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660 Ti Overclocking Advice

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slicetank

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hi all, first thread here for me.

I just picked up GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti WINDFORCE 2X OC Edition for my brother and I have it up and running and everything is smooth. I'm having a little trouble overclocking it though.
I'm used to ATI as I've always had ATI cards. This new Kepler OC is giving me a headache. Here's what I got.

I'm using MSI Afterburner and I've got Core voltage, Power limit%, Core, and Mem clock.

I think I know the general idea of how they are supposed to work but when I add anything over like 40mhz on the core or even 50 mhz on the mem clock it freezes up and I can't finish a heaven benchmark.

The Max it allows me to put the power limit to is 113%. Is the power limit the juice needed to reach a higher clock? (like a voltage setting on my 7950)?
Is there something i am missing or did I just get unlucky and receive a card that doesn't OC well.

Thanks in advance
 
#2 ·
Increasing the Power Limit stops the card from down clocking when the boost function kicks in. You can find a short explanation here.

From my limited experience OC'ing my MSI 660ti I've got a stable OC with the Core Clock increased by 50 and the Memory Clock increased by 250. I set the power limit to 114 (max) and I haven't touched the voltage.
 
#3 ·
Compared to ATi cards, the current generation of nVidia cards are clocked much closer to their limit. I can't get any more than +40 on the core of my 670's either, my memory I am able to overclock to about 6800Mhz though. Even though I am only able to get an additional +40 on the core, the card already boosts to @1200Mhz out of the box which is much higher than the card's stated boost.

A combination of clocking their cards closer to the limit and a GPU boost that already does much of the overclocking for you are the reason why you can't get too much additional speed out of them.
 
#5 ·
I have the MSI 660TI PE OC edition. To overclock mine I maxed out the core voltage and power limit sliders in Afterburner. My results are pretty good I think:
Stock-1020mhz gpu
1502mhz mem
1098mhz turbo boost
1230mhz max observed gpu TB in Metro 2033 at max settings (1920x1200,VHQ,4xAA,16xAF,Adv DOF enabled,DX11,PhysX on).

O/C---1195mhz gpu
1752mhz mem
1273mhz turbo boost
1403mhz max observed gpu TB In Metro 2033 at max settings.

And the best part is the cooling fans only reached 50% running speed at max overclock which is still pretty quiet!
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by division2 View Post

I have the MSI 660TI PE OC edition. To overclock mine I maxed out the core voltage and power limit sliders in Afterburner. My results are pretty good I think:
Stock-1020mhz gpu
1502mhz mem
1098mhz turbo boost
1230mhz max observed gpu TB in Metro 2033 at max settings (1920x1200,4xAA,16xAF,Adv DOF enabled,DX11,PhysX on).
O/C---1195mhz gpu
1752mhz mem
1273mhz turbo boost
1403mhz max observed gpu TB In Metro 2033 at max settings.
And the best part is the cooling fans only reached 50% running speed at max overclock which is still pretty quiet!
Click to expand...
Nice! I'm definitely excited to be getting mine this week!

I almost feel like there should be some way to push the overclock even further. I saw in one video that apparently the MSI Afterburner program throttles your graphics card if the temperatures go above 70C, but my GTX 670 goes up to 80C a lot when I play games and that is without any special cooling on it.
 
#7 ·
My temp at max overclock was 80c while playing Metro.
Unfortunately my Asrock motherboard is out for RMA on my main system. My case on that system has a 140mm fan I installed on the side panel to supply cool air right to the video card. I am expecting a nice temp drop when I get my motherboard back.
Right now I have the 660TI installed in my HTPC and the airflow sucks.
I also have a GTX460 768mb that I am going to use for PhysX with the 660TI.
 
Discussion starter · #10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by division2 View Post

I have the MSI 660TI PE OC edition. To overclock mine I maxed out the core voltage and power limit sliders in Afterburner. My results are pretty good I think:
Stock-1020mhz gpu
1502mhz mem
1098mhz turbo boost
1230mhz max observed gpu TB in Metro 2033 at max settings (1920x1200,VHQ,4xAA,16xAF,Adv DOF enabled,DX11,PhysX on).
O/C---1195mhz gpu
1752mhz mem
1273mhz turbo boost
1403mhz max observed gpu TB In Metro 2033 at max settings.
And the best part is the cooling fans only reached 50% running speed at max overclock which is still pretty quiet!
Click to expand...
Because of this post I am returning my Gigabyte OC version and ordering the MSI one (amazon)

Thanks!
 
#13 ·
I've been playing around with Afterburner on my MSI 660 Ti "Power Edition". The stock speed is already clocked at 1019mhz core. The "boost" only brings it up the core to about 1100-1140mhz. As for the memory, its stock speed is 3004mhz, and doesn't look like it gets boosted past that.

I raised the core to +100mhz, and the mem +350mhz. I also raised the maximum TDP to 114% (as high as it goes). Got it benchmarking at 1250mhz core and 3350mhz mem. The TDP was maxing out at about 102%, and the temp stayed under 75 degrees. I did hear occasional popping sounds coming from the case... I haven't identified the source but I suspect its the heat pipes expanding.

It actually ran great for about an hour until it crashed, so I ended up dropping the core to +50 and mem to +250 (I really prefer a stable system than a 5% performance boost).
I left the TDP at 114%, but I may drop that to 110%. So far this seems stable, and the temps max out at about 73 with the fan speed at 44%.

I haven't touched the voltages. There are three settings- Core, Mem, and Aux. The slider maxes out at +100mV, +50mV and +30mV respectively. I really have no idea what a safe voltage would be, and what the Aux voltage is for... it only says "other components like PCIE crystal bus", whatever that means.

The other thing about the voltage is that when it starts running under load, it automatically raises it from 0.987V (idle) to 1.125V. But as the core temp goes up over 65 degrees, it drops down to 1.112V. Then at 68-60 degrees it drops it further to 1.100v and stays there.
I don't know if this is some kind of protection mechanism or something, but it seems that it may not matter what you specify in the voltages, because under a high load it will drop it down anyway. There is a setting in the advanced menu called "force constant voltage". I'm assuming this is meant to prevent the voltage drop I mentioned above, but when I tested it with the setting on, the voltage still dropped.

Update: After some more reading, and a few beers... I decided to change the voltage. Here are my results after a 10 minute burn-in with MSI's Kombuster

Test settings:


Graphs during the test:


At the 10 minute mark on Kombuster:


Furmark 1080p benchmark results:


Settings:
Core voltage: +100mV
Power limit: 114%
Core clock: +100
Memory clock: +300
Fan speed: Auto

Results:
Core: 1238mhz
Mem: 3305mhz
Max temp: 80C
Max fan speed: 47% (1860rpm)
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoylentRed View Post

temp: 80C
Max fan speed: 47% (1860rpm)
Click to expand...
Why the low fan speed?

Florida not hot enough for ya?
wink.gif


Adjust the auto fan speed graph. Try 50C=60%, 60C=70%, 70C=80%, and so on up the graph. That way you can compare heat vs fan speed vs clocks, and then save different profiles according to your use and preferences. Saying 80C at 47% fan speed doesn't indicate the effectiveness of the msi "PE" cooler, and may also be effecting your oc'ing. Especially your throttling problem. As you know, the cooler the parts the better!
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by SandShark View Post

Why the low fan speed?
Florida not hot enough for ya?
wink.gif

Adjust the auto fan speed graph. Try 50C=60%, 60C=70%, 70C=80%, and so on up the graph. That way you can compare heat vs fan speed vs clocks, and then save different profiles according to your use and preferences. Saying 80C at 47% fan speed doesn't indicate the effectiveness of the msi "PE" cooler, and may also be effecting your oc'ing. Especially your throttling problem. As you know, the cooler the parts the better!
Click to expand...
Well I assumed that the "auto" fan would spin up as the temps increased. Isn't that what it's supposed to do?
 
#16 ·
Just so you know, Youre core clock on the msi 660ti PE is the killer. try this, set Core to 75, and mem to 475 and youll be alright and pass all the kumbustor testing. If that failes knock the mem to 460 and core to 70
 
#20 ·
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