Gigabyte 290X WF3 - Best overclocking tool?

[psyclist]

Hey all,

My new 290X is on its way and just trying to get a handle on which overclocking tool works best with the Gigabyte WF3, its a non-ref design and ive heard grumblings of it being voltage locked

I know GB has the OC Guru II, I currently use Afterburner. Im looking for the maximum amount of voltage control really. 1.35v range

Is there a BIOS mod to change the voltage tables if need be? Ive been out of the AMD world for a little while now

Thanks!

 

[ccityinstaller]

Hey all,

My new 290X is on its way and just trying to get a handle on which overclocking tool works best with the Gigabyte WF3, its a non-ref design and ive heard grumblings of it being voltage locked

I know GB has the OC Guru II, I currently use Afterburner. Im looking for the maximum amount of voltage control really. 1.35v range

Is there a BIOS mod to change the voltage tables if need be? Ive been out of the AMD world for a little while now

Thanks!

If it is a nonreference design, then you have one of two options. You can either dump the bios via GPU-Z and learn to edit it, or find someone else that has already done it.

It appears you chose a bad card (if it is indeed Voltage locked) for O/C'ing..If you have a good sample, you *MIGHT* be able to reach 1100Mhz on the core. The problem is that card, going by the BIOS dumps on TechPowerUP, only ships with Eplida ram. I have the same ram on my 290, and it doesn't like to go over 1350 without increasing the Core voltage. The IMC on these cards gets its headroom from core voltage increases, so you are SOL if you have a picky card.

I'd suggest just playing with it, and see what you are able to squeeze out of it. The most important thing with these cards is Core speed, since it has a massive stock memory bandwidth (320GB/sec). Push your core as high as possible, then attempt to see what you can get out of the memory. Don't be disappointed if you are only able to squeeze ~100Mhz out of it at the stock voltage though.

 

[psyclist]

Yeah I guess im gonna have to look into editing the BIOS, OC Guru allows for +100mv but I was just hoping for +200 if possible. The Card has an awsome cooler and overbuilt power delivery, so it has the potential to be a beast!

I have heard that the elipida memory isnt as good as the hynix, but as you say once people bumped the core voltage it helped the memory along as well. Thanks for your advice its confirming a few things ive been reading. I will work on the core first and then the memory, haha, totally the opposite to my 670's which are on the 256bit bus but are running at 7.2Ghz