Does the 8800 gts throttle itself?

[DCypher]

Got a quick question for you Anandtech. I was starting to overclock my 8800 gts, so I used ATI tool to bump up the Mem speed. It was 792mhz at stock, and I slowly bumped it up to 860mhz over time, which is not near the highest speed based on reviews I read. Anyways, each time I raise it, my 3dmark05 score goes lower. The only thing I can think of is the card throttles itself at high temperatures. BUT, under load, I'm only at about 71 degrees Celsius, which isn't that high. So, does anyone have any insight. Thanks.

 

[DCypher]

Before work bump!

 

[tigersty1e]

All Nvidia's cards throttle.

You can disable it, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Temps aren't the only reason a card will throttle. Try a real world gaming benchmark.

 

[DCypher]

When most people overclock these cards then, are they turning off the throttling. I would assume so. Can you do this through Rivatuner? Not saying i'm going to do it, but it would be nice to know.

 

[Sentry2]

Are you rebooting after each run? Say your first run was @ 792MHz and then right after you ran the test again @ 860MHz you probably wouldn't notice much difference in score at all. I'd worry more about taking the gpu as high as you can before focusing on the memory. It won't make as big of a difference as on the new G92 since they are a bit bandwidth limited in some situations.

Your card is probably not throttling. If the temps are fine and you're not running too high of a vmem or tightening the timings too much(which you probably didn't mess with) then it shouldn't throttle.

Oh yeah, what clockspeed are you running the gpu at?

 

[DCypher]

No, wasn't rebooting after each run, just bumping the mem up in rivatuner and testing with 3dmark05. Vmem is stock, timings are stock. GPU Clockspeed is stock. I was really just beginning to clock the card, by moving the mem speeds up first, but consistently the score drops whenever I move the mem speed up.

 

[DCypher]

bedtime bump. 'Nite everyone. Thanks!

 

[tigersty1e]

Originally posted by: DCypher
When most people overclock these cards then, are they turning off the throttling. I would assume so. Can you do this through Rivatuner? Not saying i'm going to do it, but it would be nice to know.

Yes, you can do this through Rivatuner. Search on google for disabling throttling in rivatuner. No, most people do not turn off throttling.

My old 6800 used to throttle even though temps never hit 80. I never knew what it was, but it was fine after disabling the throttling. This was just a few months ago, so I wasn't really concerned with frying it because it was an older card. I just wanted to squeeze everything out of it. It still runs like a champ in my other rig, but I flashed the BIOS to the OC clocks.

 

[DCypher]

My problem is, even if I raise my mem speed 50 mhz, my speed still stays cool, especially if I set the fan at 100%. It actually stays cooler than stock speeds with the fan set at auto...but it still throttles. Just not sure why...

 

[BFG10K]

which is not near the highest speed based on reviews I read

You do know overclocking is never guaranteed, right? Just because little Timmy on the internet can do it, it doesn't mean you can.

 

[DCypher]

I've overclocked for years, but took a little break. I just haven't done it in awhile. However, I do know how hardware behaves, and I do not believe it should throttle so much with such a small clock. Just a thought though.