After 2 hours of running new firmware, I can already tell it is helping a lot.
Prior to the firmware update: 562mhz showed 360GH/s on pool and 10% error rate
After firmware update: 562mhz shows 375GH/s on pool and 0.3% error rate
I will try to push the core clock up tomorrow and see how it handles it. Before the update I could not go higher then 562mhz without it becoming unstable.
Looking forward to hearing how it goes.
Most boards run poorly at certain frequencies, which can vary from board to board. So if you go up by 1 or 2 MHz at a time, you might run into a poorly performing clock speed far lower than the optimal speed.
That and some frequencies just don't work; you will ask for 610 for example and you will get back 609. Cgminer will show you what you actually got.