Overclocking PNY GeForce RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 Gaming REVEL EPIC-X RGB Single Fan Edition
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Prior to overclocking, we will determine the base GPU clock speed. Both NVIDIA and AMD have dynamic base speeds, both have a “Boost” speed. (GPU Boost or Boost Clock, depending on the brand.) Generally, either brand’s card will exceed the “Boost” dynamically. To determine the “baseline” we record the GPU frequency in our Cyberpunk 2077 manual run-through. This is a lengthy manual run at Ultra settings. Data is captured for frequency, temperature, voltage, and power using GPU-Z sensor to log the data. As was stated, the PNY RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 comes to you at retail with only the reference or default clock of 1777MHz.
The PNY Geforce RTX 3060 XLR8 Gaming REVEL has a factory boost clock of 1777MHz. This is noted by the green line on the graph. During our run-through, the video card managed to boost above the factory clock to about 1835MHz consistently. This represents a 58MHz benefit or about 5%.
Overclock
To overclock the PNY RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 Gaming REVEL we used the manufacturer-provided software. In this case, Velocity-X. This software allows adjustment of power and temperature limits, core voltage, as well as Core and Memory frequency. Fan adjustment is also available. RGB adjustment is also available. Monitoring is likewise performed. One can watch all the customary parameters on a separate screen. Below is a screen capture of the highest setting in Velocity-X. In our testing, the temperature slider was maximized to 90 degrees. Unfortunately, PNY has decided that the power limit will not be allowed to exceed 100%. GPU voltage was left to the video card BIOS to adjust. Rather than set the fan to 100% continuous, we decided on a custom user-defined fan curve for our testing. Temperatures were never an issue using this curve.
We were able to adjust the Core frequency to +120 and the memory to +1000. These values resulted in an average increase in Boost frequency from 1950 to 1965MHz. This represents a +188MHz increase or about 10% over the factory Boost. Our result here is well behind the results obtained in previous reviews (here, here and here). It seems obvious that the inability to increase the power limit on our PNY GeForce RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 Gaming REVEL is holding it back. Nonetheless, you can see a nice benefit to overclocking in the graph.
GPUZ screen captures indicate the adjustments. Overclocked settings are on the right.