How To Overclock R9 380 in 2023

Nowadays, we’re used to hearing about overclocking your CPU. But what about the GPU? The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is as important as the Central Processing Unit (CPU). It’s not uncommon for a GPU to be 10x slower than a CPU. So why not overclock it too? You might think, what is the point of overclocking a GPU? Won’t I need a faster CPU to do it justice? Well, yes and no. GPUs have been advancing at a staggering rate over recent years.

An R9 360, for example, is normally around 2.5-2.7x faster than an R9 280X (the GPU it’s based on). So overclocking your GPU can be the difference between getting an average of 40 FPS in Fallout Four and getting 60+FPS at 1440P or 4K. Also, you don’t need to overclock the CPU to get it working.

A good example of this is my old PC. I have a Core i5 2400 with stock speeds of 3.1GHz and a turbo boost of 3.4GHz. If you overclocked it, it would only clock up to 4GHz unless I unlocked the multiplier on the motherboard (which can be harder depending on your motherboard). This guide will show how to overclock both GPUs that are based off AMD’s GCN architecture: the R9 380X and R9 380.

Guidelines

Before moving to how to overclock R9 380, there are some guidelines you should follow.First of all, what you need to know are the limits your PC can overclock too. This varies between every computer, but I’ll give some guidelines to help you find out for yourself.

1. First off, download Gpu-z and HW-Monitor.
2. Secondly, run Furmark at around 50% usage while playing a game at the same time (or use MSI Kombustor or Unigine Heaven Benchmark ) for 10 minutes each with stock clocks and again with max overclock settings .
3. Once all 3 benchmarks are finished. Check the average temperature of your CPU and GPU.
4. Anything around 70°C is fine. Then note how high you can clock up your CPU to – 10MHz at a time would be good.
5. Now open HW-Monitor for about 20 seconds or so to get an accurate reading of how hot it is in °C (from the menu bar, hit “options” then “sensors readout,” then select the correct sensor).
6. Lastly, run 3DMark Firestrike Extreme 1x (this takes around 30 minutes) with stock clocks and again with max overclock settings (or do this for any other test if you feel like it). Repeat this process three times to get an average temperature for your CPU.

I’ve got a pretty good PC for overclocking my GPUs – it’s reasonably cool and quiet, so it will reach solid clocks without throttling. However, if you have a hot/loud PC, it might be worth adjusting the graphics settings in an intensive game (e.g., drop AA down to 8x). If this fails to keep your GPU at a stable speed, then overclocking probably isn’t for you.

Steps How To Overclock Your R9 380

Now that you know how high you need to go with overclocking your R9 380, let’s start, Make sure your motherboard is up to date before doing anything else! This means having the latest version of UEFI BIOS, which you can download from the website. Also, create a custom BIOS for your card if you have an XFX Core Edition graphics card. These use a different voltage regulator from other manufacturers and cannot be overclocked by the normal method. Now let’s move to the overclocking process itself.

1. Install Wattman from AMD
2. Open it, turn on overdrive, and set the slider to maximum
3. Start a game and  lower your settings until you have a the frame rate of at least 40 FPS
4. If your games still drop below 40 FPS after overclocking, raise your power limit slightly.
5. If your games are still dropping below 40 FPS, raise your GPU clock speed slightly.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you’re getting an average of 60 FPS with all settings at maximum except shadows which you should have at around 50%.
7. If it doesn’t work, lower your power limit to its default value.
8. If it still doesn’t work, lower your GPU clock speed slightly.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until you have an average of 60 FPS with all settings on maximum except shadows which you should have at around 50%.
10. Finally, check if your games are more graphically intensive than they were before overclocking your GPU.
11. Put the games you play on the highest settings, set your fan to 100% speed and see if it gets loud. If not, raise the GPU clock speed slightly. Repeat this step until the GPU starts getting hot. (You’ll know because your fan will be very loud)
12. If your game gets too laggy while overclocking, turn your computer on for 5 minutes and then turn it off.
13. Repeat steps 1-11 with your CPU frequency set to –50%.
14. If you get artifacts, restart the overclocking process.
15. If you have time, repeat steps 1-11 at least two more times, setting the GPU clock frequency to +10 of the value you set in step 10.
16. Still doesn’t work, contact your motherboard manufacturer for further assistance or me. You might need to change some voltage settings if it’s an old computer. It’s probably best to buy a new one, though. AMD has better performance on new computers anyway (Radeon R9 200 series are better on new computers too).

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve shown you how to overclock R9 380 for the best performance. AMD’s Radeon R9 series cards can perform up to 10x faster than older models with a simple overclocking process. So if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get more out of your graphics card or if you want an edge in competitive games like Overwatch, then overclocking is worth considering. You can find more GPUs like r9 380 here in our article Best GPU for i9 9900k.