Does overclocking without increasing voltage...

[Timmah!]

...increases power consumption and temperatures?

I bought the GTX590 and i am bit disappointed with its performance as i expected it to be more along the line of GTX480 SLI, while in fact its more like 470 SLI...which is as i say disappointing as the its basically 2x 512shader cores against 2x 448 cores on the EXACTLY SAME frequency (607MHz)... i am talking about performance in my GPGPU app (Octane Render), which is perfectly benchable, as it shows the numbers of computed Megasamples: apparently about 2,7 in case of one 470, 5,3-5,4 with the 590...

so i started to think about mild overclock, though i originally did not plan to do it, as i have only 750 Watt PSU (although great one, Seasonic S-12D Silver)...but given the fact, i would like to increase the clock MAX to 650 MHz from the default 607 MHz one, which should be AFAIK without touching voltage perfectly possible, i wonder if this overclock projects itself into the increased power consumption, which should be a problem given the PSU.

So what do you think? Would you recommend it, or it is risky? I would really hate burn the card out, though i do think its quite improbable, but shit happens...on other hand, i would like to have that GTX480 performance i expected.
The other question, if i was about to do it, i suppose i should use that MSI Afterburner app, how do you do it then? It is just the simple thing of moving the slider on the app´s interface to 650 and thats it? No need to "forbid" any adjacent automatic increase of voltage, i do not want, or something like that?
Do i need the latest version of Afterburner, or any older will do?

Thanks for answers

 

[Awkward]

yes of course it increases temperatures and power consumption. goal is to slowly push it as high as it will go without touching the voltage, while monitoring temperatures and stability.

i'll warn you before hand that this card overclocks like garbage, so don't expect much.

 

[aigomorla]

u are going faster then b4.

according to physics (bah i hate physics).. if ur on the same setup, and u go faster, you create more energy, therefore yes, you will increase power consumption and heat.

 

[Timmah!]

yes of course it increases temperatures and power consumption. goal is to slowly push it as high as it will go without touching the voltage, while monitoring temperatures and stability.

i'll warn you before hand that this card overclocks like garbage, so don't expect much.

LOL, i could not hold out, so i tried it with the Gainward Expert Tool software, i have Gainward card, and had Gainward GTX460 before... i clocked the core to 650 and shaders to 1300, which as i say is fine with me and...
testing it with Octane, everything seemed just OK, max temp i saw was 88 (compared to max 86 i saw before) and the speed of fan hit 70 percent (compared to 64 percent i saw before)... power draw obviously i cant say, is there any soft which measures that?
The performance improved from 5,3 to 5,65 Megasamples, what is apparently in touch with 480SLI (5,79 Ms)...

Anyway i tested it only for perhaps 5 minutes, so i am still on fence about keeping it or clocking it back down to 607, as i am not the kind of person to take big risks and i do not know, is this a big risk?...

 

[Cuular]

Try some longer tests and see if it stays at the same mild changes in temperature and fan speed. If it stays at those same spots over a 3-4 hour run, then you should be fine. The temps are well within spec for the card.

And the 3-4 hour run should give a good test of your PSU's ability to handle it as well.

 

[OCGuy]

I was told recently that everyone over-volts when the OC their cards now, so you are just doing it wrong

 

[Idontcare]

Does overclocking without increasing voltage...increases power consumption and temperatures?

Yes.

Active power-consumption scales linearly as a function of clockspeed if the voltage is held constant.

Temperature scales with power-dissipation, more power-consumption means higher temps.

 

[Skurge]

I was told recently that everyone over-volts when the OC their cards now, so you are just doing it wrong

It's not like he has a choice

 

[WelshBloke]

I was told recently that everyone over-volts when the OC their cards now, so you are just doing it wrong

Its a GTX590, that might not be the best advice.

 

[Meaker10]

I hear the smoke effects on over-volted 590s are really realistic.

 

[pcm81]

I hear the smoke effects on over-volted 590s are really realistic.

LoL

 

[MagickMan]

I hear the smoke effects on over-volted 590s are really realistic.

and the lights and sparklies! Oooo!

 

[AtenRa]

Even if you dont raise the Voltage the card will need more Current and it will raise the Amps and thats the reason it will raise the power consumption.

As Idontcare have shown in the graph, without raising the Voltage we only have a small raise in Amps and the power consumption stays low, once you raise both Frequency and Voltage the power consumption will skyrocket.

GTX590 will be fine at 650MHz and you could try up to 670MHz and see if it will be stable.

 

[Grooveriding]

I would return the card and buy two GTX 570s. Same cost, better performance and they will run on your current PSU.

That said, whatever you do, don't use older nvidia drivers that allow voltage increases on that card

 

[OCGuy]

I would be interested in what game is not playing up to your standards with a non over-volted 590.

I have a feeling you cant give us more than 1 scenario on your resolution where your $700 purchase is failing,

 

[3DVagabond]

I would be interested in what game is not playing up to your standards with a non over-volted 590.

I have a feeling you cant give us more than 1 scenario on your resolution where your $700 purchase is failing,

You need to read the OP. None of what you've posted even applies. He's not gaming, and he has no desire to over volt.

 

[Skurge]

I would be interested in what game is not playing up to your standards with a non over-volted 590.

I have a feeling you cant give us more than 1 scenario on your resolution where your $700 purchase is failing,

Read the OP again, no gaming involved.

 

[Gikaseixas]

...increases power consumption and temperatures?

Yes it does. Just be careful with that GTX590, quite limited on voltage tweaks. It's a powerful card as it is...

 

[Timmah!]

Thank you all for answers.... i will surely test it for a longer time period. I have the latest drivers from Nvidia site, i read about those dead cards with the older drivers...

OFC its seems to be risky to playing with voltage on this one particular card, but i would not do it anyway, i overclocked my Gulftown only as much it went without touching volts and i am fine that way (well it tops on 3,78 GHz and maybe it might go slightly higher, though i did not test it for more).... i am sure it could be done there without much hassle, but i do not feel like killing such expensive hw, this is basically my only shot at such things, i would not be able to replace it if something went wrong... so only mild overclocks for me...

As far as gaming go, as you said, i do not care....the only games i play are Black Ops and PES 2011, and they ran just fine on gtx460. And i suppose there is actually not a single game, which would require more firepower to run on this card on my resolution (1920*1200). maybe only Metro 2033, but IMHO thats a shit game, not my cup of tea, and i do not even think it looks better than original Crysis... basing my opinion on some HD utube gameplay vids...

One more question, when i test the card for longer period, how would potential PSU insuffuciency manifest itself? Freezing, instability, throttling the card down or switching the computer off? But there is no risk of killing the card, PSU, mobo or all of them, right? I have no idea, what are the consequences of having weak PSU for the connected HW...so please, enlighten me....

 

[Voo]

Even if you dont raise the Voltage the card will need more Current and it will raise the Amps and thats the reason it will raise the power consumption.

As Idontcare have shown in the graph, without raising the Voltage we only have a small raise in Amps and the power consumption stays low, once you raise both Frequency and Voltage the power consumption will skyrocket.

While that may be also a reason, the main reason is quite simple: The higher the frequency the more often a switch happens. And every switch the capacities of gates and wires have to be charged respectively discharged. If we assume that discharging is free we get something like C * 0.5f * Vdd^2 for the dynamic power.

Note: IDC has done some tests in the past that show that the Vdd^2 part doesn't necessarily work out for modern CMOS processes, but the frequency part seems sound.

 

[Timmah!]

Just read the review for the card on the local HW server, somehow missed it before:

apparently the power consumption of the whole machine is on default frequencies under load cca 530W, overclocked card (without voltage increase) to 710/3700 MHz asks for 630W... so there is a cca 100W increase...

This means that my overclock to 650 MHz should ask for something inbetween: 570 - 580 Watts, i suppose thats ok with my PSU, but its about the upper possible limit, as the 85 percent efficiency of the PSU means 640 Watts and obviously i do not want to go as far... maybe it could take 670MHz somebody suggested, but i think i keep the 650 and be happy

BTW i tried the Unigine benchmark, it ran for about 20 minutes (still not enough for proper testing, i know) and i saw no temp higher than 88C and fan was not higher than 70 percent. My score at 1920*1200,extreme tesselation,high shaders, 4XAA + 4Xaniso was 1345 with avg framerate 53,4 fps.