I've never overclocked a GPU before, and I'm not looking to squeeze out every last bit of life from my 290 (Sapphire VaporX), I just want to give it a push to hopefully get a few more frames in Skyrim (because 1440p with texture mods and a fairly lightweight ENB is bringing me down to 29-32 fps).
I used Afterburner to change the core clock from 1030 to 1080, and that seemed ok.
At which point do you need to start increasing core voltage? Or can I just keep pushing the core clock up to maybe 1100?
290 OC in Afterburner
I recommend not touching voltages until you really know what your doing, just adjust your memory and core clocks individually and back off 20mhz from what you find the maximums to be on both. As long as your temps stay in check, have fun with it!
Every card is going to have their own limits and thresholds for different points of clock.
I had a 290 Vapor X that was able to do 1130 on the core and 1600 on the memory with +35mV.
But just bumb up the core in increments of 10MHz until you think you hit the threshold and same with the memory. Be ready to quickly change it back to the lower clock because it can often lead to some odd displaying and won't go away until you restart and reset the memory clock or boot into safe mode and Uninstaller the driver to restore to default clocks.
What are you using for stress testing your card?
Generally, people bump up their clocks until they start to witness some minor artifacting, or instability, then increase their voltage from there.
If I recall correctly, anything about 1100mhz is pretty good for the R9 290.
Tips
1. Increase core clocks in granular amount (5-10Mhz) to be precise. Reason for this:
- You can easily pinpoint at which clocks the artifacts shows.
- You can set the right amount of voltage to increase for the overclock.
2. The R9 200/300 series of cards have their memory clock tide to the core voltage. So if you want to stabilize memory overclocks you must increase core voltage until artifact-ing stops. I increase clocks by 10Mhz, I recommend doing the same.
Aux Voltage is not for the Memory. It's power delivery for everything else in the card beside the GPU Chip and Memory. Sometimes the core chip and memory will siphon too much power, and the rest of the components in the PCB will be starve for power. Tweaking Aux Voltage will help with this.
Each R9 200/300 will have their "golden ratio" that is the ratio between the Core clock and Memory clock at a specific voltage depending on your OC.
The VRAM on Hawaii cards is very different from previous cards. ALL Hawaii cards have a golden ratio of
VRAM clock/core clock. This ratio varies from card to card but is generally between 1.25 and 1.4. Once you find this ratio it will generally allow you to run a much higher memory clock than try to incrementally raise VRAM frequency. For example my R9 290X has a ratio of 1.36 and 1140/1500 is not stable on it but 1140/1550 is even though they are at the same voltage.
While the Hawaii cards do not have memory voltage controls available in any software the memory clock does scale with core voltage so if you are trying to push a high memory clock you wil need to raise the core voltage regardless of your core frequency. (more here)
3. Use stress test softwares that better mimic real world scenarios. Real Bench, Cinebench, and 3d Mark are good ways to look for artifacts and overall stability for overclocks.
4. R9 200 series are Hawaii based cards, they are hungry for power. At stock, they dissipate heat of about 275w. Increasing voltage will increase heat output. During summer, heat will be a concern unless you have an industrial class of air-conditioner.
- Also, be weary of power draw, your PSU has to supply both CPU and GPU. R9 200 series can consume up to 300+ watts of power. Make sure you have an adequate PSU.
5. The Hawaii chips are built like a tank. They can take a lot of power and heat. It's usually the rest of the components that give out if not cooled enough such as the power delivery components (VRMS and Chokes).
P.S.: I own an R9 290x.
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Nothing. I wasn't aiming for a high overclock, just a little bit of a performance push in 1 game that I play for a few hours on weekends.
So I didn't think I need to stress test if I aim for something reasonable.
I didn't touch memory clocks at all. It's 1400 on the memory by default and since I'm just aiming for a little bit smoother performance in skyrim, I wasn't sure that changing memory clocks would help.
I've never wanted to overclock before as it is hot as shit here in summer and I don't have air conditioning.
I did go from 1030 to 1050 then I got greedy and went 1080, but everything seemed fine in-game so I just went with that.
Eh, still, anything past the listed clockrates is a complete gamble.
If you want to use your game as your stress test, go for it. When you start to experience artifacts, flickering/blank screens, TDR crashes, or blue screens... It's time to bump up the voltage.