MSI GTX 970 Crashes with OC - Do I need more voltage?

[Thalana]

After almost a year of reading about OCing my card, I finally decided to do so. I have an MSI GTX 970 4G and have been playing a lot of ARK Survival Evolved as of late. Before now I never seen a purpose to OCing as I could nearly max my other games with max fps but since OCing I've seen upwards of a 10 FPS difference in ARK which is amazing as it breaks that laggy 30-40 fps barrier.

My issue is I keep getting a grey screen in ARK which causes the video driver to crash, so says the game. Nothing negative seems to happen to the card, it's just these crashes. I ran Heaven and Firestrike for 45 minutes or so and both were fine with no artifacts or oddities.

My most recent OC I crashed on took an hour or so, but was +190 Core Clock and +350 Memory Clock on Afterburner. Roughly 1438 MHz core and 3900 MHz Memory I believe. At first I had the core and memory up a little higher and I crashed within 10 minutes. I'm curious if it's better to lower it to 180/300 to be safe or if I should go with a voltage bump as I've left the voltage untouched.

I'd really like to get to 1450-1500 MHz on the GPU if possible with the memory around 3500 at least as I feel this would truly optimize my game, but I'm a bit iffy on voltage changes and I'm wondering if the grey screen would still occur as I read it's related to memory.

I will say the card has never gone over 65C and the Power Limit seems to cap around 87 or 88.

Thanks.

 

[erocker]

Very limited gains with memory OC, I doubt it's stable and most likely causing the driver crashes. GPU OC seems fine for that card, even lower than a lot of factory OC's.

 

[Thalana]

Yeah. I ended up dropping the memory to 200 and upping the core to 190 again and it still crashed, so now I'm just using 150 on both and so far it seems stable. Does a lack of voltage factor into these crashes at all, or is it that my card simply cannot handle higher core/memory? Thanks for your reply.

 

[jboydgolfer]

I haven't noticed what power supply you have, but I only run a quality 650 W ,and I've run SLI 970s overclocked with a modded bios power increase.

 

[mstenholm]

I have three of these GPUs but I don't use them for gaming, just folding. There I found that touching the memory have were little improvement in performance. A plus 170-80 Mhz OC is 100 % stable unless the the GPU is in a hot case. I run with 10 % power increase, why not
Edit: I have three different bios's as well and they seem to have different power limits so you have to play around to see were you limit is. I assume that you use MSI Afterbuner and Z-GPU to monitor.

 

[jboydgolfer]

I have three of these GPUs but I don't use them for gaming, just folding. There I found that touching the memory have were little improvement in performance. A plus 170-80 Mhz OC is 100 % stable unless the the GPU is in a hot case. I run with 10 % power increase, why not
Edit: I have three different bios's as well and they seem to have different power limits so you have to play around to see were you limit is. I assume that you use MSI Afterbuner and Z-GPU to monitor.

i found that increasing the power limit restrictions was best (i had help editing the limits in maxwell bios editor) i can OC to the following easily, & higher too. Mine are stock Reference Nvidia GTX970's, and the cooling performance amazing considering they are ref coolers,

 

[erocker]

Yeah. I ended up dropping the memory to 200 and upping the core to 190 again and it still crashed, so now I'm just using 150 on both and so far it seems stable. Does a lack of voltage factor into these crashes at all, or is it that my card simply cannot handle higher core/memory? Thanks for your reply.

Yeah it's a voltage limitation and unfortunately trying to control voltage through Afterburner or something like that is generally an exercise in futility. You pretty much just need to find where it's stable and that's it. A better cooling solution might possibly help but I doubt the cost would justify the means.

 

[jboydgolfer]

It's a crapshoot when it comes to what you get out of a gpu in regards to how much over Clock it can handle. You're guaranteed the stock voltage anything beyond that is lucky if you get it and par for the course if you don't

 

[Thalana]

Ended up finding my stable OC at +180 Core +200 Memory which is 1488mhz core and 1850 mem. Voltage at +15. Could go to 185/250 with +15 voltage but still had occasional crashes. I'm content.

Saw about an 8-10 fps gain in my most demanding games.

With maxed voltage in afterburner I could possibly be stable at 1550mhz core and 1900 memory for another 2-5 fps but not sure it would be worth it.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Vya Domus]

Ark Survival was was written like absolute garbage , it's not your card or lack of OC.

 

[trog100]

if it wont go there it wont go there.. my 980TI cards are set at +82 on the core and +292 on the memory.. 100% stable settings arrived at after much experimentation..

just deciding on a figure you would like it to go to and hoping it will is cloud cuckoo land thinking.. he he..

plus the small gains in pushing anything past its happy limit are not worth the hassle.. if you really do need more useful power buy a faster card.. its the only real answer..

overclocking stuff can be fun but the gains to be got from it are not that noticeable.. back in the day they used to be but not now..

trog

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

the gains to be got from it are not that noticeable..

my 970 overclocks by 20% with no extra volts .......i think that is quite a significant gain.

 

[trog100]

"plus the small gains in pushing anything past its happy limit are not worth the hassle"

it does all come down to where exactly you start from.. when you start off at reference clocks which are really under-clocks there can be a fair margin before you go past the cards happy spot..

take my 980TI +82 core figure.. that aint reference +82 its what the card came clocked at plus +82.. which would be close to your 20% (or a tad higher) figure based on reference clocks..

but i would argue that when an easy to get 20% or higher figure is the case its not really a hardware over-clock its just putting right the under-clock.. which isnt based on hardware limitations its based on marketing..

i still say it aint worth the hassle trying to push any hardware past its "happy" spot not unless benchmarking is your game.. he he

how to find the "happy" spot.. easy just hit the point of unreliability and go back 5 or 10%.. that is the hardware happy spot.. which in a more honest world is how hardware speeds should be set in the first place.. 10% being a reasonable margin of error to avoid too many returns..

trog

 

[Artas1984]

I never overclock video memory (lots of bad history). I never add voltage to video cards as well (you will void your warranty by doing so). As owner of 4 different GTX970 cards i would recommend just sticking with the best possible boost overclock. Simply get the best GTX970 you can.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

"plus the small gains in pushing anything past its happy limit are not worth the hassle"

it does all come down to where exactly you start from.. when you start off at reference clocks which are really under-clocks there can be a fair margin before you go past the cards happy spot..

take my 980TI +82 core figure.. that aint reference +82 its what the card came clocked at plus +82.. which would be close to your 20% (or a tad higher) figure based on reference clocks..

but i would argue that when an easy to get 20% or higher figure is the case its not really a hardware over-clock its just putting right the under-clock.. which isnt based on hardware limitations its based on marketing..

i still say it aint worth the hassle trying to push any hardware past its "happy" spot not unless benchmarking is your game.. he he

how to find the "happy" spot.. easy just hit the point of unreliability and go back 5 or 10%.. that is the hardware happy spot.. which in a more honest world is how hardware speeds should be set in the first place.. 10% being a reasonable margin of error to avoid too many returns..

trog

so according to your definition there is no such thing as an overclock. One is merely correcting a factory under clock.


Hmmmm.

 

[trog100]

so according to your definition there is no such thing as an overclock. One is merely correcting a factory under clock.


Hmmmm.

not always but often that is the case.. otherwise it would no be so easy.. he he..

trog

 

[jboydgolfer]

my 970 overclocks by 20% with no extra volts

lemme get this straight. Your getting 1500 on the core? can u use GPUz & post a shot of those clocks please, as well as the power reading? please...

nevermind , i see OpenHW monitor shows a high reading. I thought You meant 1500 without boost, like setting it to 1500Mhz in Afterburner. Sorry for that. do you have to increase the Power limit in Afterburner at All?

no volt increase.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

lemme get this straight. Your getting 1500 on the core? can u use GPUz & post a shot of those clocks please, as well as the power reading? please...

nevermind , i see OpenHW monitor shows a high reading. I thought You meant 1500 without boost, like setting it to 1500Mhz in Afterburner. Sorry for that. do you have to increase the Power limit in Afterburner at All?

no volt increase.

The power limit slider is maxed

 

[jboydgolfer]

i keep mine like it is in the Pic, I havent reached a crash or anything, so i know i could go higher, but i see no real reason, as i dont like pushing my GPU's too hard

ive gotten pretty close to the Perf of a RX580 with my modest OC on my 970 . At least while testing with Unigine superposition

970

580