Strix GTX 1070 Overclocking Guide

[Nate152]

Hi everyone !

If you've recently purchased an ROG Strix GTX 1070 and are new to overclocking, here is a little guide that will have it running at it's maximum performance. You will need a gpu overclocking tool and GPU Tweak II is a good one to use, here is a link to get the latest version.

Select your operating system then click utilities, as of now v1.3.1.2 is the latest version.

http://support.asus.com.cn/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=9&m=GPUTweak+II&hashedid=n%2fa&_ga=1.2788006...

You will also need a gpu stress testing program and Unigine Valley I find is a good program to use, click the free download.

http://unigine.com/products/benchmarks/valley/

Overclocking your gpu can take a little time but to get your gpu overclocked quickly you can try my settings and see how they work for you. You'll have to enable the "Overclocking range enhancement" to get more out of the memory as it overclocks very far. To do this click the gear at the top right shown in red and check the box, also check "Apply settings each time GPU Tweak starts", this will keep your overclock settings and apply them when you start GPU Tweak. I disabled the GPU Tweak II Startup and Monitor Startup as it only needs to be running while playing games. Simply start GPU Tweak before playing any game.

Like this then click apply



Now click Home at the top then click professional mode at the bottom right and it looks like this below. Slide the GPU Voltage all the way to the right until it shows 100 and slide the Power Target all the way to the right until it shows 120, under GPU Boost Clock select manual and slide it to +33MHZ until it shows 1868MHz, then slide the Memory Clock to +1334MHz until it shows 9342MHz and click apply. These settings are for the Strix 1070 OC, if you have the standard Strix 1070 you should be able to go a little higher with the GPU Boost Clock.





To keep your Strix 1070 as cool as possible you'll want to set a fan curve, 70% is the highest it will go and I have mine set to be running at 70% at 60c. Under Fan Speed select "User Define" then click the little gear to the right and it shows this below. Move the little red boxes with your mouse to your desired temp and fan speed, 60 at the bottom is the temp and on the left is the fan speed 70%. Click save then click apply.



Now open up the Unigine Valley GPU stress testing program, I set the resolution to 2560 x 1440, ultra settings with no antialiasing, then click Benchmark and let it run. If it crashes with the "Nvidia display driver has stopped responding", you'll need to back down the GPU Boost Clock a notch and run it until it passes, if you get artifacting (flashing dots and triangles) you'll have to back down the Memory Clock until the artifacting stops. Be sure to click apply if you make any changes.

The GPU Boost Clock doesn't stay at a constant overclock like previous gpu's, mine goes as low as 2000MHz and at times hits 2068MHz but stayed mainly at 2012MHz - 2038MHz, the Memory Clock does stay constant and runs at 9333MHz. Some gpu's may be able to overclock a little more and some a little less so don't be discouraged if you have to lower your overclock a little.

Here are the scores of the Strix 1070 in silent mode and overclocked with the settings above, the Strix 1070 in silent mode shows a max voltage of 1.062v and max temp of 67c. - 100 frames per second

Here is the link for the Tech PowerUp ROG GPU-Z if you'd like to install it, open it twice and click the sensors tab on one.

https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2738/techpowerup-gpu-z-v1-9-0-w-asus-rog-skin

My 6700k is overclocked to 4.75GHz during the tests.


Overclocked the max voltage shows 1.093v and max temp shows 71c but with the fan at 70% the max temp was 61c, cooler than in silent mode and scored 111.1 frames per second. A gain of 11 frames per second which is very nice but what is really impressive is the Min. FPS going from 30.5 to 48.5 for a gain of 18 FPS. What an awesome gpu the Strix 1070 is, it performs very good at 1440p runs cool and overclocks extremely well, especially the memory.

EDIT: For those of you with micron memory there is a vbios update that helps with micron memory overclocking stability, check in GPU-Z under memory type it will tell you if you have samsung or micron memory.

ROG Strix 1070 8G standard edition.

http://www.asus.com/us/Graphics-Cards/ROG-STRIX-GTX1070-8G-GAMING/HelpDesk_Download/

ROG Strix 1070 08G OC edition

http://www.asus.com/us/Graphics-Cards/ROG-STRIX-GTX1070-O8G-GAMING/HelpDesk_Download/



I'd like to see how well you all did and compare so please post your scores and overclocks, if you have any questions feel free to ask.

[Bahz]

Really intuitive guide for the beginners that aren't familiar to overclocking or using GPU Tweak II, thanks for sharing this Nate!

[kieranmarsh]

Great helpful topic, helped me OC my 1070 as this is the first time ive bothered OCing a graphics card.

one thing to remember is to save the OC to a profile before clicking apply, i ended up going through the settings 2 or 3 times because of that.

thanks
kieran



I tried to copy your benchmark settings ultra, custom, 2260x1440 etc
incase that pic is too small to read... 🙂

i7 5820 @4.5
32gb ram
asus R5E
Strix 1070 oc
corsair 110i
asus MG28uq monitor

im more than happy with that considering the most taxing game i play is warcraft 🙂

[Nate152]

Hi kierenmarsh

Welcome to the ROG forum and thank you for posting your score.

You may also set a profile as you've done to keep your OC settings. 🙂

With your 5820k overclocked to 4.5GHz I would expect a little better score than what you got. It could be how you have the NVidia 3d settings as to why you have a lower score.

Did you overclock the Memory clock too?

Be sure antialiasing is turned off in the benchmark.

[Bahz]

Yeah that score definitely looks a bit low and you can definitely push it a bit more

[jkteddy77]

This is the first GPU I've tried seriously overclocking, and my first Nvidia card, so I am SO confused about how GPU-boost is working.

You've got the higher clocked Strix, but 1868 leads you to over 2.0ghz? What is this witchcraft math xD
When I set mine to 1828, I'm still only seeing clocks reach about 1911mhz, and it flutters up and down. How can I keep it at a high stable clock like that?

It also appears that for whatever reason, on the lower clocked model, the max power limit ONLY goes up to 112%, even with the enhanced tuning enabled... That's really disappointing.

When I set the voltage to + 100%, isn't that doubling the voltage all the time, or does the voltage change as it's needed?
I don't see the point in keeping it running so high 24/7, that's a lot of excess heat and fan noise, I would want to drop that if possible

Another thing is my memory starts to cause artifacting in Valley at just 9100mhz with +20% voltage, would upping the voltage help that, or does voltage mainly just keep the core stable?
The only stable clocks I've had so far are 1818mhz (that really only gets to 1911 at most) and 8920mhz on the memory with +20& Voltage and 112% power

sorry for being so new, but it seems every OCing software behaves differently, and I'm not sure of the 1070's capabilities yet.

As for the Valley scores, I get 90 stock (OC default was like 1752core, and 8000mem) in valley, and then about 100.7 with 1868core and 9192mem.
but that's all in Extreme HD... In Custom Ultra at 1440p, I'm gettin the 60's and 70's... are you guys using less than 8x MSAA? those are crazy crazy high scores, I get those in 1080p 8x MSAA.
Why doesn't everyone just use the Extreme HD preset anymore, questions about performance like Kieranmarsh have wouldn't have to be answered

[Nate152]

Hi jkteddy77

Setting the voltage to 100 doesn't double the voltage it takes the stock voltage of 1.062v up to a maximum of 1.093v which is still quite low voltage. The pascal gpu's are new to me too and the clock speeds do fluctuate according to load and temp. There is no way to get it to stick at a maximum overclock like with previous gpu's, it fluctuates to conserve power. I too would prefer it to run at the maximum overclock I set if temps are under control.

Raising the power target raises the Boost clock also, I'm not sure how much but with the power target set to the max and the added 33MHz the Boost clock goes as high as 2063MHz, any more than that the Nvidia driver crashes for me. You'll have to put the voltage to +100 to get the maximum Boost clock, this may also help with the memory artifacting. If you set the fan curve like above your 1070 should run 60ish c and have no problems with thermal throttling.

I have the settings in Unigine Valley the way I play my games, this to me tells me what I can expect performance wise at 1440p. It's a good average to go by but some games are more demanding than others. For instance crysis 3, you can expect an average of about 60 FPS, at the beginning it's around 40FPS, in buildings it goes as high as 80 FPS.

9192MHz on the memory clock is almost a 1.20GHz overclock which is very good. Try Unigine Valley again with the settings at 1440p, ultra settings and NO antialiasing, this should significantly boost your score and frames per second.

[Ramzay]

Definitely a nice guide for beginners.

And I agree with turning off AA. AA really benefits low resolutions, and once you step up to 1440p, AA isn't really that necessary (as the increased pixel density does a fine job of smoothing out the edges of objects).

[jkteddy77]

Thanks for all the clarification. I tried valley with 1440p and no AA eventually figured that's what you were using in valley, think I got about 106fps, which is pretty decent for having a 4790k.
One thing I don't like about Valley is how much difference a CPU makes in the scores, which is I believe one of the main reasons reviewers stick to Heaven these days, it's more gpu dependent. Although Valley gives you a much better idea of how actual games will run on the card like you explained.
I agree with the AA argument. I'm using this 1070 to game in 4k, and AA is an absolute no no for me, I'd have to have purchased a 1080 if I wanted to keep AA on most titles. It makes little difference in 4k, almost impossible to tell if it's being used or not.

It seems like depending on the clock, it boosts to the same maximum. At 1828mhz on the core, which is about the max I can stabley get it with voltage pretty low, about +20-30, it reaches 2000mhz exactly as the max. May up it to 50 voltage. I just don't like the card getting too much voltage as it starts to get heated then.
I prefer a more silent fan curve, because as cool and effective as the Strix fans are, they also tend to sound much louder once they get around 70% fan speed. They're silent under 50%, which is what I like them to ramp up to in games
Core speed seems to make little to now difference after a certain point as well from what I see. The difference from the stock 1860mhz and 2036mhz is under one fps in improvement in my experience.
It's the memory in Pascal that you really want to overclock, which is an odd behavior, usually it's all about the core for other architectures.

Currently run 1828core, 9100mem, +50% voltage, 112% power (really wish I could get 120)
With these settings, my GPU gets up at most to 66C, and I've just left the fan curve at it's silent stock curve.
Fan only gets up to about 47% at most, and still keeps the card cooler than most other 1070 models do, even when overclocked.
I'm convinced this is the best 1070 at the moment, alongside the MSI's and the Zotac Amp! models.

[Nate152]

106 FPS is still very good, in OC mode I got a max of 104 FPS when running the unigine valley test, keep in mind I have the OC version.

Your temps are good too, by setting the voltage to 100 you're only upping the maximum voltage by .03v which is barely anything and shouldn't affect temps hardly at all. It doesn't stay at 1.093v it's just the maximum it will go to if it needs to.

You could squeeze a little more out of it by upping the voltage to 100.