Overclocking question.

[zombygeek]

When overclocking my gpu, can I basically turn up core clock and memory clock settings up all the way with AMD Overdrive as long as I keep my temperature reasonable? Or are there other things I need to watch out for?

I have an HD 6670 and I've been increasing and increasing and I've maxed it out and the temp is still 50c. 900 core clock and 1000 memory clock. is this okay? I just don't want to fry it accidentally.

I have skyrim on ultra settings to act sort of as my stress tester, i heard using an actual game was the best method

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

From what I've seen of a few cards, that program seems to somehow detect feasible maximum settings so as not to directly damage components; THAT SAID, generally speaking, you absolutely don't just whack it up to full and hope for the best. Go step by step, increment by increment, and do a little research on the card; find out what it can do, and try to get some info' on what other folks have done with overclocking that card. Out of interest, what card are you wanting to OC?

 

[zombygeek]

i definitely didn't just wack it up, i went up incrementally. i'm way to cautious about that kind of stuff. i know other people have gotten up to 870+ but mostly just around 850. i got it up pretty high, but i started to get artifacts so i went back down to 840 just to be safe and it seemed to still play smooth.

would you mind telling me what memory clock does exactly and how it's different from gpu clock?

my card isn't the greatest. AMD HD 6670.. but i have a nice 6-core at 2.8 ghtz with 8gb ram. it was prebuilt and i got a really good deal on it. but i thought i'd be a nice upgrade from an 360, and so far i'm satisfied.

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

Ah, thank God for that!

Memory clock speed is as it sounds: the speed of the memory! Some people say that it makes no difference to OC, others say little difference, and then there's people like me that say it can make a big difference. V-RAM memory *sniggers* will mainly aid with things like high resolutions, AA, textures, etc, so to bump that up can see you get a rise in performance based on these factors. The core deals more with the main graphics stuff like physics, particles, the actual rendering... I'm no expert on the mechanics of the GPU, so if you're looking for a further look, head on over to Wiki.

 

[zombygeek]

oh, no, generalized answers are all i need.. but i do have one last question, how do you know how far to overclock memory?? it's not visible in games like the core..

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

It isn't always visible unless it comes into those factors (including any other factors I possibly missed out), or unless you're benchmarking. It's really up to you how far you OC it, but since you're not personally seeing a difference, I would just leave it at the last point you saw a difference at, and see if you can get more out of the core.

A couple of things just hit me...

a) What OC program are you using?

b) Have you stress-tested (by running stress-testing software) your GPU to ensure you are getting safe temps and zero artifacts? I use MSI's Kombuster as it's a kick-ass program; you may wanna give it a shot and run it for a while, ensuring to stress your GPU. Kombuster is also a good way of OCing your card and seeing the results live. If you use Kombuster, make sure to test OpenGL, DirectX 9, and DirectX 11, because I found that, at the very limits, one would artifact and another would not.

c) Can you give me more info' on your graphics card? Is it an OC version? Aside from AMD, what brand is it?

(BTW, I love zombie stuff; just thought I'd mention that. *shuffles off*)