Here's the thing with so-called "factory overclocked" products--it's the "EVGA factory" they are talking about, not the "nVidia factory"--nVidia itself never guarantees to IHVs or end users that its products will run properly when overclocked. I don't think anyone does, actually. I once had a gpu many, many years ago--I *think* it was a TNT2, but don't hold me to it--that I literally could not overclock even 1MHz...! Ha-ha...Lol, and the rest of it. I pushed it to 151Mhz and crash city it became (actually I started out much higher and came down gradually until I could see that even at 1MHz over it would crash)...;) Funny thing is that it would run all day long at 150MHz--just not 151Mhz...! I took it back, of course, as I figured it was probably very marginal silicon and was probably factory overvolted (by nVidia) to even hit 150Mhz!

OTOH, I'm using a 2GB HD 7850 that runs all day @ 1GHz/5.6GHz but the stock clock is 860MHz/4.8GHz, so overclocking depends very much on each individual piece of silicon you buy--some like it fine, some won't run very much if at all when overclocked. People should not buy "factory overclocked" stuff, imo, because it's just a marketing gimmick to make the product more enticing. Besides--it usually amounts to some very low amount of "overclocking"--anyway--that doesn't amount to a hill of beans when actually playing a game. You may be "downclocking it" to it's default speed, so I wouldn't worry over it too much...just remember it next time you hunt for a 3d card--pay close attention to default speeds and buy based on that and let any overclocking be an icing-on-the-cake sort of thing...;)

Usually stuff don't just freeze (for no reason), you should cool your PC more. Freezes mean (or artifacts) that something is overclocked and if they are not, watch your temperatures. GPU and CPU.

I found that running full screen and infinate fraterate stopped crashes.

I was having the same problem. I have two MSI Twin Forzr II 580's in SLI and an OC i5-750 running at 3.8 gHZ. I am running most settings on high with a few on ultra ang getting between 35 and 60 FPS depending on my location, although it only rarely dips below 40.

I was experiencing regular CTD's and tried a few things (one at a time, then testing to rule anything out) including underclocking, which didn''t help.

Instead, I used Afterburner to raise the mV going to my card by 25, and left the core speed alone. I haven't had a crash since. Of course, everyone's PC is different but in my case it was just those few extra millivolts that seem to have made the difference.

I of course return my system to the default speed when done playing the Witcher 3 but will mess around again soon and see how far I can push things. CPU utilisation is stting around 95% with GPU at around 96% so I might be able to squeeze out a little more!

Be careful when messing about with voltages and use a decent utility like Afterburner. Also, do your research before hand!

Hope this helps.