Will I be able to overclock this card more than the factory overclock?
BTW, I'm completely new to overclocking.
If it's the DCUII version than yes. Typically the factory OC's are barely what someone might consider an overclock, something like 50mhz on the core and mem. So yes and no, if it's the DCUII version then you probably have room to overclock further (temperatures), but if it's just using the reference cooler then they might have already squeezed everything out of it.
Just raise speed until Mac OS X kernel panics. When it does, you know to reduce your speed by 10MHz and run 12Hr alitvec fractals and Xbench GPU tests.
Mine is the DCuii version.
i got the r9 270 from msi and i use asus gpu tweak for overclocking:). just go to 1050mhz and run msi kombustor or a other program like that for 30min. run heaven benchmark 4.0 2x on everything max. after that go 10mhz up. when windows goes to safe mode just reboot and go 5mhz back and do it again. i got 1110mhz stable on stock voltage 1100mV. with asus gpu tweak you can add more voltage. max is 1225mV. it creates more heat so be aware of this. i don't run my card hotter than 60C and above 65C my card isn't stable anymore with 1110mhz 1100mV. you can bump up the voltage to the max (1225mV) and start the proces again. when you found you best oc for the core i recommend making a profile for your gpu. after you overclocking the core you can start oc your ram. you can go to 1500mhz or 6000mhz. and start the proces with 10mh each for the 1500mhz and 40 for the 6000mhz.
i have my 270 on 1200mhz and 1525 mhz for the ram. good luck!
How is the r9 270 for games?
good for me:) don't know what the rest of your system is but i have a i5 750 and it is great. gonna upgrade to i7 4770k:) i play 1680x1050 and i play everything at the settings i want. tombraider ultra fxaa enabled 50fps in the benchmark. bf4 70-140fps with terrain quality ultra, texture detail ultra, HBAO and res scaling 140%. latency is betweetn 5-20 which is pretty good. above 20 is annoying but the most of the time it's under 15ms