GTX 480: to overclock or not to overclock

[MindYerBeak 73]

I read somewhere that overclocking the gtx 480 is not worth it as the perfomance gain is negligible.Is it in your experience true ?I have a zotac gtx 480 myself and was wondering if I should try overclocking it a bit or just leave it as it is.My specs i7980x (@4.27)-gtx 480- 6 gb ram- win 7 x64Thank,Vic

[Bob Scott 7,720]

I disagree...clocking a 480 won't help if the CPU is too slow to properly feed it, but with a fast processor it scales up nicely--especially if you avail yourself of the better AA modes. Running my 480 at 800/2000 helps frames and smoothness over stock speeds (using i7-975 @ 4.5 GHz)

[MindYerBeak 73]

I disagree...clocking a 480 won't help if the CPU is too slow to properly feed it, but with a fast processor it scales up nicely--especially if you avail yourself of the better AA modes. Running my 480 at 800/2000 helps frames and smoothness over stock speeds (using i7-975 @ 4.5 GHz)

Hi Bob,I have no idea as to how to oc the card.Do you know of any fool proof guide on how to do it right/safely ? Any hint/tip appreciated.ThanksVic

[Superpilotv2 2]

search for "nVidia Inspector" to oc your GFX card. The program is easy to use and mostly self-explaining. Whether to oc or not to. That´s not an easy question. I have my GTX 260 clocked at 600 MHz instead of the default 576 MHz. so far I haven´t seen much difference cause it´s mostly CPU bound. But if you have a high-end CPU an oc´ed GFX card could give you some more frames. Maybe 2-3 more, so it´s not that important.

[Bob Scott 7,720]

Hi Bob,I have no idea as to how to oc the card.Do you know of any fool proof guide on how to do it right/safely ? Any hint/tip appreciated.ThanksVic

I use the eVGA Precision utility that came with my card. I believe, since all the 480s come off the same nVidia assembly line, that the eVGA utility (and others like MSI Afterburner) will work with other brands of 480 cards. Here's a brief tutorial: http://www.bjorn3d.com/articles/Overclocking_GTX-480__EVGA_Precision_192/1836.htmlYou can also use the nVidiainspector utility, as Steffen suggests. There, I'd recommend not messing with the voltage until you're more comfortable with making changes, and even then I'd suggest 1.125v as a practical maximum to stay out of trouble. Most people that I know who push up the GPU voltage are using MSI Afterburner. The forums at www.overclock.net are a good place to do some reading before you get started. At stock voltages, it's quite difficult to hurt the card. I start with core/shader clock freq (in the 480 they are hard-linked and can't be adjusted separately) and bump it up in 25 MHz increments, testing with the OCCT utility for 5-10 min between adjustments until I get to a setting where the test program starts detecting artifacts, or other obvious video anomalies start to occur, then back it off to the last step and try a longer test, and tweak in smaller increments from there. While testing, I monitor GPU temp and stop the test if GPU temp gets above 85 deg C. Once you determine your best core/shader clock (I think 702/1404 MHz is default core/shader freq on the 480s), then you can run the same sort of incremental process (I use 100 MHz increments) with memory freq. The biggest negative I have experienced from overclocking my 480 is the fan noise...when running FSX at high res with the card clocked up and transparency AA (GPU intensive) the fan spools up to 70-80% to keep GPU temp in the 70s, which sounds like I have a dustbuster running back there. Overclocking the card (I have a 4.55 GHz i7 feeding it) results in marginally better frame rates, especially less drop-off under heavy load, and the ability to use more aggressive AA settings without hitting frame rates.

[MindYerBeak 73]

Thanks a ton Stephen and Bob ! Vic