Overclocking 6950

I overclocked my Asus Radeon 6950 Direct CU2 1GB to 900Mhz and 5200 memory @ 1150v , I tested the overclock in furmark and it was stable , and the performance in games is great.Yesterday I got my first BSOD and today I got another one so I think the overclock is not really stable , but I don't really know what to change.Should I lower the clocks or raise the voltage?

Reply to G3ox

Many people report that their high overclocks are stable - meaning they render no artifacts, no overheating, or no shutdowns - but performance actually drops, with instances where the system get BSODs.

Since the point of overclocking is to getting better performance, you should be testing your stable overclocks with benchmarking programs.

Simply put, run benchmarks across your range of stable overclocks - stick with the one that gives you the best benchmarks, not the highest overclock.

Reply to steadywaters

I benchmarked my overclocks in 3D mark 2011 and I got great scores, my first benchmark was with the clock set to 830 Mhz and the memory at 5100 with a score of 5350 on the performance preset , my second benchmark was at 900 Mhz with the memory at 5200 and I got a score of 5700.I am very happy with this overclock because Skyrim now runs at 60 fps without fps drops.What should I do to get a stable overclock?

------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

what voltage did u use for 900mhz and memory to 5200?

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------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

megagabobe1 wrote :

what voltage did u use for 900mhz and memory to 5200?

At first I used 1150 mV , but when I got my first BSOD I raised it to 1160 mV, but it still isn't stable.

------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

my card is only stable at those speeds with 1.2v which i dont like much for 24/7 so i prefer leaving it at stock XD

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------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

megagabobe1 wrote :

my card is only stable at those speeds with 1.2v which i dont like much for 24/7 so i prefer leaving it at stock XD

Today I clocked it down to 890 Mhz @ 1150 mV and the memory still at 5200, I tested it in 3D mark 2011 and got a score 5658. I played Skyrim for a few hours and everything seems to be stable, so I will leave it with these clocks.

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------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

G3ox wrote :

Today I clocked it down to 890 Mhz @ 1150 mV and the memory still at 5200, I tested it in 3D mark 2011 and got a score 5658. I played Skyrim for a few hours and everything seems to be stable, so I will leave it with these clocks.

look very good, now i was able to set my card to 1150 v 900 core and 5200 mem stable

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

i've heard that if you dont go over 1250v you'll be fine

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

I don't want to raise the voltage too much because the temperatures are a little high, before overclocking, the card had a max temp of 75 degrees, now I am getting close to 80 and the fan is loud enough that I can hear it with headphones on.

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------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

G3ox wrote :

I don't want to raise the voltage too much because the temperatures are a little high, before overclocking, the card had a max temp of 75 degrees, now I am getting close to 80 and the fan is loud enough that I can hear it with headphones on.

do you have good airflow on your case? you cooler is supposed to be excellent, mine is the ice1 z turbo version and overclocked does not hoes past 71c

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

I have 4 fans on my case (NZXT M59), 2 intake and 2 exhaust, the cooler is good enough but after 80C it gets loud. I have all my fans on the silent profile because my PC sits on top of my desk very close to me and the noise bothers me when I'm playing.

BTW, the cooler on my card is only dual slot (like the ASUS 560ti) because I have the 1GB version of the card.

------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

strange, my gpu fan is inaudible even at 60% fan speed

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

what is loud for you?

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

Loud is when my case fans and my cpu fan go over 1500 RPM and my gpu fan goes over 50% fan speed. With the overclock the fan usually is at 60% speed to keep the temperatures under 80C.

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------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

G3ox wrote :

Loud is when my case fans and my cpu fan go over 1500 RPM and my gpu fan goes over 50% fan speed. With the overclock the fan usually is at 60% speed to keep the temperatures under 80C.

i just overclock to run some benchamrks and see pretty numbers XD haha, the card at stock is enough for running any game maxed out, so i still dont feel the need to overclock my card to play, do you feel the need to overclock it?

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

I wanted to overclock my card to play Skyrim at max at 60fps, but the game is poorly optimized. I am really happy with the card at stock but I like to play around with the clocks

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------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

G3ox wrote :

I wanted to overclock my card to play Skyrim at max at 60fps, but the game is poorly optimized. I am really happy with the card at stock but I like to play around with the clocks

yeah, thats a crappy optimized game XD, at 900 core and 5600 mem and 1150v i get a bit more performance than a 570, you should try those clocks

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

890 MHz @ 1150 is the limit for me , everything above this and I get BSOD. I am happy with this overclock anyway, I saved it to a profile in Asus gpu tweak so I can turn it on when I need extra performance.

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------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

G3ox wrote :

890 MHz @ 1150 is the limit for me , everything above this and I get BSOD. I am happy with this overclock anyway, I saved it to a profile in Asus gpu tweak so I can turn it on when I need extra performance.

if your happy thats what matters, im happy with mine too

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

I installed Metro 2033 today and ran the benchmark, it seems that the performance is worse with the overclock:

without overclock:

Total Frames: 2645, Total Time: 59.71375 sec
Average Framerate: 44.40
Max. Framerate: 86.36 (Frame: 2409)
Min. Framerate: 8.89 (Frame: 29)

with overclock:

Total Frames: 2520, Total Time: 59.69994 sec
Average Framerate: 42.31
Max. Framerate: 71.89 (Frame: 2310)
Min. Framerate: 11.94 (Frame: 1218)

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------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

G3ox wrote :

I installed Metro 2033 today and ran the benchmark, it seems that the performance is worse with the overclock:

without overclock:

Total Frames: 2645, Total Time: 59.71375 sec
Average Framerate: 44.40
Max. Framerate: 86.36 (Frame: 2409)
Min. Framerate: 8.89 (Frame: 29)

with overclock:

Total Frames: 2520, Total Time: 59.69994 sec
Average Framerate: 42.31
Max. Framerate: 71.89 (Frame: 2310)
Min. Framerate: 11.94 (Frame: 1218)

try with the oc i got 900 core, 1400 memory clock, with 1187v

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

tried the OC in the Metro 2033 benchmark and I got

Total Frames: 3149, Total Time: 59.79942 sec
Average Framerate: 52.76
Max. Framerate: 102.85 (Frame: 2865)
Min. Framerate: 9.49 (Frame: 23)

The results are much better than my previous OC.Thank you!

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------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

G3ox wrote :

tried the OC in the Metro 2033 benchmark and I got

Total Frames: 3149, Total Time: 59.79942 sec
Average Framerate: 52.76
Max. Framerate: 102.85 (Frame: 2865)
Min. Framerate: 9.49 (Frame: 23)

The results are much better than my previous OC.Thank you!

wow, a 10 frames per second increase, glad i could help you

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

The performance is great but the temperatures are a little high, I tested my last overclock in furmark and got a max temp of 90C , with this overclock I get 94C, with the gpu fans on auto and the case fans on low. In game I got a max temp of 84 but so far it runs great.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ MY PC: Core i7 930 @ 4GHz , ASUS P6T-SE mobo, ASUS HD6950 DCUII GPU, Kingston HiperX + OCZ Platinum 12GB ram , OCZ Vertex 2 60GB , NZXT M59 case , Titan Fenrir cooler
Reply to G3ox

G3ox wrote :

The performance is great but the temperatures are a little high, I tested my last overclock in furmark and got a max temp of 90C , with this overclock I get 94C, with the gpu fans on auto and the case fans on low. In game I got a max temp of 84 but so far it runs great.

create a bit more aggressive fan profile on msi afterburner

------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

What are you using to tweak voltages?

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Reply to vollman1

vollman1 wrote :

What are you using to tweak voltages?

msi afterburner gives you the option to do that

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------------------------------ Nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might aswell enjoy the trip
Reply to megagabobe1

megagabobe1 wrote :

msi afterburner gives you the option to do that

I was afraid that you were going to say that. I Unlocked my 6950 but AB won't let me into the voltage

Reply to vollman1

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