Trying to Overclock my GPU

It could simply be the voltage not being enough for your overclock or the GS800 is not able to provide enough clean juice. When you're overclocking, components become very sensitive to DC output noise from the power supply. If a power supply is already being pushed 80%+ of it's capacity, it can start to show ripples.

I also wanted to say, I'll be honest with you, it's not really worth overclocking the graphic cards. You're going to increase the heat output and only get a small gain in FPS.

Plus, you run the risk of the cards going bad really quickly too.

apparently i just cant leave well enough alone

i just picked up a seasonic x1250 to replace the GS800. installation was a breeze, and a fully modular PSU is great for cable management.

havent had too much time to spend working on the overclock, but so far i have gotten up to 850mhz core @ 1.1v. hopefully this weekend i can fiddle with it some more to work the clock up/voltage down.

temps after 25 minutes in BF3 on maxed settings was 55C, which i think is pretty darn good for the ~10 increase in FPS i got.

the problem i was having, was that the overclock was drawing more wattage than my PSU could supply. w/ the overclock on my CPU, lets say it draws ~150W at load. at factory clocks, my GPUs (gtx 570 HD SLI) were drawing ~300W each. so i am already pushing ~750W with just those 3 components, which is living on the edge with a 800W PSU.

when i overclocked the GPUs, their power draw increased to ~375W. which meant a total of 750W just from the GPU. when testing using the EVGA Precision stress tool, your CPU isnt under too much of a load. so i was able to get seemingly stable clocks in that test. but when i went to play BF3, where the CPU *is* at load, my PSU just couldnt pump out enough juice to keep everything running, and my GPUs would conk out.

now that i upped my PSU to a 1250W, ive got tons of power to spare.


im not sure exactly what your issue is, im not familiar with the 680 cards. it doesnt sound like the clock is stable tho, maybe try giving it more voltage, or lowering the overclock a bit to see if you can find a more stable overclock.

i think idle is around 500 watts, i didnt pay too close attention to it. the load power consumption was what i was most worried about, since then was where i was running into problems.