Overclocking 5870m G73JH

I have 775/1050mhz and sometimes while playing sc2 i get small thingies like artifacts and i saw many guys on this forum had 850/1200mhz! Or its just my videocard not so good at overclocking? I have catalyst 12.1 drivers. And which tool is better to test in for artifacts? I have tested with 3dmark11 and had no artifacts but in sc2 im getting them, maybe i'm doing something wrong? (Im overclocking with AMD Overdrive and have .93 vBios)
PS my temps is ok, on a load - 70C, idle 50-53

 

Each card overclocks differently, you might be able to push the core higher, but not the memory, the other way around or not at all. You'll have to do extensive testing to find out what is the max overclock you can attain and it might be stable in some games and unstable in others. My 5870 locks up if i push the memory at 1100 for example.

 

Your clocks aren't much lower than the highest that I was able to achieve. Don't worry about what clocks other people have because overclocking is case-by-case. The Mobility 5870s in the G73JH aren't generally good for large overclocks and you can't up the voltage either despite the fact that the cooling system is very good. In fact, the 1.15V that it runs at with stock clocks is already extremely high comparatively to other mobile GPUs, which might explain why the battery life on this thing sucks so much with my current vBIOS and why ASUS doesn't want you to increase voltage in the first place.

I just run mine at stock because the performance increase with my highest overclock is negligible and it's very difficult and time-consuming to find an overclock that yields 100% stability because different games and applications respond to overclocking differently. Seeing how there's no room for physical modifications in a laptop GPU I just don't bother with it at all.

 

I can overclock memory to 1085mhz without artifacts and GPU limit at this moment is 740Mhz stable.

Though if i set 775/1100 in Furmark test im not getting any artifacts.. just getting them in SC2 and NFS the Run. It might be my GPU overheating? I need a thermal pads 0.5mm? (I already repasted my GPU with IC7)

 

Furmark is a great stability and heat test but it's not completely indicative of game performance. For example, I can get clocks above 800/1100 to run stable in Furmark but most if not all my games can't run at the same clocks without crashing. Like I've stated different applications react to overclocking differently and it can be very time-consuming and, in my opinion, unproductive to try to find a clock that will both provide a moderate performance increase and run stable 100% of the time for this card.

If 740/1085 is your ceiling then I would say don't even bother with it because the performance gains will be negligible to nonexistant, especially at higher graphical settings in games, unless that extra 1 or 2 FPS or 200 more points in 3DMark really means that much to you. And if your GPU is getting good cooling (sounds like it is) and is not overheating at stock clocks, then I doubt that heat is the limiting factor in your overclocking. Your clock increases are low enough that the increase in heat should be minimal, at most 5 C under load, which shouldn't push you over the edge if your GPU is already being cooled sufficiently to begin with. But don't take my word for it; check your temps in-game with something like GPU-Z to rule out heat issues.

 

Thanks for the answers, the max in game temps - 72C.. so its my videocard is limiting me?

 

Yep, you aren't temperature limited that is for certain.

 

Thermal limit for the Mobility 5870 is 110 C so you're not even close. Whatever is limiting your overclocking it's certainly not your temperatures.

 

hm, maybe its voltage? 1.15V at this moment. But as far as i know - we can't increase it, its too risky right?

 

It's locked at 1.15V and the voltage regulator won't let you go past that unless you do some kind of physical modification but if you want to take a blowtorch and risk frying your laptop go ahead.

 

Ive had notoriously bad luck with any overclocking with any of my computers on SCII. Try out another game and see if the same things occur. If they do then you've likely reached your cards limit.

I'm not sure why SCII is that way, I can play many other games such as Crysis, Battlefield 3 and Witcher 2 with my top OC. But havent really had much luck on SCII, though to be honest its not the GPU that holds that game back, its the CPU. Especially if you do custom games.

 

Whats ur top OC? U're getting artifacts in SC2?

 

My top is in my sig; 870/1150. And yes that among other things like simply crashing to desktop. 800/1100 isn't much better, so I just stopped trying to OC with that game.

 

800/1100 is stable for sc2? Have you did any cooling modifications to the GPU? Driver version?

 

My apologies for the late reply. Yes it is, but the performance with it is actually lower for some reason over stock, no idea why (and again, this only occurs with SCII). Current Driver version is CCC 11.12, and yes I re-pasted my GPU with ICD7, as well as upgraded the thermal pads to .5mm (I believe that was the thickness...lol) diamond laced ones. I also have my own custom vBIOS.