Maybe slightly off topic but I have Finally gotten my GTX 970 overclocked.  Even in Windows 10 with afterburner it took some creativity.  I am wondering about trying this in linux but I really don't want to take my Win10 rig down now since I am trying to test stability duration.  

If anybody wants to try a 970 overclock here is what finally worked in windows for me.  Not sure how the commands should be changed for linux.  This MUST be done BEFORE any overclocking done by afterburner and I would assume nvidia x server settings.  After running these commands I can then overclock the card.  If you try applying any overclock settings before running these commands it will not work and you must reset all overclock settings, apply these commands, and then try overclocking with afterburner again (i would assume nvidia x server would be treated the same?).  The following also must be run in elevated command prompt.  I created a scheduled task to run a .bat file with highest privileges on startup.

cd C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\
nvidia-smi -acp UNRESTRICTED
nvidia-smi -ac 3505,1455

The overclock values may not be compatible with other cards but it doesn't matter.  It will ignore it.  If nobody else tries this on Maxwell I will go back to nvOC, try it and report back.  Thanks for the work!!