GTX 980 - no speed improvements when overclocked?

[A.Mitov]

I have a strange problem with a new graphics card that I just bought - Gigabte GTX 980 N980WF3OC-4GD. If I overclock the GPU, I see no improvements in rendering speed with Vray RT and Octane Benchmark. Why is that? My old card - GTX 460 renders faster when I overclock it but not the GTX 980. Is my GTX 980 defective? Can anyone test on Vray RT and Octane Bench and confirm?

[numerobis]

did you check if the card is throttling?

[A.Mitov]

I don't think it is but how do I check this so I'm sure? I watch the GPU clock in real time with GPU-Z during load and I didn't notice the clock speed and core voltage going down. What should I watch to see if it's throttling?

[numerobis]

GPU-Z should be ok.

[Dimitris Tolios]

You card might be throttling (lowering its clock to protect itself) because you went too far with your O/C, or there could be a chance that you did not apply the O/C settings to begin with.

[A.Mitov]

I don't apply aggressive OC so it shouldn't be throttling. Not to mention that I'm far from reaching critical temperatures so it shouldn't be doing that. I also do the overclock as soon as Windows boots so OC is certainly applied before testing. I can also see this in the graphs of MSI Afterburner. I don't see the GPU clock speed and GPU load going down while running the benchmarks.

 

I've also got access to another computer that has exactly the same model card from Gigabyte and the results are the same - overclocking didn't improve Octane's or Vray RTs speed but it did improve score in Arion Benchmark and LuxMark.

 

Another strange thing is that my old GTX 460 that I replaced with Gigabyte's GTX 980 shows about 20% higher score in Octane bench and Vray RT if I overclock it. So there certainly is something strange happening here with GTX 980 but I can't say what until someone else tests with a GTX 980.

Edited April 28, 2015 by A.Mitov

[ziozioism]

I don't apply aggressive OC so it shouldn't be throttling. Not to mention that I'm far from reaching critical temperatures so it shouldn't be doing that. I also do the overclock as soon as Windows boots so OC is certainly applied before testing. I can also see this in the graphs of MSI Afterburner. I don't see the GPU clock speed and GPU load going down while running the benchmarks.

 

I've also got access to another computer that has exactly the same model card from Gigabyte and the results are the same - overclocking didn't improve Octane's or Vray RTs speed but it did improve score in Arion Benchmark and LuxMark.

 

Another strange thing is that my old GTX 460 that I replaced with Gigabyte's GTX 980 shows about 20% higher score in Octane bench and Vray RT if I overclock it. So there certainly is something strange happening here with GTX 980 but I can't say what until someone else tests with a GTX 980.

 

this is interesting.

Im using a gtx480 card, and planning about upgrade to 780ti/970/980 for vray RT and viewport. This cmt makes me more confused.