Overclock.net banner

How To: Overclock Your AMD / ATi GPU

407K views 647 replies 291 participants last post by  SpykeZ 
#1 ·
*


Before we begin, it is important that you understand the risks associated with overclocking your graphics card. Overclocking, overvolting or modifying your card may invalidate your warranty, so be sure to check the warranty terms before you begin. Neither I, nor overclock.net are responsible for any damage caused by following this guide.

Now that's out of the way, there are many benefits to overclocking your GPU, you basically get a 'free' boost in FPS in games, which is always handy. GPU clocking can also help you get those vital extra benchmarking points in order to give your epeen that much needed extension.

Overclocking your GPU is simple and relatively trouble-free provided you do things right, this guide will help you to put you on the right path. This guide will use GPUTool to test for stability and MSI Afterburner to overclock, however there are many different programs available that do a similar job. Some alternatives are AMD GPU Clock Tool, Rivatuner and ATi Tray Tools.

If you have a Dual GPU card (such as a 5970) or are running a Crossfire configuration, see the note at the end of this post before you begin.*

Step 1: Make sure your CPU and Memory overclocks are fully stable by running some passes of Prime 95. If you have any doubts put everything back to stock. Also make sure you are on the latest version of the ATi drivers, if you aren't, you can download the latest here. If you are using a 2xMolex to PCI-e power adaptor or are near the limits of the power output of your current PSU overclocking may not be recommended, as you overclock power draw can increase dramatically.

Step 2: Download GPUTool to an accessible folder and run it. Download MSI Afterburner (even if you already have Afterburner on your PC make sure you have it updated to the latest version). Navigate to the folder you installed it to (usually C:\\Program Files (x86)\\MSI Afterburner) and open the MSIAfterburner.cfg file using Wordpad. Find the following setting:

Code:

Code:
UnofficialOverclockingEULA
UnofficialOverclockingMode
and change (or add) it to:

Code:

Code:
UnofficialOverclockingEULA = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode = 1
This will allow us to bypass the limitation that stops you from passing the limits of ATi Overdrive (This tip was found on HWBot news). A BIOS flash is not necessary to do this, you just need to edit the file
. If you get an Access Denied or permissions error see the 'I Get An Error When Saving The Config File' section at the bottom of this post.
Run MSI Afterburner.

Step 3: Put both programs side by side for ease of use. Firstly we will begin to increase the core frequency. The 'Core Clock (MHz)' slider is set at the default clock speed, to increase the core frequency, move the slider to the right. Be careful not to make quick jumps before testing for stability. I find it is best to increase the core frequency by 10MHz at a time. Once you have increased it click the 'Apply' button.



Step 4: Now switch to GPUTool and press the 'Test for Stability' button. You will see a screen like below. This will scan for artifacts, which could be a sign of an unstable overclock. Let the test run for between 30 seconds and 1 minute, you can let it run longer if you like. Make sure you keep an eye on temperatures, try to stay below 85*C, but you should be safe up to a maximum of 100*C, although this is not recommended.




Step 5:
Repeat steps 3 and 4, increasing the core frequency 10mhz at a time until you see artifacts on the screen, these will appear as yellow dots in the GPUTool stability testing window like below:



(Note that your card may not artifact but may show other signs of instability such as Driver VPU recovers or hard locks. This is often the case with cards from the HD 5xxx series, which may not show artifacts but may cause the screen to flash and the driver to restart.)

Step 6: Now that you have found the point at which the core is unstable I like to back the clocks down by 10mhz or so from the failure point and run GPUTool for 15 to 30 minutes to fully test for stability. Do not step away from the PC whilst doing this in case you notice any artifacts. If you see any back the clocks back a little further until you think it is stable. At this point you may want to run a pass of 3DMark 06 or a demanding game to check for gaming stability (artifact testing only shows you so much). If you notice an exceptionally low score or see missing textures your card may not be stable.

Step 7: We have now found the stable core clock for your card. Next we will find the maximum stable clock for the memory. First note down what core clock you had so you don't forget it later. Now put the core clock back to stock by pressing the 'Reset' button in afterburner. Follow the same method detailed in steps 3, 4, 5 and 6 except this time increase the 'Memory Clock' slider. Make sure you go in small 10MHz increments and scan for artifacts at the end.

Step 8: Now you have found the limits of both the core and memory, you want to increase the core clock to what you found was stable earlier. Note that occasionally having both the core and memory at their highest stable clocks may cause instability, when they were stable individually before. So to make sure your final clocks are stable run the GPUTool stability test once more for at least 15 minutes, if you notice artifacts decrease either the memory or core clock to see which one is at fault. This should be your final stable overclock, play some games to make sure it is stable.

Step 9: Once you are sure your overclock is totally stable, save it to an empty profile, to do this click 'Save' and then one of the empty quick profile slots.



You can also set the overclock to apply at startup by clicking the 'Apply overclocking at system startup' button towards the bottom of the Afterburner screen. If you are absolutely sure your overclock is stable you can also have it be applied at windows startup by clicking the 'Settings' button and tick the 'Start with Windows' and 'Start minimized' boxes.

Step 10: Check that your clocks have been applied by checking with GPU-z.

Step 11 (Optional): Submit your overclock or benchmark results to HWBot to see how your results compare to others and earn some points for yourself and OCN.

Congratulations you have now learnt how to overclock your GPU


I Get An Error When Saving The Config File
On some systems you may get an error when you try to save the MSIAfterburner.cfg file. First make sure Afterburner is fully closed, including the icon in the system tray. If this does not help, you need to take ownership of the file before editing it. The easiest way to do this is to follow this guide. Once you have done that, right click on MSIAfterburner.cfg and click 'Take Ownership' from the context menu. Then open up the file in wordpad follow the procedure in Step 2 and save it. If you still receive an error message, describe it in a reply to this thread.

How to Increase the core voltage
On some supported cards you can increase the voltage of the GPU core. This should help you to push your overclock further, however adding too much voltage could cause damage to your card. If this setting is grayed out for you, MSI Afterburner does not support voltage increases for your GPU. It is up to you to decide what you are comfortable with and whether the extra boost in core clock is worth the potential risk.

Enabling Manual Fan Control
Open up the 'Settings' screen and click the 'Fan' tab. Click the 'Enable user defined software automatic fan control' box, here you can set the thresholds for fan speed increases. Along the bottom is Temperature, and up the side is fan speed, you can manipulate the points of the graph to get the right balance of silence at idle and the best cooling under load. For further details on this feature, please see the guide made by Ethatron, which can be found here.

How to restore 2D/3D dynamic clock changing (Powerplay)
First make sure you have saved a profile with the clocks that you want at idle and a profile for what clocks you want at load. Then navigate to the 'Profiles' tab of the 'Settings' screen and choose the 2D and 3D profile under the 'Automatic Profiles Management' section.

How to show FPS or other data in-game or on your G15 keyboard
You can optionally monitor FPS and GPU temperature either as an overlay on games or on your G15 keyboard's screen. To do this Click the 'Monitoring' tab in the 'Settings' screen. Click on the fields you would like to monitor and choose either 'Show in On-Screen Display' or 'Show in Logitech Keyboard LCD Display'. If you want to see FPS, make sure you click the tick icon to the left of the 'Framerate' field and then click the 'Show in On-Screen Display' checkbox.

Another user has the same card as me but mine won't overclock as far
Please remember that not all GPUs are created equal, just because someone's overclocks to a certain level does not mean that yours will necessarily be capable of doing the same.

* What do I do if I have a Multi-GPU Setup?

If you have a crossfire setup you must set the GPUTool Stress test to run in full screen mode. To do this tick the 'Renderer uses Fullscreen' box. Before you begin make sure 'Synchronise settings for similar graphics processors' is ticked in the 'Settings' screen of MSI Afterburner. If you want to adjust the clocks individually for each GPU of your multi-GPU setup you can untick that option and use the drop-down list to choose which GPU to overclock. Once you have done one, use the drop-down list to switch to the next GPU.



I hope this guide has been helpful, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them below.
 
See less See more
8
#4 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by skunksmash View Post
Great work mate.....


maybe you could add a little section about configuring the ''custom fan curve'', IMO one of this apps best features...

I had thought about it, it's kind of hard to describe how to manipulate it though. Theres alot more in the works (Soon there should be a Q&A section for really common questions stickied)
 
#7 ·
Quote:
How to restore 2D/3D dynamic clock changing (Powerplay)
First make sure you have saved a profile with the clocks that you want at idle and a profile for what clocks you want at load. Then navigate to the 'Profiles' tab of the 'Settings' screen and choose the 2D and 3D profile under the 'Automatic Profiles Management' section.
I do not understand this. I though this could help me escape from my 5850 dropping to 157/300 but i set a profile to 573/1000 for 2d and 754/1000 for 3d.

It caused me to go to my idle clocks at 157/300 which tends to happen whenever i overclock, it switches between the idle clocks and the 2d clocks i set in msi.
 
#8 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by 1keith1 View Post
I do not understand this. I though this could help me escape from my 5850 dropping to 157/300 but i set a profile to 573/1000 for 2d and 754/1000 for 3d.

It caused me to go to my idle clocks at 157/300 which tends to happen whenever i overclock, it switches between the idle clocks and the 2d clocks i set in msi.
Something weird is going on with your card, possibly driver or BIOS related. Did you check the post I made in your other thread for a possible solution?
 
#11 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by freedumb View Post
i think you have to run gputool in fullscreen for it to stress both cards in crossfire
If you can confirm that is the case I shall amend the Guide
 
#12 ·
CFX works only in FULL Screen. It does not support window mode so the point is valid.
 
#13 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Wishmaker View Post
CFX works only in FULL Screen. It does not support window mode so the point is valid.
Good point, that slipped my mind
 
#16 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by lockhead View Post
what's the max vrm temps of 4890?

EDIT: nice guide btw.
The specifications say up to 120*C
However, For 24/7 use I would keep them below 90*C if possible.
 
#18 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by coffeejunky View Post
Good point, that slipped my mind


No worries mate. Your guide is amazing. I wish you wrote it in sooner. I am trying to break the 23000 mark with my CFX HD4890XXX cards and I spent quite some time modding the BIOS, configuring GPU TOOL when Afterburner, already installed on my system, needed a simple tweak. Voltage in Aferburner seems to have a limit. For example, to run 1050/1200 on my ATI cards I need 1.43V and Afterburner does not allow that. Would give rep but you don't have the button.

Regarding max temp, 120 is for the VRMs not for the GPU. The GPU will start dying at 100 degrees.
 
#20 ·
My bad
. Blame the eggnog
.
 
#22 ·
I modded my 4850 visiontek bios and rewrite but although the card function ok in games I can't adjust anything in ccc. it not default at gpu 700mhz and 1100mhz memory. I have a accelero twin turbo so there are no heat problem. I would really like to flashed it back to the original specs but no go, winflash said it has a bad bios.
 
#23 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by daldal View Post
I modded my 4850 visiontek bios and rewrite but although the card function ok in games I can't adjust anything in ccc. it not default at gpu 700mhz and 1100mhz memory. I have a accelero twin turbo so there are no heat problem. I would really like to flashed it back to the original specs but no go, winflash said it has a bad bios.
CCC doesn't seem to like BIOS that has been edited anymore.
Your stock BIOS can be downloaded here -
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/1...12.080523.html
Worth giving it a go (make sure you have a 512mb card).

Also, don't forget to fill out your system specs in the UserCP
 
#24 ·
Fan-Curve guide:

First, in thinking about fan-curves you may intuitively assume that a simple linear relation-ship between heat and fan-speed (like in the following picture) perfectly protects your processor from any ill-effects:



This is not completely right. There are several side-factors which affect quantity of heat-production and quantity of heat-transportation over time. I'm only going to explain two of them in laymens words:

1) heat-production: while overclocking the processor you linearly raise voltage and/or clocks, but the relationship between heat and voltage and heat and clocks is exponential, which means aproportional, untill a (theoretic) point where very very tiny amounts of clock or voltage will result in a huge amount of additional heat produced. This effect has it's own name: "law of diminishing returns" and is rooted in the way how electrons move through a conductor - you can not change this relationship. You have the possibility to exactly measure your own personal curve by noting the Amperes your processor is consuming at various frequencies and voltages while at 100% utilization. Your fan-curve will be very similar to that one.

2) heat-transportation: this is a relative slow process, it's not an immediate effect, and the smaller the heat-difference between the heat-transporting material and the heat-source, the longer it takes. It means the bigger the difference in temperature (like 100° C) the faster heat will be taken away. With a fan-cooling the difference between the temperature of the heat-source (the metal-body on the processor) and the heat-"consumer" (the air) is relative small, this produces a considerable delay in heat-transfer. Additionally air does also move relative slow and can't be moved away instantaneously from the heat-source.

So there is a exponential raise in temperature and an exponential delay of heat-transfer, if both come together strong in the wrong moment you can cook your processor in the timespan the action-reaction-chain need to speedup the fan after the temperature-sensor started to see too much heat.

That's why you should make a fan-profile which takes preceding/anticipating steps to work against the delaying factors. Namely an exponential curve a step ahead of the heat-curve.

In the fan-profile editor you can add additional points to the line we had in the picture above by clicking on the line:



Then you grab the point with the mouse and move it around. The point will stay active (you see the highlighted box around it, the other points stay grey). To delete points, active it by clicking the point and pressing the delete key.

Now you add as much points as you need to make a rough exponential curve:



Now there are two additional things to have in mind to adjust this curve:

1) size of the fan or speed of the fan, in general the capacity of the fan to transport heat away
2) quality of the fan and it's bearings

The first point is related to the horizontal range of the curve. You see in the picture that at 84° the fan runs at 59%, if the fan is big it can be enough to compensate a 10° raise in a the next second, if the fan is small it may need too long and the processor jumps to 94° without any counteraction. So depending on the fan you got you may want to move the entire curve to le left, making the fan be a bit ahead of what may happen.

The second point is related to the vertical range of the curve. You maybe see that at 0° the fan is stopped. and then very slowly starts to raise it'S speed. The problem is than fans have a real difficult time to work at very low speeds like 10 cps or a 100. Not only is it electrically difficult, it's also very stressfull to the bearings. Mechanical resistance is a relative big factor with low speeds, but starting to disappear with higher speeds. So in this case you want the fan to rotate at a constant initial speed while being silent, efficient and reduces the stress on the bearings. You want to move the entire curve up, establishing a lower limit for the fan-speed:



I have a 5870 with cooler v1, and I conducted several experiments about how fast can the fan transport heat away and how low do I want to have the temperatures. I tested with various loads and kept in mind that the heat may be produced faster than transported away for a little timespan. Once I was happy with the regular behaviour of my curve (staying below °80) I started slowly overclocking the processor and in each step of raising voltage and frequency adjusting the curve as well, it goes like this:

a) have 100% load
b) raise core-frequency, search artifact
c) raise core-voltage, if there are artifacts
d) raise fan-speed at the specific temperature the core is actually at until at 80°
e) repeat

This is my final curve after overclocking to 1000MHz/1.3V/~82A:



The processor stays firmly below 80° for anything regular (non-FurMarks) and most of the time below 45% fan-speed. Even with FurMarks I have difficulties to really hear the fan. But keep in mind that is just because of how in my card all of the mentioned factors play together (quality of the processor and the fan as well as temperature difference to ambient). I am lucky that I don't hear my fan.

Here is the final behaviour of my fan-profile in a real-world situation (STALKER CoP), approaching 65A:



If I'd play longer the temperature would converge slightly below 80° at approx. 44/45% fan-speed. My ambient temperature is 90°F+/32°C+ as I'm living near the equator.



Keep in mind your uttmost care is for not having a hot processor, and not for having a silent fan! If your overclock results in a loud fan which annoys you while being at 80° you should accept a lower overclock.

Please also keep in mind that you need to find out which is the maximum acceptable temperature of your processor (without trottling), care about the lifetime and subtract 20% and substitute that temperature with the 80° in this guide.
It's always better to be overly cautious when it comes to overclocking.


---------------
Okay, maybe you proof-read it or edit it. It can contain errors, that's because I don't know better, or maybe because I try to make an aspect overly simplistic. Keep in mind I also want to prevent that people burn up their chips, trying to give cautious suggestions.

Marry Christmas BTW

Edit: added real world measures.
Edit: added ambient temperatures
 
#26 ·
I can't run GPUtool for some reason. as soon as I try to run it, a message saying: "an unrecoverable error has occurred...send txt to developer."

Any other programs to test?

thanks.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top