A simple script to manage overclocking of NVIDIA graphics cards on Linux. You can use it to manually overclock the card values each time or install a systemd service that will be run at startup to automatically perform the overclocking.
nvidia-overclock.sh requires the following software to be installed:
- POSIX compliant shell
- systemd (needed for the optional service)
- Download the nvidia-overclock.sh script and install it to a directory in your path.
Example: curl the script to /usr/local/bin
$ sudo curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plyint/nvidia-overclock.sh/master/nvidia-overclock.sh -o /usr/local/bin/nvidia-overclock.sh
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 10670 100 10670 0 0 34874 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 35106
- Ensure the script has the executable permissions set
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/nvidia-overclock.sh
- Update the values in the overclock() function with values for your GPUs.
Remove or add lines for calling nvidia-settings based on the number of graphics cards in your system. You will have to experiment with the Graphics Clock and Memory Transfer Rate values that work best for your graphics cards. Each graphics card is different and even cards that are the same model may tolerate overclocking differently.
overclock () {
# The following default overclock values for the NVIDIA GTX 1070
# were found on average to be stable:
# - Graphics Clock = 100
# - Memory Transfer Rate = 1300
#
# Adjust these values for each card as needed. Some cards are more
# unstable than others and will only tolerate less overclocking. Other
# cards might tolerate above normal overclocking. If you are unsure of the
# starting values to use for your graphics cards, try searching online
# for what other people with your same graphics cards have found to be stable.
#
# Note: The lines below were used to configure a system with 6 graphics cards.
# You will neeed to add/remove lines based on the number of graphics cards in
# your particular system.
log "Calling nvidia-settings to overclock GPU(s).."
log "$(nvidia-settings -c :0 -a '[gpu:0]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=100' -a '[gpu:0]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=1300')"
log "$(nvidia-settings -c :0 -a '[gpu:1]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=100' -a '[gpu:1]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=1300')"
log "$(nvidia-settings -c :0 -a '[gpu:2]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=100' -a '[gpu:2]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=1300')"
log "$(nvidia-settings -c :0 -a '[gpu:3]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=100' -a '[gpu:3]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=1300')"
log "$(nvidia-settings -c :0 -a '[gpu:4]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=100' -a '[gpu:4]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=1300')"
log "$(nvidia-settings -c :0 -a '[gpu:5]/GPUGraphicsClockOffset[3]=100' -a '[gpu:5]/GPUMemoryTransferRateOffset[3]=1300')"
}
- Install the systemd services to run at startup (Optional)
Use the following command to install the systemd services that will start the X server using the startx command and then run the nvidia-overclock.sh script.
sudo /usr/local/bin/nvidia-overclock.sh install-svc -x
This will install the service and use "startx" to automatically start XWindows. If you already have XWindows installed and configured to run automatically on boot, then omit the -x option:
sudo /usr/local/bin/nvidia-overclock.sh install-svc
If the systemd script was installed, then you should not have to do anything going forward. Everytime you start your machine, the service will be run and it will automatically overclock the graphics cards.
If the systemd script was not installed or you want to execute the commands manually, then you can run the commands directly. Be sure that an X server has started first before running the script; otherwise, the script will be unable to overclock the graphics cards.
# Run the overclock command of the script
/usr/local/bin/nvidia-overclock.sh overclock
The basic commands available are:
- overclock - sets the overclock values for the graphics card(s) as defined in the overclock function
- auto - same as the overclock method except, optional parameters can be passed to perform logging and check that an X server is started
To see a list of available commands along with detailed descriptions, just run the script without any parameters.
# Display the available commands
/usr/local/bin/nvidia-overclock.sh
To remove the script from your system, run the uninstall-svc command as root (if the systemd service was installed) and then delete the script.
sudo /usr/local/bin/nvidia-overclock.sh uninstall-svc
rm -f /usr/local/bin/nvidia-overclock.sh
The installed systemd services are designed to run after runlevel4 in the hopes that most other scripts that might load kernel modules have already run. You may need to adjust the "After" dependency listed under the Unit section if you observe the service running earlier than expected.
By default the installed systemd service will log output to the logfile /var/log/nvidia-overclock.log. Check this log for errors if you encounter issues.