Overclocking
After I finished our standard benchmarking I had to see just how well the GTX 980 Ti overclocked. To do this I broke down the overclocking into the GPU clock and Memory clock and individually overclocked them. Each time I would use 3DMark 11’s 2nd test to put the overclock to the test. Below I documented each attempt including the average FPS. Then once I found peak overclocks for both I run them together and make sure the card can handle it together. So starting with the GPU clock we had a stock speed of 1076 MHz. Given my previous experience with the Titan X I jumped up to 1200MHz right away with a good result. From there I continued to increase the clock 100MHz at a time until it failed (1400MHz). From there I attempted to find the edge. In the end I took the GPU clock from 1076MHz to 1370MHz and went from 101.34 to 117.87 FPS.
On the memory side I started at the stock speed of 7010MHz and jumped up in large increments to try to get near where the Titan X failed but frankly the GTX 980 Ti kept going and going. In the end I didn’t run into a problem until just past 8500MHz. Oddly enough the driver crashed but previous to that I didn’t see any artifacts at all. Next I put the two peak overclocks together and once again the GTX 980 Ti handled it. In the combined testing we saw an average FPS of 118.08. In our Titan X coverage I was impressed with the overclocking potential but the GTX 980 Ti blew it out of the water. Both on the GPU and Memory clocks I was able to reach a higher overclock than the Titan X that shares the same GPU. I can’t wait to see what kind of performance we will see when the overclockers get their hands on them!
GPU Clock Speed Overclocking | |||
GPU Clock Speed | Pass/Fail | FPS Result | Notes |
1076MHz | Pass | 101.34 | Stock Clock |
1200MHz | Pass | 109.48 | |
1300MHz | Pass | 115.37 | |
1400MHz | Fail | N/A | |
1350MHz | Pass | 117.33 | |
1360MHz | Pass | 117.58 | |
1370MHz | Pass | 117.87 | |
1380MHz | Fail | N/A | Driver Crash |
Memory Clock Offset Overclocking | |||
Memory Clock Speed | Pass/Fail | FPS Result | Notes |
7010MHz | Pass | 101.34 | Stock Clock |
7500MHz | Pass | 101.09 | |
7700MHz | Pass | 101.23 | |
7900MHz | Pass | 101.16 | |
8000MHz | Pass | 101.16 | |
8100MHz | Pass | 101.19 | |
8200MHz | Pass | 101.37 | |
8300MHz | Pass | 101.26 | |
8400MHz | Pass | 101.33 | |
8500MHz | Pass | 101.33 | |
8600MHz | Fail | N/A | Driver Crash |
GPU and Memory Overclocks Together | |||
GPU Clock Speed | Memory Clock Speed | FPS Result | Notes |
1370MHz | 8500MHz | 118.08 |