What is a safe overclock for the GTX 580 *without* altering the voltage?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce' started by Darren Hodgson, Jan 27, 2011.

  1. Darren Hodgson

    Darren Hodgson Ancient Guru

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    I do not want to overvolt my GTX 580 but I would like to squeeze some extra performance out of it by overclocking it slightly.

    What is considered a *safe* overclock for this card bearing in mind I have a Point of View model with default speeds of 772/1544/2004 MHz? At those speeds the card idles at around 30 C and rarely exceeds 75 C during gaming except for oddly Divinity II where it hits 83 C and never goes higher.

    Using MSI Afterburner I set the clock speeds to 825/1650/2050 MHz and tested it with the three Just Cause 2 benchmarks on max settings with 8xAA/16xAF at 1920x1200 (with includes the two exclusive NVIDIA settings too by the way). I understand this is a good test for stability. All three benchmarks ran fine as did the game when I briefly tested it. I saw no artifacts.

    Do you think that is a safe overclock for everyday game use or is it so low as to not be worthwhile?
     
  2. orion24

    orion24 Guest

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    I never found an NVIDIA card that can do below 10% GPU overclock at stock voltage. For the memory clock thought, I've seen everything starting from only 1-2% to as high as 25%.

    Anything that is REALLY stable and has the temperature under control (including PCB and power circuit temps) should be healhty for the card.

    Personally this is how I work: Start at about 8% GPU overclock with a temperature monitoring window (usually GPU-Z) and start a stress testing utility (usually ATItool). Every 2 minutes I start increasing the overclock 1 step, until I reach the GPU frequency that hangs/artifacts withing this 2-minute window. When I detect this, I immediatly stop the stress test and downclock the card to the previous value and I now start decreasing the overclock step-by-step until the value it completes the 1-hour stress test (usually it is only 1-3 steps below the previous frequency). If the card is for my mashine I select the maximum stable I find, but if I build it for someone else, I downclock it 2 more steps for more safety (actually the only problem is that if that frequency is not 100% stable 24/7, then whenever you detect some artifacts you must immediately stop gaming and decrease the overclock one step. If you just keep watching at them, they'll probably damage the card).
     
  3. ---TK---

    ---TK--- Guest

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    you know if you wanted a true safe overvolt you can go by the min .900-1.088 max vid. all 580`s should handle 1.088v no sweat. 850/1700/2200 is a decent oc and shouldnt stress anything on your video card.
     
  4. Darren Hodgson

    Darren Hodgson Ancient Guru

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    Thanks for the replies.
     

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