Try to overclocking the GPU (Wattage requirement?)

[Danny P]

Hi, I'm trying to overclock my GPU but I'm not quite sure if my power supply is enough to handle the task. Here is my current build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.98 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($76.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($56.98 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.67 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($324.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($58.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($38.84 @ Amazon)

If possible can you guys also help my with finding the best clock speed and power limit %? Thanks!

 

[jakegroves]

your PSU should be able to handle it ... but might be worth upgrading to 650w allows for extreme overclocking. I overclock my gpu by almost 40% lol. The best way to check clockspeed to powerlimit is using msi afterburner and finding the most suitable temperature when running their 'kombuster' which is msi's version of afterburner, and finding the best core clock and memory clock speed. You then can keep increasing power limit up to 10% extra and find the best temperature and clock speed you will desire. Personally, for general gaming i leave mine at 100% power limit and and increase core clock by 171mhz and memery clock to 99mhz, creating 1442mhz core clock, and 3601mhz memory clock. i reach 66celsius temp on my gpu at maximum. I've recently reset my afterburner profiles so i have to find my max overclock on it again.
Hope that helps if it isn't too messy to read xD

 

[Chettone]

550w should be enough for a single GPU. You are using Intel so is less consuming than AMD and you videocard consumes less than most ATI. There are some wattage calculators out there. An OC on your GPU wont increase more than 5-15% its wattage. Since you are not using any cooling, I wont recommend you to increase too much its power consumption because it would increase your GPU temp a lot.

 

[Danny P]

your PSU should be able to handle it ... but might be worth upgrading to 650w allows for extreme overclocking. I overclock my gpu by almost 40% lol. The best way to check clockspeed to powerlimit is using msi afterburner and finding the most suitable temperature when running their 'kombuster' which is msi's version of afterburner, and finding the best core clock and memory clock speed. You then can keep increasing power limit up to 10% extra and find the best temperature and clock speed you will desire. Personally, for general gaming i leave mine at 100% power limit and and increase core clock by 171mhz and memery clock to 99mhz, creating 1442mhz core clock, and 3601mhz memory clock. i reach 66celsius temp on my gpu at maximum. I've recently reset my afterburner profiles so i have to find my max overclock on it again.
Hope that helps if it isn't too messy to read xD

I know that my PSU isn't exactly comfortable with pushing its limit. This is my first build and it is only 2 months old so upgrade won't be possible for a while. I'm doing +80 core clock and +100 mem clock, but I don't notice much different except for some extra points when running in Heaven benchmark 😛

 

[Danny P]

550w should be enough for a single GPU. You are using Intel so is less consuming than AMD and you videocard consumes less than most ATI. There are some wattage calculators out there. An OC on your GPU wont increase more than 5-15% its wattage. Since you are not using any cooling, I wont recommend you to increase too much its power consumption because it would increase your GPU temp a lot.

I configured the fan profile so that I got around 45~60 degree in The Witcher 3 in ultra, so I'm not really worry about cooling at the moment.

 

[jakegroves]

your PSU should be able to handle it ... but might be worth upgrading to 650w allows for extreme overclocking. I overclock my gpu by almost 40% lol. The best way to check clockspeed to powerlimit is using msi afterburner and finding the most suitable temperature when running their 'kombuster' which is msi's version of afterburner, and finding the best core clock and memory clock speed. You then can keep increasing power limit up to 10% extra and find the best temperature and clock speed you will desire. Personally, for general gaming i leave mine at 100% power limit and and increase core clock by 171mhz and memery clock to 99mhz, creating 1442mhz core clock, and 3601mhz memory clock. i reach 66celsius temp on my gpu at maximum. I've recently reset my afterburner profiles so i have to find my max overclock on it again.
Hope that helps if it isn't too messy to read xD

I know that my PSU isn't exactly comfortable with pushing its limit. This is my first build and it is only 2 months old so upgrade won't be possible for a while. I'm doing +80 core clock and +100 mem clock, but I don't notice much different except for some extra points when running in Heaven benchmark 😛

yer it should be able to push its limits depends if your overclocking your cpu. Also be careful when your doing the overclock because i upped my voltage on my gpu and would have it 105% power limit and manage to get almost 250mhz extra core clock and around 500 mhz memory clock speed, you can psuh it fair and get amazing results on heaven benchmark 😛 60fps on it easy

 

[Danny P]

your PSU should be able to handle it ... but might be worth upgrading to 650w allows for extreme overclocking. I overclock my gpu by almost 40% lol. The best way to check clockspeed to powerlimit is using msi afterburner and finding the most suitable temperature when running their 'kombuster' which is msi's version of afterburner, and finding the best core clock and memory clock speed. You then can keep increasing power limit up to 10% extra and find the best temperature and clock speed you will desire. Personally, for general gaming i leave mine at 100% power limit and and increase core clock by 171mhz and memery clock to 99mhz, creating 1442mhz core clock, and 3601mhz memory clock. i reach 66celsius temp on my gpu at maximum. I've recently reset my afterburner profiles so i have to find my max overclock on it again.
Hope that helps if it isn't too messy to read xD

I know that my PSU isn't exactly comfortable with pushing its limit. This is my first build and it is only 2 months old so upgrade won't be possible for a while. I'm doing +80 core clock and +100 mem clock, but I don't notice much different except for some extra points when running in Heaven benchmark 😛

yer it should be able to push its limits depends if your overclocking your cpu. Also be careful when your doing the overclock because i upped my voltage on my gpu and would have it 105% power limit and manage to get almost 250mhz extra core clock and around 500 mhz memory clock speed, you can psuh it fair and get amazing results on heaven benchmark 😛 60fps on it easy

Damn, was doing overclock without think of the power limit % and the screen went black for a couple second and my display driver went error, quick google search indicate that my gpu didn't have enough juice in it 😛. So I guess I could pushing the power % a littble and then raise the core clock again right? Will this affect my PSU in anyway? (my guess is yes)

 

[jakegroves]

yes you could increase it but remember that increases temperature by more 😉 voltage increase by a little will allow better over lock

 

[Danny P]

Hm, discover something I thought is interesting. Apparently, my card's core clock can only go as far as +100Mhz, anything higher will result in a driver crash, regardless of how high my power limit (max at 110%) and core voltage (max at +37mV). However, I can push the memory clock up to +500Mhz before seeing any artifacts. Can anyone elaborate me this?

 

[Danny P]

Ok, it seems like I hit the borderline without noticing it. The +80mhz core and +100Mhz memory was the maximum stable value that my system can achieve. Anything beyond that cause in my screen to shutdown while the computer still running in Heaven Benchmark, resulting in me having to force shutdown the PC. My suspicion is on the PSU. Anyone can confirm this?

 

[jakegroves]

I figured your psu would be limiting you to go to extra levels D: may want to consider in future you dip ups be
Ok for 1080p gaming though!

 

[mp5mafia]

You psu is definitely big enough. Even if you oc both your cpu and gpu you might be using at max 400W.
If you want to overclock your card you don't need to worry about power limit simply slide it to whatever max you can in afterburner, if your temperatures are ok you can do same with voltage and only concentrate on core and vram clock. You shouldn't struggle to get your core clock to 1500MHz and vram to atleast 7300MHz though

 

[Danny P]

You psu is definitely big enough. Even if you oc both your cpu and gpu you might be using at max 400W.
If you want to overclock your card you don't need to worry about power limit simply slide it to whatever max you can in afterburner, if your temperatures are ok you can do same with voltage and only concentrate on core and vram clock. You shouldn't struggle to get your core clock to 1500MHz and vram to atleast 7300MHz though

Interesting, also can you explain to me about the problem that I dealt with? (The shutdown on the screen and the PC lock me out and I have to force reboot the system via PSU shutdown) Is it the PSU or the GPU simply require more voltage/ power limit?

 

[mp5mafia]

You can definitely max power limit on your card that won't hurt but definitely can help. Also what's always worth doing and pretty easy to do is to re-install your graphic card drivers. The one you have installed right now can be corrupted just make sure you do clean install to make sure you remove the old one completely.
I'm nit on my pc right now so won't post a link for you how to but if you search here on forum for how to re-install graphic card drivers quite few guides should pop out.

 

[Danny P]

Something new to report. SO i decided to switch from MSI afterburner to EVGA Precision X and it worked wonder. With PrecisionX I was able to push the core clock to +120Mhz without any issue. I don't know if the software change did anything but it seems that using Precision with EVGA gpu offer more stability. Will try to push it further more when I got my hand on better PSU and cooling solution

 

[mp5mafia]

Something new to report. SO i decided to switch from MSI afterburner to EVGA Precision X and it worked wonder. With PrecisionX I was able to push the core clock to +120Mhz without any issue. I don't know if the software change did anything but it seems that using Precision with EVGA gpu offer more stability. Will try to push it further more when I got my hand on better PSU and cooling solution

Good to hear and good luck man