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

[RampantAndroid]

the percentage of responders who clearly did not read the OP in this thread is staggeringly high

I've read it...and I don't see evidence to support the idea that downclocking means death automatically. That said, from playing with the Maxwell 2 bios tweaker, it looks like disabling boost entirely and doing the overclock in the BIOS looks to be a good route to go, honestly - since you modify both the boost table and the voltages at the higher clocks.

 

[AdamK47]

In conclusion, Afterburner and Precision are perfectly fine to use to overclock your GPU.

 

[4K_shmoorK]

In conclusion, Afterburner and Precision are perfectly fine to use to overclock your GPU.

Yup.

 

[Sabrewings]

Agreed. No issues being at 1540MHz on my 980 Ti. And it clocks all the way from 900MHz up to that 1540MHz, and down to 300MHz in 2D. No stability issues.

 

[RampantAndroid]

In conclusion, Afterburner and Precision are perfectly fine to use to overclock your GPU.

I think that depending on your clock, it CAN be an issue...if you hit throttling just the right (or wrong) way. I've managed to have a totally awful OC in Afterburner than when flashed into BIOS (which I finally did last night) is 100% stable in the same situations. But when flashing BIOS, I had to make my own voltage table up for each clock step.

But I don't think a blanket "it's bad" statement fits. Personally, I view AB as being for finding a max clock that's stable, and then flashing it. I only use AB now to force fan speeds.

 

[flexy]

Wow...sorry guys I didn't even see this thread got so much attention. Good.

It can WELL be that problems w/ crashing while watching videos are related to this. But of course there can be other factors playing in as well.

Mind you, I used (solely) A/B for overclocking for the longest, for example back with my GTX660 TI or other cards and there also was no problem (or so I thought).

Simply...because when I reached instability overclocking with A/B I assumed "well that's the max overclock I can get"...and then I left it at that. In this case I would probably reach an overclock 50Mhz less than with Bios mod, then I'd say "I don't have a problem with A/B" since it may be stable at that lower clock

Mind you the issue shows up at*lower* clocks, so any time the clock enters lower CLKs due to downclocking or changing powerlimit etc.

 

[flexy]

Just a simplification of what I am saying here:

If you, for example, add +150 to your card with A/B, the entire (internal) table with all it's numerous "boost clocks" is shifted. A clock "in the middle" of your table which previously was stable and got sufficient voltage now has a frequency which requires significantly more V to be stable, but this voltage in the table entry didn't change. (It should be higher now since it's 150Mhz more)

Only with a bios mod you can assign a maximum stable overclock to your maximum clock w/ the correct voltage AND at the same time leave intermediary clocks at their correct, original frequencies and voltages (you don't necessarily need to touch those.)

But of course you could also modify the entire voltage table, up to your maximum stable overclock and then adjust voltages for all clocks accordingly making sure that ALL clocks get sufficient volts, but this is definitely "advanced" stuff.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Just a simplification of what I am saying here:

If you, for example, add +150 to your card with A/B, the entire (internal) table with all it's numerous "boost clocks" is shifted. A clock "in the middle" of your table which previously was stable and got sufficient voltage now has a frequency which requires significantly more V to be stable, but this voltage in the table entry didn't change. (It should be higher now since it's 150Mhz more)

Only with a bios mod you can assign a maximum stable overclock to your maximum clock w/ the correct voltage AND at the same time leave intermediary clocks at their correct, original frequencies and voltages (you don't necessarily need to touch those.)

But of course you could also modify the entire voltage table, up to your maximum stable overclock and then adjust voltages for all clocks accordingly making sure that ALL clocks get sufficient volts, but this is definitely "advanced" stuff.

How does AB's voltage slider change the boost table/voltage table? I just assumed that it incremented the min and max voltages at each step of the boost stable?

I hand edited my voltage table (**** that was annoying) and I'm totally stable. Though if I leave boost enabled, the card won't boost all the way to 1506.5MHz with the reason being VRel. If I disable boost, and make my base 3D clock == my boost 3D clock, I'm 100% stable. I've come to the conclusion that boost doesn't really work that well, or I'm really missing something.

 

[MrAlexander006]

How does AB's voltage slider change the boost table/voltage table? I just assumed that it incremented the min and max voltages at each step of the boost stable?

I hand edited my voltage table (**** that was annoying) and I'm totally stable. Though if I leave boost enabled, the card won't boost all the way to 1506.5MHz with the reason being VRel. If I disable boost, and make my base 3D clock == my boost 3D clock, I'm 100% stable. I've come to the conclusion that boost doesn't really work that well, or I'm really missing something.

Hey RampantAndroid, I saw you posting over on Zoson's BIOS editing post over on OCN that I was reading. Funny thing is that I just started flashing BIOSes a few days ago too after reading that forum. After reading those posts and looking over other people's posted BIOSes, I removed boost and made the base 3D clock what I wanted my max clock to be and revised the voltage table as you said too (such a pain).

Flashing the GPU's BIOS made me nervous at first, but it certainly feels like I've been able to push my EVGA 980 SC further than otherwise. I'm completely stable at 1530 Mhz/8000 Mhz, and believe I could easily push it further, but the problem I run into is that pushing higher causes me to pass 80C at load (GPU burn-in test/BF4 test range after a few minutes) unless I have the fans very loud... with a 79.6% ASIC, I should be able to drop my voltage lower at the highest clocks, which should reduce heat. I think I'm at about 1.245 V @ 1530 right now.

Anyway, modding the BIOS is fun, and I think it does get you a little more power and stability than you otherwise might have, but if AB/PX is working for you, I wouldn't worry about it.

Side note... does anyone notice their VRAM making "clicking" type noises (maybe that's "coil whine"? no idea) at high overclocks? I notice when I get around 7700 Mhz or higher the "clicking" gets noticeable. I seem to be gamestable at 8200 Mhz, but the clicking is even louder than at 8000 Mhz, so I decided to tone it down a bit .

 

[flexy]

How does AB's voltage slider change the boost table/voltage table? I just assumed that it incremented the min and max voltages at each step of the boost stable?

I hand edited my voltage table (**** that was annoying) and I'm totally stable. Though if I leave boost enabled, the card won't boost all the way to 1506.5MHz with the reason being VRel. If I disable boost, and make my base 3D clock == my boost 3D clock, I'm 100% stable. I've come to the conclusion that boost doesn't really work that well, or I'm really missing something.

I wish I could give a definitive answer but I can't since my EVGA card doesn't allow ANY external modification of voltages with A/B. I even once emailed the programmer of A/B who gave a sorta snappy reply "RTFM" that it should be possible to adjust offset-voltages like with OC Guru, but really it does *nothing* for voltages here.

It's a little more complicated as far as I know.

When you mod a bios (with Maxwell Bios Tweaker) there is a slider/setting (the third slider from the top) which allows to specify a range of min. and max. available voltage. The info I have here is:

"
Here [in the slider in Maxwell bios tweaker] you can set the desired range for increasing voltages in your overclocking tools. You can specify the amount of voltage increase when the card is boosting. The lower value is the boost value. Say you set a range of 1231.3 - 1243.8 in the slider, it will at first boost with only 1231.3 V but you can add 12 mV with your overclocking tool. The card then goes to 1243.8V and only then reaches its max. boost clock.
"

Though if I leave boost enabled, the card won't boost all the way to 1506.5MHz with the reason being VRel.

This because you probably reached the max available voltage for your voltage controller. Say, like with my card where this max. voltage is 1.212V and you have 1.212V for the last clock then it would trigger "VRel". (There might be other factors at play as well, like ASIC quality etc. I didn't mess with this stuff for the recent months so I have to recall some things )

I however "solved" the problem by simply not using the max. 1.212V for my max CLK since I found I am stable below, say at 1.200 or 1.187. So I am using this as my max used voltage (in the table) and the card never gets to 1.212V and therefore also never triggers VRel. (In my case the 1.212V is likely hard-wired since even specifying a higher max voltage range in BIOS would trigger Vrel at 1.212, regardless)

(The reason why I did this limitation is also that I found problems with this specific card which get triggered/amplified when max. voltage is used. Eg. black screens etc. which I think is related to the VRM possibly overheating under stress. By not using the max. voltage I am still stable at my desired max OC but black screens are basically eliminated now)

 

[Zodiark1593]

Side note... does anyone notice their VRAM making "clicking" type noises (maybe that's "coil whine"? no idea) at high overclocks? I notice when I get around 7700 Mhz or higher the "clicking" gets noticeable. I seem to be gamestable at 8200 Mhz, but the clicking is even louder than at 8000 Mhz, so I decided to tone it down a bit .

Probably just the nature of the beast since we've had GDDR5 for so long and are pushing it to the absolute limit.

Wonder what OC results I'd look at on my 960 with BIOS overclocking. I can hit 1500 MHz on Boost pretty easily (stock, it goes to 1440). I do wonder if I can get it close to the 1600 MHz mark. Will definitely abuse the dual BIOS.

 

[cmdrdredd]

TBH I don't think it really matters. It sounds like all you're doing is dabbling in the extreme limits of what your hardware is capable of, which is fine if that's your thing or you're going for a benchmark high score or what not. For everyday gaming I tend to sacrifice that last 2-3% for absolute stability. I've been running Afterburner on a 970 for 6 months now with no issue because of this. Remember that your operating environment is variable (ambient temps change, dust can build up, loads change, etc.), I don't really see the utility in pushing your gaming system so hard for an extra 2%, and personally would prefer the better power savings.

This is what I was thinking while reading this thread. I've used Afterburner or PrecisionX for years and have not had games crash that could be related to any overclock on any card I've used them on provided I take the time to find the limits and test for stability before settling on a speed(which I do). Games can crash for many reasons. GTA V had issues with using my disk cache so I had to modify the setting and it never crashed again. Witcher 3 never crashed on me but other people have reported that it has for them.

 

[Headfoot]

I've read it...and I don't see evidence to support the idea that downclocking means death automatically.

Because OP ever said that, or anything even remotely close to that

 

[RampantAndroid]

Because OP ever said that, or anything even remotely close to that

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.

He's saying the voltages don't work...I'd love to know how the voltage offset in AB actually works, but unless you're downvolting, the lower clocks should remain stable. Should...

 

[Deders]

The video crashes are most likely due to a driver bug that lasted a couple of versions but was fixed in the most recent 2,

 

[Zurath]

Hello, flexy. I know exactly what are you talking about as I already noticed that myself. But the problem with BIOS mod is that there aare so many values there that modifying them without clear knowledge what they do exactly is not very wise. I presume that you know how to do this. Maybe you could share some kind of guide. It can be pretty simple.
My card is MSI GTX 980 4G. It's totally stable with 1500MHz under high load, but as soon as there are low load scenarios and card starts to adjust its frequency - crashes.

 

[xorbe]

There is some truth to OP's post. I had to add +0.1v to my boost table from entry #35 and up for stability.

 

[Captante]

I run Precision X with my 680 and 770 ... never had a single issue with either card.

Of course with less demanding titles I run @ default.

 

[Mastercommander]

It's good information. Lol at the first few morons. I had already done some BIOS editing back when I had a weaker card

 

[Techhog]

I put this thread up there with the people saying you should always delid Haswell.

 

[Vellinious]

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.

You can add voltage to the ACX 2.0 cards. They usually won't boost all the way up to 1.256v unless you enable kboost, so adding voltage on the slider will up it to the 1.256v that's set as max. You can also, add more voltage via the bios. I run my ACX 2.0 cards at 1.275v, because I haven't found any evidence in my own testing, nor with someone using a multimeter to run off the card, that they actually accept any voltages higher than that. I've tried bios settings with as high as 1.325v and saw no changes in anything.

I have my base clock set via the bios at 1531, and use AB / PCX to overclock further all the time, and haven't found any issues with stability. The only instability I found with the stock bios, was the power limit throttling adding instability with the fluctuation in the clock and voltage levels.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

On my asus 670 I have 0 control over the max boost voltage, I can only set a minimum in software, and that maxes out below the boost voltage.

Looking at my bios now with kepler bios tweaker, lots of values, now to figure out what to change.

I guess I should just pick a higher voltage / power limit and control the clocks with afterburner.

 

[sxr7171]

I use nVinspector which is an external software tool. You can overclock, but things got a lot more stable when I put a new BIOS in. For those wondering where to get those. Go to overclock.net.

 

[Deders]

On my asus 670 I have 0 control over the max boost voltage, I can only set a minimum in software, and that maxes out below the boost voltage.

Looking at my bios now with kepler bios tweaker, lots of values, now to figure out what to change.

I guess I should just pick a higher voltage / power limit and control the clocks with afterburner.

Ok there's a few things here you'll need to do.

For Afterburner to read your voltage correctly, you'll need to follow the instructions in the 2nd post of this thread, in the drop down section under "How to volt mod ASUS GTX 780 DCUII." EVGA and Asus use a custom voltage controller chip for their Kepler (at least) cards, Afterburner expects the generic one. You will find that the voltage used is a lot less than cards that use the generic controller.

You may find like I just did that you'll need to give yourself permissions for the entire afterburner folder, and all the files/folders therin. I didn't need to do this with win7, but I couldn't save the edited file in win10 without doing this.

I personally only use Afterburner for the on screen display, it sends realtime graphs to my keyboards display. The options for unlocking voltage control are either MSI specific, or generic which doesn't fill me with confidence.

For overclocking I use Asus GPU Tweak as it has more controls, including max/min voltage which can be accessed by ticking them in the options section. They can then be adjusted in the professional mode panel.

With the release of GPU Tweak II, it can be a bit fiddly to get you profile to stick and load at boot. I can't remember quite how I did it will work. I may be able to help you more when I'm a little less fuzzy headed.

I may have already mentioned this previously, but as far as the premise of this thread, I don't think there is a fast and hard rule over which method is more stable. When using Skynet's custom bios I found I was less stable. went to look in the bios to see if there was any voltages I could adjust to make things more stable, but because I couldn't tell which voltage mode it was in when it crashed, I didn't really know how best to approach it. Reverting back to the normal bios with GPU Tweak was much more stable for me.

I did read somewhere that someone who had the same problems I had, flashed their Asus 780 with a gigabyte bios and that worked. Although we have no way of knowing whether the difference in voltage design would have had any long term effects on the card.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Afterburner showed the same 1.175V under load as asus gpu tweak, didn't know there was a II version of it, will try it out.

I was looking at the clock under load, when I look up that clock in the boost table it's clock 39, which has 1087.5 - 1212.5 mV in the voltage table. Since it always shows 1.175V I guess the reading is indeed not all that accurate.