EVGA Geforce GTX 970 SC overclocking

kbronski · 18 Jan 2016

My card normally runs around 135MHz idle, and has a stock boost clock of 1366MHz. I've managed to up this to 1470MHz (+104MHz) without any voltage adjustments and with the fans around 40% it still floats in the low to mid 40s for temps (currently 43C). I've been informed that with a little voltage adjustment, I should be able to go as high as 1500MHz, but I'm not sure if it's worth potentially shortening the lifespan of my card for an extra 30MHz. The most demanding game I play is Minecraft (laugh it up, go ahead) with Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders (which is very demanding on hardware). I've seen an overall framerate increase of about 3-4fps for my efforts.

As this is my first time overclocking a graphics card, I'm looking for someone with a little more experience in the area to tell me if I should quiet down and be satisfied with what I've gotten out of this relatively mediocre card, or if I should go ahead and push it a little further.

Dude · 18 Jan 2016

That is a very good OC. I OC for benchmarks, but run stock for games. as long as you maintain low temps like you have, you are good.

jds63 · 18 Jan 2016

Join this forum, they know a lot about that here http://www.overclock.net/

Dude · 18 Jan 2016

jds63 said:

Join this forum, they know a lot about that here http://www.overclock.net/

Good advice, I think this thread will help

[Official] NVIDIA GTX 970 Owners Club

jds63 · 18 Jan 2016

One reason to overclock a gpu is if its not giving enough performance for a game to be playable or low fps in a game. I can not see that graphics card you have giving you any issues with those games and the shaders are good on the GTX 970.

jds63 · 18 Jan 2016

Dude said:

Good advice, I think this thread will help

[Official] NVIDIA GTX 970 Owners Club

Yep, what those guys talk about the most there.

zplugger · 18 Jan 2016

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Vellinious · 19 Jan 2016

Do you have the ACX 2.0, or the ACX 2.0+ card? The ACX 2.0 card has a REALLY low power limit, so it won't allow for very high clocks without flashing to a custom bios. The ACX 2.0+ cards have a slightly higher power limit, but, to get really good clocks out of them, a custom bios is still required.

I had my bios set to run 1580 on the core and 2000 on the memory with a 360 watt power limit and TDP, with 1.275v. I was hitting 1640ish on benchmark runs with the memory hitting 2180ish.

If you want to REALLY push your hardware, the guys in the 970 group over at OCN really know their stuff. = )