Question Why people say overclocking gpu is not worth it for new gen gpu?

[721831101]

Manual oc could still clock higher than boost so...?

 

[USAFRet]

Manual oc could still clock higher than boost so...?

The benchmark numbers may be 'better', but is the actual in game performance better?
And if so, by how much?

 

[hotaru.hino]

A few of reasons:

• Modern GPUs can boost themselves pretty much to their limits anyway.
• Any tweaking you do is actually more like a suggestion to the GPU's firmware. It may not actually honor what you want it to do based on other factors.
• Even if you can squeeze out more clock speed, how much does that really get you? For example, if I had a video card that boosts to 2000 MHz by default, but with some tweaking I can get it to 2100MHz, that's 5%. Even if that translated directly to performance (hint: it does not), I'm not going to notice it. If I'm already getting 120 FPS, I'm not going to notice any real difference at 127 FPS.

 

[Phaaze88]

Gpu Boost 3.0 on Nvidia gpus has been the biggest roadblock for manual overclocking.
It's part of the card's design - you can't get rid of it.
It does the bulk of the overclocking for the user already, so there isn't much left to actually squeeze out of it, without going the extreme LN2 route or modding.

The cards have several boost curves, and they are influenced by temperatures and power consumption. You get the best curves by keeping it as cool as possible, and running into power limits less frequently.
Overclocking works against both of these.
Gpu Boost is dynamic, so one can really prove their overclocks are actually stable if the clock speed can't be kept static in all situations.

Can't speak for the AMD Radeon cards, but I figure they have something similar going on.

 

[WarWolverineWarrior]

You can but what if your monitor caps at 120hz and your game runs at 121fps, there's no point. Also, it's better to focus on cooling because Nvidia 30xx cards start stepping down clock speeds at 65C. So if you can keep the card colder than 70C, you'll get more stable frame-rate. Some people see better results from under-clocking. Can't speak on AMD card since I don't have one.

 

[sizzling]

The overclocking headroom of my 3080 is small. It’s adds negligible performance that makes no difference to games but adds a noticeable extra amount of heat and fan noise. I gave up on overclocking and just did a little undervolting to help keep noise and heat down.

 

[geofelt]

Graphics card makers bin their chips.
The better chips that have overclocking headroom will be used in factory overclocked versions that will sell for more.
Could you get even more? Possibly, but do not count on it.
And... could you actually tell any difference while gaming?

 

[alceryes]

Gpu Boost 3.0 on Nvidia gpus has been the biggest roadblock for manual overclocking.
It's part of the card's design - you can't get rid of it.
It does the bulk of the overclocking for the user already, so there isn't much left to actually squeeze out of it, without going the extreme LN2 route or modding.

The cards have several boost curves, and they are influenced by temperatures and power consumption. You get the best curves by keeping it as cool as possible, and running into power limits less frequently.
Overclocking works against both of these.
Gpu Boost is dynamic, so one can really prove their overclocks are actually stable if the clock speed can't be kept static in all situations.

Can't speak for the AMD Radeon cards, but I figure they have something similar going on.

AMD cards are slightly better in comparison to the 'overclocking on rails' you've got with NVIDIA's GPU Boost.
However, cards from both camps are normally overclocked by AIBs - some mildly, some aggressively. There's usually little room for anything more on the provided coolers. Unless you're willing to tear apart your very expensive GPU to add an aftermarket cooler, the potential performance gain isn't enough to justify the extra cost for the cooler, the extra heat, the very real possibility that you can't overclock it more anyway, and the potential to damage or limit the life of your GPU.

 

[Phaaze88]

Unless you're willing to tear apart your very expensive GPU to add an aftermarket cooler, the potential performance gain isn't enough to justify the extra cost for the cooler, the extra heat, the very real possibility that you can't overclock it more anyway, and the potential to damage or limit the life of your GPU.

Yeah, but after having done a little gpu liquid cooling, IMO, doing liquid cooling on that part is far more effective than giving the cpu the liquid cooling treatment first. It looks backwards now.
It is more convenient - can't argue against that.
Oh well...

 

[hotaru.hino]

There's also that only certain editions of AIB cards are suitable for heavy overclocking anyway, like EVGA's Kingpin cards.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I think many cards are thermally constrained so they'll start dropping clocks as they get hot even at stock settings. Those cards usually respond much better to undervolting to run cooler. Even lowering clocks a bit might be able to help, so that it stays at a higher average clock through long gaming sessions.

I have to imagine the more seriously big the cooling on the card the less likely it needs this sort of thing...with the liquid cooled cards faring the best.

 

[Phaaze88]

I think many cards are thermally constrained so they'll start dropping clocks as they get hot even at stock settings.

At least on modern Geforce cards, assuming they stay below 83C even on a warmer day than usual, it's not that much - like 15-30mhz.
Running into the power limits can see 50-100mhz drops, as the gpu core is supplied voltage just like a cpu when voltage is left to auto - more than really necessary.
After changing the cooler on this 1080Ti, not much changed overall. It wasn't until undervolting that sustaining this card's preferred boost of 1949mhz became much easier to do. In Timespy, I got it to stop dropping into the 1860s during the heavier scenes. It holds 1949 the entire run.

 

[Unolocogringo]

I have been an avid overclocker for many years.
You can get a few hundred MHz out of some cards if you have VERY good case cooling and got lucky in the silicon lottery.
Which I seem to get lucky at quite often.
My FE 3060TI holds around 2030 boost on air @62-65c. My 1070 SC still does about the same@65-72c also on air.
Gaming temps are cooler and boosts on the FE go up to 2100 and 2050 on the SC.
Not amazing but good none the less for air cooling.
lots of quiet fans make it possible.
In games this makes a small difference. A few percent at best.
For bench-marking or serious work it makes a noticeable difference.
My computers( also 960FTW4gig and 1060 6gig gaming in another) run Folding @home so my use case is different than most peoples.
COOLING is the KEY.
Without it overclocking with any utilities is useless.
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/67653142

 

[WiseElf]

I know that this thread is like 1 month old but anyway. I agree when people say that the performance gain won't make any noticable difference (most of the time). But while your OC will never upgrade your card tier, (an RTX 2060 won't become a 2070) occasionnally your Overclock could help to smooth out the performance.

I once equipped my rig with a GTX 1050 Ti and at stock speed when I played Resident Evil 7, most of the time I had a butter smooth 60 FPS, but sometimes my FPS would drop at around 50 FPS. Nothing game breaking, but annoying when it happened. I attempted to overclock my card with AfterBurner and while the results would vary from one game to another, with RE7 I gained around 10 FPS and this is exactly the small performance boost I needed to get a more stable 60 FPS through the whole game.

Aside from that though, the overclock did not provide any practical benefit. (but was still fun to do since I like to tweek with AfterBurner)

 

[Viking2121]

Depends on the GPU though, My 5700xt was mostly limited by temps rather than power, my 6800xt seems to be more balanced and anything over 2500mhz I seem to drop in performance a little, good temps but Im hitting a power limit.

My Vega 64, that card was something else, If overclocked the card to 1720mhz at its stock 1.2v, its max stable, that card was slower than stock 1630mhz but it was hitting its power limit pretty fast, it was 300 - 400 points slower in Firestrike, and temps were below 75C. Now if I left the card stock 1630mhz and under volt the card to 0.95v I gained near 1,000 points in firestrike, it was much faster than 1720mhz, I got the card to 1680mhz at 1v on the dot and I was gaining just over 1,000 points in firestrike and temps were at 60C, I was not hitting its power limits, I'd like to say every card is slightly different.

So getting the highest core clock isn't always better on some cards with how they limit some things. Sometimes it takes some times to figure out whats best on your card.

 

[mamasan2000]

The main issue, as I see it: The voltage is locked, both on AMD and Nvidia. Say it is at 1.05 volts. You cannot go past that. Unless you start soldering your GPU but how many want to do that? Basically circumventing the voltage lock.