Forget about fancy third-party overclocking tools. For the first time ever, AMD’s new Radeon Software Crimson driver packs everything enthusiasts need to tweak, fine-tune, and crank up their graphics cards—though only if you buy a new card sporting AMD’s next-gen Polaris GPU.
One of the $200 Radeon RX 480’s biggest headlining features is actually a new Radeon Crimson overclocking tool dubbed Radeon WattMan. The ability to overclock your Radeon card with AMD-supplied software isn’t completely new: Prior to WattMan, AMD offered its less robust OverDrive tool since about 2007. (Older Radeon graphics cards still default to OverDrive, even if you install the latest Radeon Crimson software.)
But while OverDrive offered control over clock speeds, the PowerTune limit, target temperatures, and fan speeds, it used a rather limited slider-based interface. Additionally, OverDrive’s controls weren’t very granular and lacked important features like core and memory voltage control, individual clock state control, and real-time graphing of all of these performance variables. These issues forced most overclockers to turn to robust third-party software like MSI’s Afterburner and EVGA’s Precision X instead.
I'm struggling to find any software to overclock my CPU. All I find is just graphics card overclocking software. I already tried AMD Overdrive and it didn't. Best overclocking software: 15 top apps. Releases a software overclocking app you know overclocking has gone mainstream. The official AMD overclocking tool, AMD OverDrive, is an. Manually overclocking in the BIOS is the best means as long as you understand what you are doing. You should learn this method as it's more reliable than software overclocking such as with AOD or mobo maker software. Being new to OC'ing I recommend that you record all of the BIOS settings before you change any settings. Hey guys, I today's video I talk about how to overclock a GPU. You may want to do this to boost the performance of your graphics card and get it's full potential. When you buy a graphics card it.
RivaTuner is a really old overclocking software, but it does wonders when it comes to overclocking. It has a really simple interface without any bells and whistles, and the client itself is quite light on the resources. It is capable of overclocking most of Nvidia, AMD and ATI GPUs.
But AMD’s Radeon WattMan remedies all of these shortcomings. Here’s how to use it.
Getting around WattMan
Working with WattMan is dead simple. Open up AMD’s Radeon Settings app and click the Gaming tab, then Global Settings, and finally the Global WattMan tab. You’ll be greeted by the interface shown below.
WattMan’s most striking feature revolves around its real-time graphing, dubbed “Histogram,” which maps out your RX 480’s activity level, current core clock speed, memory frequency, temperature, and fan speed. In other words, every crucial measurement you need to monitor while overclocking your graphics card.
Best of all, if you see something weird on the graph—like a big clock speed drop—hovering your mouse over the issue will bring up the stats for that specific point in time. If you’re trying to troubleshoot a cooling or performance problem, WattMan’s graphing feature is a godsend.
A thoughtful twist on this performance-tracking feature is the ability to use it globally or with only specific applications. AMD’s per-app Profile settings allow you to use WattMan to profile performance while a specific game is running for up to 20 minutes at a time. Select the game you want to profile, enable the Histogram option for it, and WattMan will begin recording when you launch the game.
This application-specific profiling ties in nicely with the rest of WattMan’s overclocking capabilities, which can also be applied on a per-game basis. With the Profile WattMan tools located inside each game’s specific settings in Radeon Crimson, you can overclock your RX 480 in the games that need more horsepower and bump the target temperature down in less strenuous titles.
Playing with power
WattMan’s powerful granularity is the application’s biggest strength, and that strength is most apparent in its clock speed and voltage controls.
Like the power management technology found on modern CPUs, AMD’s PowerTune management engine switches between seven performance states, which are defined by unique clock speeds and voltages. Using the WattMan tool you can configure each of these seven states to your own personal preference.
For most people, that means overclocking the top clock state into the highest possible stable speed, up from the RX 480’s normal 1,266Mhz boost state. But before you do that, you’ll want to increase the card’s power limit as much as possible.
The power limit slider dictates the amount of power that your graphics card will allow itself to draw. If you increase it, you can reduce power consumption-related throttling—which can lead to higher stable overclocks—and if you decrease it you can reduce overall power consumption. During our testing, we found that the RX 480 performed slightly better if you set the PowerTune limit to +10 percent.
Theoretically the RX 480’s PowerTune limit can be raised all the way up to +50 percent (or lowered to -50 percent). But AMD engineers say that +20 to +25 percent will probably more achievable for most cards. Ah, the silicon lottery.
With that done, overclocking a graphics card involves firing up a looping benchmark like Unigine Heaven and then increasing the core clock speed of your graphic card until the benchmark crashes. Then you reduce clocks speed a bit and run it for a few hours to verify stability, continuing to reduce clock speeds if necessary. (Adjust the card’s power limit using the same technique.) We were able to push our RX 480’s clock speeds up to 1,330MHz, or about a 5 percent increase, before we ran into stability issues.
When it comes to the per-state voltage controls, it’s best to focus your efforts on the highest three clock states, where the RX 480 spends most of its time during intense gaming sessions. State 7 is the boost state of the RX 480, where the clock speed in WattMan is set to 1,265 and the voltage is set to 1,131. The maximum voltage that WattMan can set for any given state is 1,150. If you want to overclock the RX 480, setting State 7’s voltage to 1,150 will improve stability while you raise clock speeds.
Chill out
So now you know how to overclock the Radeon RX 480, and what to expect when using the tools. But WattMan tinkering with the goal of improving power efficiency shouldn’t be overlooked, especially given the unorthodox power consumption of RX 480 reference cards.
Merely setting the PowerTune limit to -20 percent transforms the RX 480 into a significantly more efficient graphics card, with only a tiny hit to performance, as I detailed in an examination of the RX 480’s power usage at SemiAccurate.
If you want to go further, “under-volting” is performed using a very similar process to overclocking, but instead of playing with clock speeds to increase performance, you decrease the voltages required to maintain stability at stock clock speeds. AMD’s WattMan makes this easy. But before we dig in, make sure that you have the Voltage Control toggle for both the GPU and the Memory in the Manual control position. If these aren’t both in Manual mode, your voltage adjustments won’t have any effect, in a bizarre WattMan quirk.
The process for under-volting once again involves opening up a looping benchmark and letting it run while you incrementally reduce voltages. Eventually you’ll lower voltages too far and the benchmark will crash. Increase your RX 480’s voltages slightly from that point and then run the benchmark a few hours to verify stability. In our testing we were able to lower voltages for the top 3 states down to 1050 millivolts (mV) while maintaining stock clock speeds, which is an 81 mV savings over the default settings.
Radeon Crimson’s Frame Rate Target Control (FRTC) feature can also help you to save even more power by capping the maximum framerate of you GPU, so your graphics card won’t pump out more frames than your monitor can display. Why let your GPU render frames you’ll never see? Take the power savings instead.
Memory boost
With a power-sipping under-volt or perhaps even a bit of an overclock applied, we can now turn to tuning the RX 480’s card’s memory. Cranking up memory clocks can help increase performance.
AMD’s WattMan again provides granular control over the RX 480’s onboard RAM, with the ability to over-volt the RX 480’s GDDR5 by up to 150 mVs and raise clock speeds from 2,000MHz up to 2,250MHz. We were able to hit a stable memory overclock of 2,200MHz, or a 10 percent overclock, after manually raising the voltage to 1,150 mV.
Fine-tuning
Finally, AMD’s WattMan lets you define the RX 480’s most noticeable characteristics. You can manually set minimum and maximum fan speeds, a minimum acoustic limit, and maximum and target temperatures.
AMD’s stock settings for all of these are actually pretty good, but you can tweak them to your heart’s content. If you’re overclocking, you’ll probably want to increase the RX 480’s target temperature by three to five degrees to reduce potential thermal throttling while the card cranks away at higher clocks.
Likewise, you’ll want raise the target fan speed from the default 2,200 revolutions per minute (RPM) maximum to ensure your RX 480 stays cool under the increased heat. But don’t take this too far, because the RX 480’s blower-style cooler sounds like a ferocious hair dryer when it’s spinning at 100 percent fan speed. Our recommendation: Set the target fan speed to 4,000rpm—it’ll be loud—and work down to an acceptable-to-you noise level from there. We found 3,000rpm to provide the best blend of acoustics and cooling.
Bottom line
AMD’s WattMan is a major step forward for Radeon overclocking, and a stellar in-driver tool for gamers looking to get the most out of their new RX 480 graphic cards. If you’ve picked up AMD’s new mainstream champion and haven’t played around with WattMan yet, the only thing I have to say to you is, “U Watt Man?”
Because I just had to make a joke about that horrendous name.
Time is cruel to your hardware, especially expensive graphics cards. All glory is fleeting: after a while, even mighty leaders like Nvidia's once unstoppable GTX Titan move from first place to shabby and outdated, making way for the best graphics cards of the next generation. The upgrade cycle is relentless, but there are alternatives to busting your budget on a new GPU every single generation. You can make your current graphics card faster, and potentially get dramatically better performance out of it, by overclocking.
While overclocking CPUs is common in the gaming community, GPUs get far less attention than they deserve. Pushing a CPU to 5GHz yields mostly benchmark bragging rights when it comes to gaming, but a good graphics card overclock delivers more frames per second and does so with less hardware hassle. While these techniques can be used with most current graphics cards, Nvidia's GTX 1080 Ti FE was used here to see if a hotrod boost can put yesterday's best back at the front of the pack. Here's our step-by-step guide to overclocking your graphics card.
Clean before you overclock
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If you're looking to overclock a card you've already installed, then it's probably time to crack the case and clean up in there. Make sure cables are routed clear of fans and don't obstruct case airflow. If the card itself has gotten dusty, carefully blow it clean with a can of compressed air. If you opt to remove the card for a full clean-up and overhaul, don't forget to release the locking tab at the forward edge of the slot that secures the card to the motherboard.
While the case is open, it's also wise to check and make sure the current power supply is up to the task ahead. Overclocked hardware pulls power beyond normal design specifications and if you're just squeaking by with 100 watts to spare, you'll need to upgrade to handle the additional load or risk hard-to-pinpoint stability problems.
But recent hardware generations have largely grown more power efficient, so anything but the bare minimum PSU is likely to give you plenty of headroom for an overclock. In the unlikely event you do need a new, higher-rated PSU, take comfort in the fact that you'd be doing this for almost any serious upgrade or CPU overclock.
After clean-up is done, update the graphics drivers to make sure all the latest bug fixes and stability enhancements are in place. Occasionally, motherboard firmware updates that further improve stability or performance are also available. Consider installing these as well, to give your system a fresh foundation for your overclocking adventures.
The software you'll need
Good news: overclocking your graphics card is actually really easy, and you don't even need to leave Windows to do it! While the motherboard BIOS is where most CPU overclocking takes place, graphics cards are tweaked via desktop software. Manufacturer-specific overclocking software exists, but most veteran PC enthusiasts stick to a few trusted packages that have been around for a while and work on most graphics cards no matter who makes them.
MSI's venerable Afterburner is the best place to start when it comes to overclocking your graphics card. In addition to a long history of stable releases, Afterburner is simple to use and provides a few extras including a built-in temperature graph along with voltage and real time clock speed monitoring tools.EVGA's Precision is another excellent graphics card overclocking suite, if MSI's Afterburner leaves you cold.
Here's what we recommend you download for this process:
- MSI Afterburner for overclocking (Free)
- Unigine Heaven for benchmarking (Free)
- 3DMark if you want a very thorough benchmark ($30)
- Games with built-in benchmarks (Price varies)
Benchmark for a reference point
Now it's time to test the hardware and see how well your card currently performs. Find a few reliable, easy to use gaming benchmarks to run before, during, and after overclocking, both for stability testing and performance measurement purposes. One synthetic and one or two real-world benchmarks should be plenty. Try to pick real-world benchmarks that use engines relevant to the games you like to play. Our performance analysis articles on recent games can provide additional insight into what performance you should expect.
We used the indispensable Unigine Heaven along with 3DMark's well known Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks to cover synthetic testing along with a host of real-world gaming counterparts. Games with built-in benchmarks are the easiest for this purpose, such as Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey, Dirt Rally, GTA5, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Hitman. Don't forget to record the results with screenshots, or write them down the old fashioned way.
Overclocking Nvidia graphics cards
Nvidia's aggressive optimizations with the Pascal architecture onward resulted in a new form of auto-overclock turbo boost tech that uses a lot the of headroom previously exploited by casual overclocking right out of the box. The bad news is that they also placed a hard cap on voltages, clock speeds, and other specifications key to performance enthusiasts, so the potential for quick, easy manual overclocks is more limited than it used to be.
Practically speaking, this means you can expect around a 10-15 percent boost from an overclock. The good news is all these safeguards make the process painless and reasonably safe. Although your mileage may vary, it's unlikely you'll brick your graphics card under these circumstances. Nevertheless, overclocking always includes risks, so keep that in mind before deciding to go forward.
With your card cleaned up and ready for overclocking, you can typically max out the voltage and power limits on most graphics cards. That might mean 25 percent more power on some GPUs, or only 5-10 percent more power on others. Nvidia GPUs normally do best if you max out the voltage as well (typically 100 to 120 in MSI Afterburner), but keep an eye on temperatures and clockspeeds when testing.
We recommend modifying your fan speed as well. By default most graphics cards are tuned to run reasonably quiet, but that can lead to uncomfortably high temperatures when overclocking. Depending on your card, you may be okay with maxing out fan speed, or you might want to aim for 40-50 percent fan speed on some blower cards (AMD's Vega 64 reference design can get very loud, for example, even at 50 percent). For the initial overclocking, you can also set a static fan speed with a noise level you find acceptable, like 80 percent. That should keep your GPU as frosty as practically possible, and you can tune the fan speeds later.
Overclocking GPU memory
Unlike CPUs where the core speed is king, many modern GPUs are starved for memory bandwidth. (Note that this isn't necessarily the case with Nvidia's latest GeForce RTX cards, particularly the 2070, but even with an RTX card this method still works well.) Starting by overclocking your graphics card's memory is usually pretty straightforward.
Run a looping benchmark in the background—Unigine's Heaven in windowed mode is perfect for this—and boost memory speeds gradually using Afterburner's DDR controls until small artifacts such as stray pixels or other glitches begin appearing. We recommend going up in 25MHz increments, as memory tends to fail gracefully and you'll usually get plenty of warning signs before crashes or lock-ups happen. Don't forget to hit 'Apply' after each speed change.
After finding the peak memory speed, adjust the memory clock down slightly (usually 25-50MHz) until no anomalies occur, then reboot and let the benchmark loop for around 5-10 minutes using these settings. Due to the variable nature of clocks on the newer Nvidia architectures, it can take a while or a mixed workload for instabilities to appear. If no further problems pop up, record the setting, and then ease back from the edge slightly (another 25-50MHz) to provide a margin of stability. Keep in mind that your stable point may go down further when combined with the core overclock we're going to do next.
If you want to be extra thorough, now is a good time to benchmark the card. Check performance in the same tests you used before and record the new results.
Overclocking GPU core speed
Now it's time to overclock the GPU core. Using stock memory clock settings (we'll reapply the changes you made in the last step at the end), start gradually increasing the core clock in small, 5-10MHz increments, with a looping benchmark in the background to monitor progress. Keep a lookout for stuttering, screen flashing, or other problems, as core instability is far less forgiving than glitchy memory. If you do experience a crash, your maximum safe overclock will be at a lower setting.
Don't worry if your system locks up, a driver error occurs, or some other issue rears its head. Just reboot, use a slower clock speed, and soldier on until you find the card's maximum stable core frequency. Test with a 10-minute benchmark cycle and record this overclock value. As with memory, dial it back just slightly and leave a 10-25MHz safety margin.
As an alternative, EVGA's latest Precision X1 utility supports a 'scanner' mode that will attempt to find a stable overclock, using a non-graphics workload so that it can gracefully crash and recover. It tends to err on the side of caution, which isn't a bad idea. It takes about 20 minutes to run and eliminates a lot of the guesswork, though we still typically get better results with manually overclocking.
This is another good time to consider a few quick benchmarks. This will tell you how much performance improves with higher GPU core clocks.
Putting it all together
Now that we're armed with both the maximum values for the memory and core speeds, we can combine them and see how far we get. Since Nvidia's design is essentially power limited in its current state, don't be surprised if you see instability with all the clocks turned up to the maximum values found earlier. If there isn't enough power to go around, you'll need to balance the memory and core clocks for the best performance mix.
This is where the two sets of performance results gathered at the end of each of the above sections become useful. Some GPUs are limited primarily by memory bandwidth, others just want more core clockspeed. If you saw bigger gains from the GPU core than memory overclocking, prioritize the core speed first and step back on your memory overclock. If you saw the reverse, step back the core overclock while keeping the memory speed as high as possible.
Spontaneous reboots or hard locks usually mean both clocks need a trim. Try experimenting with different power limits, sometime less can stabilize an iffy overclock. Once the mix is reasonably stable, run more benchmarks (or just play some games) for a while with the settings and resolution turned up as a stress test. Steer clear of 'power virus' style benchmarks (eg, Furmark, OCCT) that present unreasonably harsh workloads. While these certainly stress a GPU, their workloads do not reliably reveal instability and cause undue thermal strain in return.
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What to expect from your overclock
While every card will yield different results, the broad consensus of 10-15 percent performance increases generally held true for the GTX 1080 Ti FE tested here. However, like most averaged results, that's not the entire picture. Depending on your favorite games and preferred resolutions, the difference can be dramatic, with games like Doom, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War, and Hitman all seeing 10-20 percent increases at 4K resolution.
Overclocking your graphics card can be a good way to improve performance, especially if you're running a card that didn't come with a factory overclock. Take the current old vs. new Nvidia GPU comparison. Before overclocking, the GTX 1080 Ti is typically 5-10 percent slower than the shiny new RTX 2080, but when the1080 Ti's clocks are boosted, the shoe is on the other foot, with the old timer either pulling even or even taking the lead. Of course, you can always overclock the RTX 2080 as well.
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One final caution is that just because an overclock appears to be stable during your initial testing and overclocking does not mean it will never cause problems. Hell, we've even seen factory overclocked cards have problems at their default settings, requiring a boost in fan speeds or even a drop of GPU clocks. It's a good idea to monitor your graphics card temperatures over the coming months.
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MSI Afterburner has a nice feature where it will show the maximum clockspeed, temperature, etc. in its real-time graph. If you see temperatures routinely breaking 80C, it's probably a good idea to back off a bit, or increase the fan speed, with 75C max being a safer long-term target.