MSI GTX 960 Million Edition

[GabrielT]

Re-Re-Re-Re... Edit

I have finally gotten my 960 to a point that I would call honestly and truly stable. Here are the final results.

 

Highest Benchmark Stable OC

• Core 1608 142% overclock compared to reference 960
• Mem 4039 115.5% overclock compared to reference 960
•  Settings: +62mV / 108% P. Target / Core Clock +229 / Mem Clock +533 / Fan 75%

 

Everyday Stable OC

• Core      1586
• Memory 4010
• Settings: 50mV / 108% P. Target / Core Clock +211 / Mem Clock +501 / Fan Auto

 

I couldn't have asked for a better overclocker.The fact that both the core and the memory are pretty far out of the norm is pretty cool to me. It must have been a good day in the MSI factory when this card was built.

 

I can go as high as 1620 on everything but Unigine Valley, the GPU just wont hold together.

 

 

Edited March 20, 2015 by GabrielT

[WarWeeny]

I really like how forgiving these Nvidia cards are when you push them too hard, a little black screen and they are back for more!

 

That aint healthy though, lol

[El_Capitan]

Wow, that's a pretty crazy overclock! Increasing just the voltage really won't help the overclock, you really need to increase the TDP to what it can handle, and let the boost do it's magic for ya. So if you can get the TDP to 125% or even 150%, you might be able to get up to another 50MHz+ overclock on that core. Voltage can help the TDP increase, but not always. The only way to do it right now is to mod your BIOS, then flash it with the modded BIOS. It's pretty easy, but not for the faint of heart. You'll also want to measure your voltage on the card and not rely on software readings, just to be safe.

[bp9801]

We need pics of this!

[GabrielT]

That aint healthy though, lol

It's all or nothing with this card man. It resets with the OC removed.

 

 

 

Wow, that's a pretty crazy overclock! Increasing just the voltage really won't help the overclock, you really need to increase the TDP to what it can handle, and let the boost do it's magic for ya. So if you can get the TDP to 125% or even 150%, you might be able to get up to another 50MHz+ overclock on that core. Voltage can help the TDP increase, but not always. The only way to do it right now is to mod your BIOS, then flash it with the modded BIOS. It's pretty easy, but not for the faint of heart. You'll also want to measure your voltage on the card and not rely on software readings, just to be safe.

At that point I would almost rather do the hard mod by soldering the power regulating resistors so they don't see any load/less load.

 

I feel more confident in my physical modding abilities than my bios modding ones.

Edited March 13, 2015 by GabrielTessin

[GabrielT]

After burner and Precision X aren't playing together nice anymore. Going to uninstall and use just afterburner this time.

 

1630 core and 8650ram were stable enough to make it through Unigine Valley before everything decided to get weird.

[IVIYTH0S]

Yeah just stick with Afterburner, you make me want to challenge your final OCs to whatever we can vs my "280X"

[GabrielT]

Yeah just stick with Afterburner, you make me want to challenge your final OCs to whatever we can vs my "280X"

I "Borrowed" my wife's monitor so 1080p is an option. Any more resolution and your advantage just gets bigger.

Can we go with game/gamelike benchmarks? Furmark is the only thing I have found that throws up artifacts, so I am ignoring it for the sake of my overclock LOL.

 

Lets also keep in mind your system is one generation newer, and has more ram, and is overclocked higher and the sun was in my eyes and I wasn't ready. Excuses excuses etc

 

I an not expecting to win but hey what the hell right? I beat out Ccokeman's R9 285 and the OC'd 960's http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/nvidia_msi_evga__gtx960/11.htm with a lesser system in Unigine Heaven.

Not my highest core clock on this run but the results were a tenth of a frame better than at 1620.

Settings

1920x1080p

AAx8

Tessellation: Extreme

Quality: Ultra

Average FPS 38.1

 

Clocks:

Core:1604MHz

Ram: 3974MHz (7948 effective)

 

[GabrielT]

Pretty much the same settings as Unigine Heaven, I lowered the voltage to try keep it from throttling as bad. It doesn't look like it.

Looks like 1604/7948 are my top clocks. I might have another 25Mhz in the ram left. Still, one heck of an overclocker.

 

Funnily enough this score puts me in 7th for GTX 960s. Everyone who has higher scores are using 5960k and 4XXXk chips 7th out of 10 but still lol.

[ccokeman]

I get 7381 using my test rig running a 4770k at 4.5 and clocks of 1518Mha core and 1937Mhz on the memory.

[GabrielT]

I get 7381 using my test rig running a 4770k at 4.5 and clocks of 1518Mha core and 1937Mhz on the memory.

Yeah, I noticed that on your review. The CPU portion of that kills my score with my i5 750 @ 4.1 just can't hang with the newer procs. I will try it at a lower speed to see if anything changes though.

I beat you at Unigine Heaven by half a frame per second though

 

I might be having issues I'm not seeing though, I have kept an eye out for artifacts but maybe I'm missing something. I haven't noticed my core throttling its speed back.

Edited March 14, 2015 by GabrielTessin

[ccokeman]

 

I get 7381 using my test rig running a 4770k at 4.5 and clocks of 1518Mha core and 1937Mhz on the memory.

Yeah, I noticed that on your review. The CPU portion of that kills my score with my i5 750 @ 4.1 just can't hang with the newer procs. I will try it at a lower speed to see if anything changes though.

 

I beat you at Unigine Heaven by half a frame per second though

 

Clock speed is king!