Why you should not use Afterburner/Precision to overclock Maxwell/Kepler

[flexy]

I am posting this since it seems that not many are aware of this. However those findings are significant.

Most people are still using Afterburner or PrecisionX (or whatever external tool) to overclock their GPUs. This makes sense since of course not everyone is familiar with or does want to do BIOS modding.

There is just one problem:

Many Maxwell/Kepler cards cannot be "properly" overclocked with any external tool (Afterburner, Precision etc.) since this leads to instability at lower clocks.

(I am trying not to be too technical here and save yourself from explanations of "voltage tables" and internal BIOS stuff)

What you need to know is that overclocking with any external tool is bad.

If your Kepler/Maxwell GPU at some point is downclocking, or you force a lower Power Target...you WILL crash. (In fact overclocking with any external tool is so bad that even the short time it usually takes for the GPU to "step up" from a lower CLK to its max boost is often enough to have your card crash. It could ALSO lead to a wrong conclusion that your card is not able to handle a certain overclock while in reality it very well can.

When you overclock with an external tool, matters get confusing since you may well be stable at your max boost clock, say you found 1506 is stable. This is after you added +140 to your core clock in AB. You tested your card at its new speed at 1506 now and all seems ok.

But say, you run a game which uses less load, or you watch a video...or there is a scene in a game which is not demanding and your GPU clocks down to, say to 1200Mhz == CRASH.

The only "proper" method to overclock is with a correctly modded BIOS where the internal voltage table is also giving the correct voltages to all the clocks. With an external tool this is not possible since clocks are just added but voltages are not being increased accordingly.
(Kepler/Maxwell uses an internal table where each clock, and there are many, is assigned a certain voltage. With "out-of-the-box" "super-overclocked" cards etc. this table is already shifted and "borderline" and adding clocks externally just makes matters worse)


I hopefully shed some light onto why so many people are reporting instability at lower clocks. Because you use some external tool like Afterburner to overclock. This is why.

*** ADDITIONAL NOTES ***

* It may be this does not affect cards where it's possible to also add volts via the external tool. But I know the instability is there with any "volt-locked" cards where you can NOT add external voltage, and those are more cards than you might think. Asus Strix, EVGA SC ACX2.0 etc..etc.. are all cards where you can NOT add voltage externally. With those cards you should not use Afterburner/Precision to overclock but get a properly modded BIOS *if* you want to overclock.

* Testing of this is relatively easy:
I use my modded BIOS with my max. stable OC of 1506. I run Heaven Benchmark at Ultra/Extreme. Everything is fine. I can reduce power target in A/B, 75%, 70%, whatever, no problem.

But now I use the original BIOS with its default boost of 1367. Now I add +140 in AB to get to my 1506. The card is so unstable that it crashes already in the short time when it clocks up to 1506, suggesting it doesn't do the 1506 at all. And of course it crashes also as soon as I set power target to 75%, 70% etc.

 

[Gryz]

And where would I find such a "properly modded BIOS" ?

I have a gtx680 (Asus GTX680-2GD5). Bought it on the day of release. I never overclocked it. It was fast enough for the games I was playing. But this month things changed. GTA V and The Witcher 3. They run at 35-50 fps (with my settings). So I thought: let's give it a try, and see if I can push another 10%-20% out of my card.

I read some gtx680 overclocking guides. I got myself Afterburner. I played with clocks. Nothing spectacular. My gtx680 is 1006/1059MHz. I changed it so that the boost clock would go to 1280MHz. I have watercooling (to make my system silent), so I'm not worried about overheating. I ran FurMark (and Prime64 too) for 30 minutes. Clocks stayed at 1280MHz. Temp was 55C. Everything fine and dandy.

I start playing GTA V with my overclock. It crashed within a minute. I stopped experimenting. And I've been playing TW3. I don't feel I want to waste too much time, unless I understand what is going on. I guess your explanation is why my card crashed so easily ?

I have looked at modding my BIOS. There's an easy way to do it. Change just a few values. And you can do it the complex way. Change all the voltages for specific frequencies. No thanks, the risk is too high I might mess up. I plan on buying a GTX980Ti now (was waiting for 16nm cards). But until then, I don't want to take too much risk.

So, where can I get a modded BIOS for my card ? Will any BIOS for the gtx680 work ? Should I start with my own BIOS (read from the card), and then mod it myself ? Any guides how to do that ? TIA.

 

[master_shake_]

nope.gif

still gonna use afterburner for my 980's thanks for the input.

i'll file it under whogivesaratsass.

 

[casiofx]

You should've clarify more on your title. Add Nvidia Maxwell & Kepler GPUs.

I went in here to read what could be wrong, but there's nothing mentioned about Radeons here =____=

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Afterburner has a "force constant voltage" option.

 

[deanx0r]

Even if you are not overclocking, running Afterburner along to monitor your video card can induce instability.

It's not much of a problem for games that can stress your video card, but load a game that isnt too demanding, and the display driver will crash when the card tries to underclock itself.

 

[flexy]

Even if you are not overclocking, running Afterburner along to monitor your video card can induce instability.

It's not much of a problem for games that can stress your video card, but load a game that isnt too demanding, and the display driver will crash when the card tries to underclock itself.

Did you read my post? I just explained WHY. Running Afterburner itself doesn't cause instability. It's core-clock overclocking with Afterburner, especially already OCed "superclocked" cards and in particular if you cannot add more volts.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

It may be this does not affect cards where it's possible to also add volts via the external tool. But I know the instability is there with any "volt-locked" cards where you can NOT add external voltage, and those are more cards than you might think. Asus Strix, EVGA SC ACX2.0 etc..etc.. are all cards where you can NOT add voltage externally.

I can add voltage to my EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 in Afterburner.

 

[Gryz]

So I am asking again:
What would be the proper way to overclock my gtx680 (Asus GTX680-2GD5) then ?

 

[MiRai]

I've been running 3-way EVGA reference 780 Ti SLI (and out of SLI) for about a year and a half now, and they've been overclocked with MSI AB (+Voltage/+Core/+Memory) since the day I got them (and I normally have the overlay enabled in game, as well). This machine is used for everything including high-end gaming, movie watching, video/image editing, as well as over 50 tabs of any web browser (Chrome, Opera, or FireFox) opened on a daily basis, and I think i can honestly say that I've never had a GPU/driver crash that wasn't my own fault for doing something that I knew would most likely cause instability.

I'm not saying you're wrong, and I may be mis-reading your post, but after 18 months of owning three overclocked Kepler GPUs, I have to say that I haven't had any issue with them whatsoever. The clocks on my GPUs change all the time, and I know this because I'm monitoring my hardware on a normal basis—I even use nVidia Inspector's Multi-Display Power Saver tool to force them to an idle state when they're not in use.

I also understand that EVGA (and possibly others) offers GPUs with a dual-BIOS option, and those are perfectly fine to mod since you can just flip the switch back to the default BIOS and reload a new BIOS into the second "slot," but don't modified BIOS files void your warranty on GPUs with only a single BIOS option? If I need to return my GPU and EVGA realizes that I have a custom BIOS loaded onto it, aren't they going to potentially blame me for possibly breaking the GPU? Why wouldn't they? If that's the case, then why would I risk using a modified BIOS since overclocking via a third-party tool doesn't void my warranty?

 

[exar333]

AB has worked flawelessy for me so far...

 

[rgallant]

delete

 

[flexy]

I also understand that EVGA (and possibly others) offers GPUs with a dual-BIOS option, and those are perfectly fine to mod since you can just flip the switch back to the default BIOS and reload a new BIOS into the second "slot," but don't modified BIOS files void your warranty on GPUs with only a single BIOS option? If I need to return my GPU and EVGA realizes that I have a custom BIOS loaded onto it, aren't they going to potentially blame me for possibly breaking the GPU? Why wouldn't they? If that's the case, then why would I risk using a modified BIOS since overclocking via a third-party tool doesn't void my warranty?

You won't void your warranty with EVGA when you mod a bios but you have to put the original back on in case of a RMA. This is the information I have. But yes I admit and oversaw that with many other vendors you DO indeed void your warranty when you mod a bios.

Also..my thread is not about the warranty..but about the fact that WITH SOME CARDS "proper" overclocking with AB/Px doesn't work. (I assume that anyone who does things like bios modding and overclocking is aware of the risks.)

I know for a fact this problem exists with those cards where you cannot add voltage...and I know for a fact there is a number of people complaining about instability/crashes at lower clocks.

It can well be that those cards where you can indeed adjust voltage externally work fine once you added some volts but I cannot test this here with my card. With the EVGA SC ACX2.0 cards you can NOT add voltages even if you can move the slider around in Afterburner, this doesn't mean anything. Believe me after 200+ something bios flashes and lots of testing I am confident you cannot add volts to those cards nor can externally modify it.

Also..the problem is not necessarily so obvious since you are normally stable at your max boost. If you never run into a scenario where the card would downclock into the "critical" lower clocks you won't see anything about the instability. (I mean in a perfect world you would run your game at your max tested OC constantly without ever throttling down). But the problem would show up if your card would be at, say, 70% or lower usage, when it down-clocked for whatever reason.

 

[SirCanealot]

This post is actually completely correct. For instance I know that my 980 is stable at 1.25v (+86v in ab) at 1530mhz and at 125 power limit on most games my card doss not throttle as long as I keep it cool.

However in Witcher 3 and a few other games that actually gets the card up to the 125 power limit, the game will crash. This is because it starts cycling frequencies and will eventually crash as not all of the frequencies are stable at that boost clock.

If I flashed a bios that forced it to 1.25v/1530mhz I'm pretty sure it would sit there forever.

However, can I be bothered to a cusTom bios? Well, hahaven't been bothered in all the years since I started with my 680...

 

[Innokentij]

Hmm duno, my card is stable i use evga precision x, if u thinking of getting the max MHz out of ur card i can agree but im not gonna sit there with a 1.5GHz clock 24/7 while i browse the internett man. This is just stupid way of OC'ing tbh.

 

[kasakka]

I got rid of any crashing I had by modding my 970 BIOS so that the boost table is more in line with the overclocks I use. I still use AB to set my boost clocks since I couldn't figure out how to get the BIOS to do that correctly (it would not boost to my boost limit).

Since modding the BIOS is very easy with Maxwell BIOS Tweaker it's not a big deal nowadays, though it should only be attempted if you at least somewhat understand what you're doing. Messing with the voltage tables is an easy way to brick the card.

 

[MiRai]

You won't void your warranty with EVGA when you mod a bios but you have to put the original back on in case of a RMA. This is the information I have. But yes I admit and oversaw that with many other vendors you DO indeed void your warranty when you mod a bios.

That's what I was getting at. How do you do this if the card is bricked? My reference 780 Tis don't have a dual-BIOS function, so it seems that I'd be completely SOL in the event of bricking the card.

Also..my thread is not about the warranty..but about the fact that WITH SOME CARDS "proper" overclocking with AB/Px doesn't work. (I assume that anyone who does things like bios modding and overclocking is aware of the risks.)

I understand that it's not about warranty, but people who stumble across this thread who aren't aware of BIOS modding may venture down that path without realizing that it's voiding their warranty. Of course it's the sole responsibility of the owner to understand what their warranty does, and doesn't, cover, but people might view your post, coming from a 14-year veteran of the forum, and not think twice about the advice you're giving because of your seniority.

Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, and maybe I would see similar results if I was pushing for an absolute max overclock with BIOS modding versus software overclocking, but I just wanted to throw out this quick reply.

 

[flexy]

Hmm duno, my card is stable i use evga precision x, if u thinking of getting the max MHz out of ur card i can agree but im not gonna sit there with a 1.5GHz clock 24/7 while i browse the internett man. This is just stupid way of OC'ing tbh.

I agree! Because a lot of modders do it wrong..."disabling boost" is unnecessary and idiotic, as is K-Boost or forcing a constant voltage. There is no reason to do this. When the bios is modded "properly" (entire subject on its own here, for sure)..the card will keep its max boost OC in any game/bench...but throttling or changing power states is still possible.

 

[ZGR]

On my GTX 650, Afterburner never properly allowed core overclocking, just ram. I use NvidiaInspector for overclocking and forcing it to 2d mode for blu rays/netflix. If I let the gtx 650 do its thing it will unnecessarily boost itself for tasks that it can handle in 2d mode.

Because core overclocking doesn't work on my 650 with afterburner, I can't see it causing stability problems. There must be others who can't use afterburner for overclocking core clocks.

Edit: Asus Gpu Tweak works fine

 

[manimal]

I have this issue on my 970 ssc2 . I just modded the bios to raise the power table for the card. Flashed and is working fine. trying to figure out what to change on my 970 now to set the boost clocks to avoid using AB.

I also downgraded the game ready drivers and have renamed them the crash ready drivers...


AB seems to work fine for memory but for clocks its crash city on my 980 and my 970.

 

[futurefields]

Even if you are not overclocking, running Afterburner along to monitor your video card can induce instability.

It's not much of a problem for games that can stress your video card, but load a game that isnt too demanding, and the display driver will crash when the card tries to underclock itself.

I'm a total Nvidia noob, but would setting power plan to Maximum Performance instead of Adaptive in control panel help in this situation?

 

[poohbear]

I paid the extra $40 & went with a Gigabyte G1gaming 970 which is already factory over clocked to the limit to avoid all this headache. $40 on a $400 is nothing anyways. Will gladly pay that for peace of mind.

 

[flexy]

I have this issue on my 970 ssc2 . I just modded the bios to raise the power table for the card. Flashed and is working fine. trying to figure out what to change on my 970 now to set the boost clocks to avoid using AB.

I also downgraded the game ready drivers and have renamed them the crash ready drivers...


AB seems to work fine for memory but for clocks its crash city on my 980 and my 970.

You can let me know your ASIC quality and default, stock boost and at what voltage it boosts to what freq....as well as your tested, verified max. stable OC. If you send me your original (!) bios I can mod it so you can see what I did. My changes do not involve disabling boost and other nonsense.

 

[manimal]

You can let me know your ASIC quality and default, stock boost and at what voltage it boosts to what freq....as well as your tested, verified max. stable OC. If you send me your original (!) bios I can mod it so you can see what I did. My changes do not involve disabling boost and other nonsense.

thanks man will do as soon as I am home. Glad you mentioned not disabling boost since it seems rather nonsensical to run balls to the wall in 2d and low use.

Been looking at the bios and its starting to make more sense after figuring out which tables supplied the lanes as well as the card.

Apreciate the help flex

How can I find the asic quality? Googling now

 

[flexy]

thanks man will do as soon as I am home. Glad you mentioned not disabling boost since it seems rather nonsensical to run balls to the wall in 2d and low use.

Been looking at the bios and its starting to make more sense after figuring out which tables supplied the lanes as well as the card.

Apreciate the help flex

How can I find the asic quality? Googling now

GPUZ. Right click its title bar.