spot in any individual game.

Thank you very much, that was exactly the kind of advice I was looking for It's certainly not a quick way, but it makes the most sense to get the right stable settings so I'll give it a try. Ahh so you can't hurt the card by bumping the voltage settings to maximum on AB? I heard that Memory voltage is very sensitive and you can damage the cards if overvolted too high, but it seems like you have bags of experience on your hands so I'll trust your words.

Also, the game that froze on me was Farcry 3. I use that as a 'gaming' benchmark because it's one of the more demanding games I own other than Shadow Of Mordor. It's handy to know that some games just don't play well with OC'd cards at some points so I'll keep that in mind.

I don't actually need to OC my cards as I'm only running at 1080p with a 60Hz TV but it I suspect it would help keep the framerate from dipping below 60fps in the more demanding games.

To answer your question, yes I have made sure they have got breathing space ^^ My PC case is the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe which has the 200mm front fan by default. I've config'd it to act as a PWM fan increasing it's speed in tandem with the CPU fans so when under load (gaming) it'll kick in and give the GPU's fresh air

My son has the Luxe also.... w/ two 970s in SLI.

(3) 140mm fans on top
(2) 140mm fans on bottom (Lower HD cage removed)
(1) 140mm fan in rear
(1) 200mm fan in front

He put the (6) 140s on the fan Hub connected to one header and the (1) 200m on another. If ya get more fans, it's a good idea not to mix rpm's on the same channel.

That sounds pretty damn awesome, do you mind me asking what fans he's using? i'm in the middle of sorting out my fan config for the Luxe at the moment, but it's a little bit awkward with my motherboard. I'm using the ASRock 990FX Extreme9 board which have weird fan headers in the way it behaves with certain configurations. I haven't been able to use the in-built fan controller with the case as everytime I try, it will ignore the RPM I set in the BIOS/UEFI and run the fans at full RPM. I'll need to experiment with different fan configurations though

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Thank you very much, that was exactly the kind of advice I was looking for It's certainly not a quick way, but it makes the most sense to get the right stable settings so I'll give it a try. Ahh so you can't hurt the card by bumping the voltage settings to maximum on AB? I heard that Memory voltage is very sensitive and you can damage the cards if overvolted too high, but it seems like you have bags of experience on your hands so I'll trust your words.

Well if your asking if I'm an old "bag", yes that's certainly true. I started building PC's in the early 1990s

Also, the game that froze on me was Farcry 3. I use that as a 'gaming' benchmark because it's one of the more demanding games I own other than Shadow Of Mordor. It's handy to know that some games just don't play well with OC'd cards at some points so I'll keep that in mind.

I played FC3 and had no issues.... FC4 won't load past start screen even with all the patches.

That sounds pretty damn awesome, do you mind me asking what fans he's using? i'm in the middle of sorting out my fan config for the Luxe at the moment, but it's a little bit awkward with my motherboard. I'm using the ASRock 990FX Extreme9 board which have weird fan headers in the way it behaves with certain configurations. I haven't been able to use the in-built fan controller with the case as everytime I try, it will ignore the RPM I set in the BIOS/UEFI and run the fans at full RPM. I'll need to experiment with different fan configurations though

The Phanteks fans are the best on the market at the moment.

Top the previous "king of the hill" by 3C here while spinning 300 rpm slower
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/phenteks_f140/3.htm

And top silentpcreview.com fan roundup
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1345-page7.html

The reason you are doing that is you have the SATA power cable connected and your header is not PWM

1. If you are not drawing more than 1 amp ..... do NOT connect the SATA power cable.
-Each Phanteks 140mm fan draws 0.14 amps
-Each Phanteks 200mn fan draws 0.25 amps

2. here's your board's connectors
2 x CPU Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin, 1 x 3-pin)
3 x Chassis Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin, 2 x 3-pin)

a) Use the 4 pin CPU fan header for the CPU cooler.

b) Use the 4 pin Chassis fan header for the Hub. Connect up to (6) Phanteks 140mm fans to the hub (0.84 amps). You do not need to connect the SATA power cable as you are still < 1 amp. Now I doubt that that 4 pin header is actually true PWM, so you could try and connect it and see what happens. If all the fans go full speed then it is not PWM.

c) Connect the 200mm fan to any other header

 

[Ro-Tang Clan]

Well if your asking if I'm an old "bag", yes that's certainly true. I started building PC's in the early 1990s

Haha that's definately not what I was implying, although it is a little scary to think that you've been building PC's as long as I've been alive (I'm a '93 kid here)

I played FC3 and had no issues.... FC4 won't load past start screen even with all the patches.

I heard that was to do with Logitech peripherals and I believe should of been fixed. It's one of the reasons why I haven't dared to play FC4 yet as I heard about the numerous issues with the game since release.

Take a look here: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/957319-Game-broken-after-last-Act-2-mission-Help-needed/page15?s=c945c8bcc9cb86d278fedc229985e101

The Phanteks fans are the best on the market at the moment.

Top the previous "king of the hill" by 3C here while spinning 300 rpm slower
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/phenteks_f140/3.htm

And top silentpcreview.com fan roundup
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1345-page7.html

The reason you are doing that is you have the SATA power cable connected and your header is not PWM

1. If you are not drawing more than 1 amp ..... do NOT connect the SATA power cable.
-Each Phanteks 140mm fan draws 0.14 amps
-Each Phanteks 200mn fan draws 0.25 amps

2. here's your board's connectors
2 x CPU Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin, 1 x 3-pin)
3 x Chassis Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin, 2 x 3-pin)

a) Use the 4 pin CPU fan header for the CPU cooler.

b) Use the 4 pin Chassis fan header for the Hub. Connect up to (6) Phanteks 140mm fans to the hub (0.84 amps). You do not need to connect the SATA power cable as you are still < 1 amp. Now I doubt that that 4 pin header is actually true PWM, so you could try and connect it and see what happens. If all the fans go full speed then it is not PWM.

c) Connect the 200mm fan to any other header

Yeah I hear Phanteks are a great brand and give even the best a run for their money. Before I purchase the Luxe I had the NZXT Phantom 410 case with all Corsair AF and SP fans and I have to say the Phanteks fans are a lot quieter. Maybe that's just the way I had them config'd though.

Also, I tried with an without the SATA cable awhile back but both configurations led to all fans on full RPM, but I think I recognise my mistakes now. I was connecting the header to the 4-pin PWM CPU FAN header and using both the case fans and the PWM Phanteks fans that come with the PH-TC14PE cooler. Of course those fans would work as they should but the 3-pin case fans didn't.

I've come to realise though that the 3-pin CPU fan header works in tandem with the 4-pin CPU fan header beside it. That has allowed me to use a Y splitter to connect the 200mm intake and the 140mm rear exhaust to this 3-pin header which mirrors the 4-pin CPU header turning both of those case fans into PWM fans. The only downside is that they're following the heat profile of the processor and not the GPU. I wish there was a way to make the 200mm front intake follow the heat profile of the GPU's.

Which brings me back to the original topic - I set the core clock to +75Mhz and core voltage to max (+12mV) and power limit set to max WITHOUT touching the memory clock and Furmark was showing artifacts and eventually froze. I guess it's just a matter of trial and error, but I won't give up yet.

Many thanks for the advice again