Discussing the process of overclocking R7 240 Power Control.
Discussing the process of overclocking R7 240 Power Control.
Hi there
My Radeon R7 240 2Gb uses a maximum of 35 Watt.
I’m just curious about overclocking—it mentions power control, but I’m not sure what it means. If I set the slider to 5%, will it increase consumption to 5 times 35 Watt? Also, with an 230 Watt PSU, how can I figure out the safe limit?
Greetings Ricardo
As long as you avoid touching Power control or card voltage, the card won<|pad|>. This allows you to increase memory and clock speeds without problems. A slight overclock is possible, but I recommend upgrading your PSU before purchasing a new PC.
When using amd catalyst control center for overclocking, there are no significant drawbacks because voltage adjustments aren't possible.
For overclocking purposes:
Boost the clock speeds—start with the core, then memory—by 15mhz and verify stability.
I suggest using unigine valley for stress testing; run it for 10 to 15 minutes if no artifacts or crashes appear, then increase the clocks by 15 and repeat.
Keep an eye on temperatures during this process; gpu-z is a useful tool for monitoring.
If instability is detected, lower the clock by 5mhz each time until you reach a stable speed.
Once a stable clock is identified, run valley again for 30 to 40 minutes to confirm the overclock remains solid.
For memory overclocking, unless your card includes a temperature probe, you won’t need to monitor temperatures as closely.
With this method, the GPU can reach up to 60-70 watts. Given the CPU will consume another 50-70 watts, plus power for fans, your HDD typically draws around 170 watts. I wouldn’t overclock the GPU before upgrading your PSU!
That's unusual since overclocking doesn't necessarily increase power consumption, as per my research. Before this card, I had an Radeon HD 5570 1GB that drew 42 watts at full load. After overclocking it with a core clock increase of 50MHZ and memory up by 150MHZ, it still drew only 42 watts. My PSU was the same, and with the R7 240 it only reached a maximum of 35 watts. With the AMD Radeon Settings 16.4 driver, it seems power usage remains consistent. Overclocking just the core and memory doesn't seem to draw more power from the PSU, right?
Power control is a feature in AMD overdrive software that lets your card draw more power than its built-in TDP. You usually want to set the slider high so the card doesn’t limit itself due to power restrictions. It doesn’t adjust the voltage; it just raises the maximum power the PSU can supply to the GPU. This enables the card to handle higher demands, like more power for intense games, without throttling. This adjustment works separately from voltage changes or overclocking and can improve performance when memory and clock speeds are also increased.
I checked the overclock utility in AMD Radeon Settings. My Standard Core Clock is 600MHZ and Memory is 800MHZ. Using the Radeon Settings I can increase Core Clock up to 1000MHZ and Memory to 1000MHZ. If I set Core Clock to 850MHZ and Memory to 900MHZ, will it overload my PSU? Should I also adjust power control settings? I’m not familiar with power controls for overclocking and don’t want to risk damaging my PSU. Could you help me? I just want the same settings as before—850 MHZ Core Clock and 900 MHZ Memory. My card can handle the latest games with stock settings, but I want to know what I can achieve.