Asus Matrix Platinum GTX 980ti OC question -- it doesn't really ?

[gapper4]

Hey guys,

I've asked this question at Tom'S Hardware but didn't really get anywhere, so I'm asking here, the home of ROG. I'm fairly noobish at OCing but do understand the basics. I got this card mainly to play Elite Dangerous in VR with a DK2. It's pretty good but I tried OCing it a bit and, well, the results preplex me. I boosted the core clock to 1400Mhz using GPU Tweak II, the memory to 7600, and max power to 110%. Didn't touch the voltage and left the fan on Auto. These settings are not aggressive, as the I've seen Asus videos showing it overclocked at over 1500Mhz core, 8000 memory, and 125% power. I used the Uningine Heaven benchmark at full screen, extreme tessalation and 8XAA. It doesn't seem to work for me. It either crashes or gives no FPS boost at all if I crank it up above a tiny minimum.

Even with much lower OC settings, it seems to max out at 101 to 102 fps, and that's it. It crashes after a while of playing Elite in VR. My rig is pretty good, got an Intel i7-5820k 16Mb Corsair RAM, a brand new 1000W Corsair PSU, Samsung SSD, and an Asus X99 Mobo. Ventilation and heat are good for both the card (low 70s) and the mobo (low 40s when OCed to 4600Mhz with the Asus 5-way optimizing tool) . So, any suggestions ? The card runs fine stock or with the slight OCs available with GPU Tweak II, but I can't seem to push it any higher.

[Nate152]

Hello gapper4

Welcome to the ROG forum !

I have the matrix platinum 980 Ti and out of the box it boosts to 1430MHz. The power target only goes to 110% unless you solder the LN2 pins and enable the LN2 bios then it will go up to 200%. This also unlocks the voltage but don't do this unless you have a waterblock, on air it will run 10c-12c warmer and once it hits 70c it will throttle to 700MHz - 800MHz.

If you're only overclocking it a tiny bit don't expect much of a performance increase if any at all especially with 8x antialiasing. You can crank up the voltage 50mv that it gives you, this will help you overclock a little higher and maybe to 1500MHz on the core. You should be able to get the memory to 8200MHz.

I use MSI Afterburner and the on screen display to see clocks and temp while I play games.

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Hi gapper4 🙂

You may simply need to increase voltage a bit. OCing above the factory OC is simply not guaranteed and each card is different. What they show in some marketing video may not be achievable on another card and if it is may cost more volts and more heat which throw in instability.

Heaven is a tough test at those settings too. leaving the fan at auto might see you running into thermal problems....

Personally I prefer PrecisionX or Afterburner for OCing.....more stable in my experience...unless GPUTweak has some particular function with those GPUs that you need....

[gapper4]

Thanks for the replies gentlemen. I've maxed out the voltage and set the fan manually at 60% and I've used Afterburner to OC +40 on the core clock and +75 on the memory. Got a bit of a boost (about 5 frames). Core clock in Afterburner shows a peak of 1444Mhz. Not sure if this is good or not compared to other 980ti-s.

Ok, one question. If I push the OC too far, Heaven crashes for a few seconds, the screen goes blank but then it seems to reset and resumes the benchmark, but I get a very low minimum fps (about 5). When this occurs, what happens in the card ? Does it mean that the OC is unstable ?

[Arne_Saknussemm]

Yes, probably.

Memory OC is not always about pushing as far as you can by the way. In fact backing off a memory OC can improve performance. Often there is a sweet spot somewhere before the absolute max the card can run.

Sometimes backing off memory lets you OC a bit more on the core...

[Nate152]

I can get +500MHz on the memory for a total of 8200MHz, If you set the core to +57MHz this should put the core at 1500MHz under load.

As Arne says all matrix 980 Ti's aren't guaranteed to hit 1500MHz but most should be able to. If it's crashing on you back off the core clock a little more.

[Nate152]

I may have found something that will help with the crashing, in the bios set pcie to GEN 3, advanced tab, system agent configuration. I loaded defaults and let everything on auto and my display driver was crashing randomly even at stock speed, after changing pcie to GEN 3 I haven't got the crashing.

[hiong]

I have 2 of these, and no matter what I set as the Core Voltage adjustment in Afterburner, both cards run at 1.212v under load. Is this normal?

[FenrisWolf]

Hi gapper4,

Can't help you with your problem, but just wondered what your Elite Cmdr name is.

This is me - Cmdr Fenris Wolf

Apologies for off-topic message, please remove if not allowed 🙂