We’re overclocking the NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 GPU up to 2038 MHz in 5 minutes or less using the ASUS GPU Tweak III software.

I’ll speed run you through the OC settings and provide some notes and tips along the way. Please note that this is for entertainment purposes only and most certainly not the whole picture. Please don’t outright copy these settings and apply them to your system. If you want to learn how to overclock this system, please check out the longer SkatterBencher video.

Alright, let’s do this.

5 Minute Speedrun

Open the the ASUS GPU Tweak III software tool. This software tool provides us with access to all the parameters exposed in the NVIDIA API. We specifically want to adjust the parameters that can impact the GPU Boost 3.0 behavior.

Open the settings menu.

Select Enhance overclocking range. This setting extends the GPU Boost Clock and Memory Clock frequency sliders in our software. Our memory overclocks far better than what’s the standard range allows for.

Click Save

Leave the settings menu

Set Power Target to 100%. This ensures the GPU Boost 3.0 algorithm will use the maximum available power consumption headroom. For the GeForce GT 1030 GPU that’s up to the TDP of 30W. Note that unlike on high-end graphics cards, the GPU does not monitor the actual power consumption from the VRM, but rather estimates the power based on internal information such as current VID, GPU load, and memory controller load.

Set GPU Voltage to 100%. This enables the overvoltage feature present since GPU Boost 2.0. Overvoltage specifically refers to the extended voltage between the reliability voltage and the maximum voltage specified by NVIDIA. The reliability voltage Vrel is the highest voltage the GPU will safely run at without harming the long-term lifespan. The maximum voltage Vmax is the highest voltage NVIDIA will allow the GPU to run at as it may harm lifespan. This extended voltage range can be enabled or disabled by NVIDIA board partners.

Set GPU Boost Clock to 1766 (+260). This offsets the entire GPU voltage-frequency curve by 260 MHz over the standard curve. So, a given voltage the frequency will be 260 MHz higher. The GPU Boost 3.0 algorithm still uses the voltage-frequency curve to dynamically adjust the GPU performance according to the available voltage headroom.

Set Memory Clock to 8600 (+2592). This increases the default memory frequency of 1500 MHz to 2150 MHz. Increasing the memory frequency has twice the performance impact of increasing the GPU frequency and is therefore a key element of our overclocking journey.

Set GPU Temp Target to 97C. This ensures the GPU Boost 3.0 algorithm pursues aggressive overclocks all the way up to the maximum allowed temperature.

GeForce GT 1030 Overclock Performance Improvement

To ensure everything is working as intended, we re-run some benchmarks and check the performance increase compared to the default settings. With our GT 1030 now running 17% higher GPU frequency and 33% higher memory frequency, at 2038 and 2150 MHz respectively, we see the highest performance in all benchmarks. The performance increase ranges from +11.12% in Fluidmark to 27% in CS:GO.

When running Furmark GPU Stress Test, the average GPU clock is 1418 MHz with 0.782 volts, and the GPU Memory clock is 2151 MHz with 1.34 volts. The average GPU temperature is 46.6 degrees Celsius and average the GPU Hot Spot Temperature is 54.4 degrees Celsius. The average GPU power consumption is 28.190 watts.

And that’s it, thanks for reading and see you next time!