Overclocking the gtx 970 strix

So after half a century of waiting, i finally ordered the card from ebay and it should arrive next week. I want to overclock it as much as possible, what are the safe core voltages and aprox how much core clock can i achieve? From what i've seen on other forums, 1.2v core is safe and i shouldn't go past 1.25v. Also, what about the memory? Should i overclock that as well? Never really touched it on my current gpu.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_970_strix_review,26.html

and https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_970_STRIX_OC/28.html

techpowerup OCed it a bit better than gurud3d

Wouldn't recommend touching volts at all.

Don't touch the voltage before you have some experience with OC and read up on potential dangers of doing so. I think the general advice is to not touch the voltage if you plan to keep the GPU for 2-3 years or more/sell it later on.

@horgen: meh i have the current 580 over volted/overclocked since 2011 and it works perfectly fine. I have the Silverstone RV02B-E case so the airflow is pretty good. I do want to over volt the 970 but stay in safe voltage ranges.

The card is voltage locked to 1.212 volts, doesn't matter if you flash a bios mod. It's hardware limited, so just flash a bios with maxed volts(1.212) and see what frequencies you can get.

1.212 is what the card reports, but the actual voltage max measured is 1.2volts.

The asus 970s in general aren't that great for overclocking.

getting it to 1.2v is what i want to do but how is it that the 970's bad for overclocking? All i kept hearing since their release is that they're great for oc because of low temps, especially the AMP version, G1, twin frozr 5 and the strix being the worst of the 4.

I meant that the asus 970s aren't that great for overclocking due to their limited voltage range.

That sucks, i didn't know. But isn't 1.2v the maximum safe voltage? If the Strix can achieve the 1.2v, i wouldn't exactly need/want to go higher.

That depends if you want to go past the maximum recommended voltage. You can expect about a max overclock of 1500mhz on the core at ~1.212 volts.

I don't have the strix, but I have the asus blower 970 which is also locked to the same voltage. I just put a bios on it that maxed the volts to 1.212 in game, and raised the power limit by a lot. If the strix's power limit is not an issue for you, then you don't need to flash a custom bios. You can just raise the voltage in the asus overclocking app.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1557982/turbo-gtx970-oc-4gd5-overclocking/0_100#post_23969642 is what I did, but I actually did raise the voltage in the bios later.

@JigglyWiggly_: if i'm able to reach 1500mhz, that would be perfect and i wouldn't even need to go further.

I can reach 1540mhz on both of my 970s.

One of them can even go beyond that.

G1? which version do you have?

Yup good ol' G1.

well if you got gigabtye, msi or zotac, you should have no problem getting to 1500 and beyond.
other cards I haven't heard much about, when it comes to reaching 1500mhz.

I thought I got a bad card when i noticed I cant even get +100 on it. jayztwocents probably takes the cake, he has a supersuperclocked one and can't even get +50 on the core.

I wanted to get the G1 but it doesn't fit my huge case unless i remove the middle fan at the bottom. Would've never imagined a gpu wouldn't fit in an rv02b-e....

Those gigabyte cards are huge, though in terms of the length I think the amd sapphire tri-x takes the cake, I believe those cards are over 12 inches.
You should be able to get a good OC from that strix, although you won't need it. :P I only toyed around with my card to see what she could do. Handles anything I throw at her even at 1440.
Now what I am able to get from my card, it makes a notable difference. But if I really wanted more, at least for what my monitor can do (120hz) I think getting a second card would help me more.
You at 1080 still?

@kitty: yes, still at 1080p. this card will be my main gpu for the next 2-3 years so i want as much juice from as possible, reason why i'll be overclocking it for sure.

I have this card but OC edition and just use GPU tweak for Game Mode or OC mode. If I ever did OC with GPU tweak then would the card reset to default and would be classed OC edition?.

Received my gpu today and haven't started overclocking yet but during the Valley benchmark (all set to max with x8 AA) temps got to 76*C with fans set to auto which reached 57%. Are these temps normal? The guy i bought it from, used the gpu for approximately 3 months. Should i reapply new thermal paste or it isn't worth it?

Those temps are fine.

I have some Arctic MX-4, should i apply that or the paste that comes from the factory is decent enough?

Those temps are fine. It's normal and I don't think it will change it much.
My card always peaks at 75c no matter if OC'ed or not. I think it has to do with the fan settings and since the fans don't spin until 65c, 75-76c is okay.

Looks like the voltage is locked, i can't even get past base voltage under load which is 1.2v. Even with +37mV in afterburner (max it allows on my gpu) the voltage doesn't increase in gpuz or the afterburner monitoring tool. I've set the power limit to 120% and it works perfectly stable at 1428 core, didn't try any higher yet, though.

Yeah most are locked. But good thing is that some cards have higher. Like mine for example, I can't go passed 1.212. If I could, I could probably get a better OC.
Just play around with it and keep increasing it slowly until you hit a wall. Maybe you could join the ranks in the benchmark topic :P