GPU is the heart and soul of gaming computers – the greatest determinant of graphical integrity and performance you see on screen.
You can overclock your graphics card and move it beyond its out-of-the-box specs. Overclocking your video card is equivalent to overclocking your CPU, albeit a little more straightforward: you’ll slowly bump into your graphics.
Card’s core frequency, each time you push it a little further. Test it for stability with a benchmarking tool.
If you have one of Nvidia’s new RTX cards, the software we suggest in this guide may include the new “Nvidia Scanner” auto-cloaking feature that ignores most of this process. can do.
We’ve used it before, and it’s decent enough for a one-click issue, although if you’re willing to spend a little more time, manual overclocking will give you more speed.
For this guide, I overclocked the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and AMD Radeon RX 580. Here’s how to do it.
What You Need to Overclock A GPU
Almost any graphics card can be overclocked, although you’ll have better luck with a cool card in a spacious case.
If your card has an all-over heat sink or is tight inside a small Mini-ITX blade, you’ll have less headroom, and overclocking won’t be worth your time.
- Overclocking tool
- A benchmarking tool
- GPU-Z
An overclocking tool
There are multiple overclocking tools, most of which come from different video card makers. We’ll use MSI After Burner (opens in a new window) for this guide, but if you don’t like the After Burner interface, you can use EVGA Precision (opens in a new window), Asus GP.
Tweak (which opens in a new window) or AMD WattMan are two options (Opens in a new window).
Except for WattMan, everything will work on any card, regardless of the manufacturer. The settings we’ll be using should be consistent across all programs.
A benchmarking tool
To emphasize checking your card, you must run a benchmarking tool that takes it to the absolute maximum.
I prefer to use Unigine Superposition (opens in a new window) and Unigine Heaven (opens in a new window) since it allows it to continue endlessly. Long stress test without payment.
GPU-Z
Although not strictly required, I would like to use the GPU-Z (opens in a new window) to ensure that my watch and voltage have changed as I check the tension.
How do you overclock a GPU?
- Benchmark Your Stock Settings
- Increase Your Core Clock and Re-Benchmark
- Increase Your Voltage and Memory Clock
- Final Stress Test and Play Some Games
Benchmark Your Stock Settings
Before you begin, test your system to ensure that it is stable out of the box clockwise. It will indicate how much performance you have accomplished, which is a nice bonus.
Fire Superposition and select an option from the Preset menu. Try picking something around or above the settings where you play most games.
You want Superposition to maximize the performance of your graphics hardware. Be sure to disable Vsync, as you do not wish your frame rate to be off on your monitors refresh rate.
Increase Your Core Clock and Re-Benchmark
Ready to move on? Open MSI After Burner (or the overclocking tool of your choice), and push the power limit slider upwards.
Set the temperature range of the slider to whatever you want (as long as it’s generally okay, although you’re especially careful, you can move it down a bit).
Then, increase your core clock to about 10MHz. And make sure there are no patterns (weird lines, boxes, or static glitter on the screen) as the benchmark moves.
Once this is done, write down your frame rates and increase the cover to 10MHz again. Repeat this process, boosting and benchmarking, until you have problems.
If you wish, stop here: go back to your last steady clock speed and go down to step 4. But if you want to push it a little further, there are other things you can do.
Increase Your Voltage and Memory Clock (Optional)
If your temperature is still within safe limits, you can move your card further by increasing the voltage. It can allow more stable clock speeds, depending on the card.
To do this, open the After Burner settings, and under the General tab, check the Unlock Voltage Control and Unlock Voltage Monitoring boxes.
Set the voltage control dropdown to a third party, and click OK. A new slider should appear in the main window of the afterburner: Voltage.
If this slider measures the voltage in MV, you can increase the voltage supplied to the card. If, like many new Nvidia cards, it shows a value of one percent; I suggest leaving it alone, as it will not increase the amount of voltage you can access.
Run a Final Stress Test and Play Some Games
You’ve got reasonably stable settings; it’s time to check your card for a while. Fire up the sky and dial in your graphics settings; since it’s a bit old, you’ll probably want to set them up as much as possible to ensure it’s maximizing your card. Click the Run button to start the pressure test.
Unlike Superposition, which allows you to run only one benchmark at a time in the free version, Heaven will continue to operate until it crashes or you exit the software.
Allow it to run for a few hours while you check your temperature to verify it is safe. If it hits, you’ll need to dial your watches back a bit to ensure they’re extremely stable.
Final Words
Finally, I got the same performance boost in GTX 1080 Ti and RX 580. On low graphics settings with high frame rates (in the hundreds), I’ve seen an average increase of 7 to 11fps – not bad if you’re using a high refresh rate monitor.
At higher graphics settings and lower frame rates (30-60fps), I get 3 to 5 more frames per second. It doesn’t seem to matter much, but if you’re using a 60Hz monitor with Vsync On, you can reduce your frame rate to less than 60fps because of how Vsync works.
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