GTX 970 unstable core frequency

K

Koko56

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 8, 2007
Messages
1,342
Hi all,

I've tried an OC and the GPU driver crashed - think I tried about 1560Mhz on the core, so I went back to stable previous, restarted and did a clean reinstall of drivers.

Since then I can't get a stable core frequency in games whilst using my safe OC settings - about 1507 Mhz. VRAM is the same as before. I tried increasing the power from 110% to 120% and no difference in game.

In benches though, I get the full frequency and it's stable at 1507. In game it varies 1495-1507 however.

Please help, I'm just paranoid about it as before I had stable 1507 in games, but after the overclock it varies by a few Hz.
 
Nothing unusual is happening. Boost is based based on power, temp, etc. Peak OC can degrade with time. Different programs stress the gfx card in different ways. Some are notorious for requiring lower clocks / more easy to expose too much oc on the gfx card. Increasing max power can actually make it more unstable by opening up upper speed bins.
 
My overclock is 1375MHz on GPU. It typically boosts to 1515MHz, it will stay there like 98% of the time, from time to time it'll drop to 1485, or somewhere in the middle of those two. The boost speed changing is 100% normal, nothing to worry about.

fYk9N5P.jpg
 
Yeah, don't worry about a few MHz. It can vary from one run to another.

The reason your benchmark always shows the same speed is because the load on the graphics card is always the same.
 
What others said, totally normal and defaultuser has good explanation why. Continue gaming worry free unless you have crashes or graphic anomalies.
 
You're limited by power, temperature and magic dust. If one of the three surpasses its limit, your observed boost clock will decrease to bring it back in line. This is normal behavior and why we do our testing with real games, as benchmarks do not always give you a realistic expectation of your observed OC clock in games.

GPU Boost's concept was introduced with Kepler, so this is good primer material even though GPU boost has evolved over the years: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review/
 
Thank you all for the replies!

I was just worried that I might have overstressed the GPU during that unsuccessful OC and it was impacting the core clock at boost. Having just played a bit more Siege, it's stable for majority of the time, with tiny fluctuations of ~26 at max boost of 1512 and without artifacts.

Upside - during lurking learned you can OC the RAM to ~ +500! Had it at ~ 200 so yay.

Now stable at: 1512/+432 VRAM

Power at 110 and added 12mV. Performance seems a bit more consistent too. (placebo or not, I'm happy!)

Untitled.jpg
 
Happy gaming! Crashing is part of the fun when you try to run on the very edge.
 
I have a MSI Gaming 970 and I have found that for my OC / Boost to remain stable I need to manually raise the fans to 80% while gaming. If I leave it at auto it will let the temps raise up above 70c and my boost clock suffers, down to approx 1492. I have the Power Limit and Voltage raised to Max.
 
Rolled back drivers to 361.34 and the same thing. Funny thing is, when fan is on Auto, the boost is higher and more stable (in frequency). If I set it to 100% manual, core is about 80hz lower and the voltage does not go as high as on Auto fan.

There has to be something up here.
 
Koko56 said:
Rolled back drivers to 361.34 and the same thing. Funny thing is, when fan is on Auto, the boost is higher and more stable (in frequency). If I set it to 100% manual, core is about 80hz lower and the voltage does not go as high as on Auto fan.

There has to be something up here.
Click to expand...

When you crank the fan, it lowers wattage available to the gpu. Boost takes all that into account.
 
I thought that but it's retarded that it's not compensated for in the design. It's like moving less because you ate a lot to compensate for the extra energy taken by the digestion process.

:(
 
970 starts throttling at 73C. As everyone in here has said everything looks pretty normal. If you really want to get that high of an OC without throttling you need to throw a custom bios on there and that's all there is to it.
 
Yeah, just being paranoid about it. Will keep on tinkering and see what happens.

Thanks everybody.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top