GTX 280 at various processor speeds.

[lavaheadache]

Right now I got a GO Q6600 @ 3.2 on my evga 680i lt. I really only got it there after flashing the bios to an xfx 680i (not lt) bios. It has been happily ticking there for over a year. I'm feeling pretty lucky that my chips got some more grunt that is being limited by my sorry ass motherboard. Would I get a tangible difference in games @1920x1200 using my GTX 280 at higher speeds. Think at the very least I would get less dips in Crysis? I've been thinking about picking up a Gigabyte DS3R on newegg on the cheap and going for 3.6 or higher. I want a new board either way but just curious if I can expect to see any gains over my current clock speed.

This is in Vista 64

 

[toyota]

with that cpu at 3.2 there is virtually no cpu bottleneck with a single gtx280 especially at 1920x1200. at that res you would likely not see even a single fps difference no matter how much further you overclocked that cpu. thats a very well balanced setup you have there.

 

[TC91]

I had the xfx 680i LT board for a while, what do you have set in bios for your q6600?

 

[dguy6789]

A Q6600 at 3.2Ghz is not a bottleneck for a single gpu system.

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: TC91
I had the xfx 680i LT board for a while, what do you have set in bios for your q6600?

Im running 400X8 to get my 3.2ghz. Linked and synced ram @400(800 ddr). I don't remember what my vcore in the bios is but in windows it's showing 1.34 volts. My processors vcore is 1.225. It really is a gem of a q6600 that is why I wanted to try for the 9x400 with the ud3r.

 

[Painman]

I think it's totally worth it for you to try OCing your 280 (since it's free), but if you already need ~1.34 Vcc to OC your Q6600 to 3.2, that's not looking so good. A better board might require less Vcc due to load line calibration, but it might not, and 3.6 is still not guaranteed regardless if your CPU has a decent looking VID rating. You might spend your $ and find yourself right where you are.

A Quad @ 3.2 is most likely not bottlenecking a 280 in any significant way, or at all, IMO.

...And I wouldn't spend much $ trying to make the Q6600 faster.

 

[Tempered81]

http://www.pcgameshardware.com...f-the-Geforce-GTX-280/

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
Right now I got a GO Q6600 @ 3.2 on my evga 680i lt. I really only got it there after flashing the bios to an xfx 680i (not lt) bios. It has been happily ticking there for over a year. I'm feeling pretty lucky that my chips got some more grunt that is being limited by my sorry ass motherboard. Would I get a tangible difference in games @1920x1200 using my GTX 280 at higher speeds. Think at the very least I would get less dips in Crysis? I've been thinking about picking up a Gigabyte DS3R on newegg on the cheap and going for 3.6 or higher. I want a new board either way but just curious if I can expect to see any gains over my current clock speed.

This is in Vista 64

i will send you a PM tonight; my own review is finished and i am polishing it up tonight for publication; Using Geforce 181.22/Catalyst 8-12hotfix

i just did 7 benchmarks [besides the 2 futuremark synthetics - CoJ, Pt Boats, WiC, FC2, X3TC, Clear Sky & Crysis ] with GTX280 [and 4870] that compared scaling with e8600 at 4.0 and 4.25 GHZ; that same GTX also got paired with my q9550s at 2.83, 3.4, 3.6 and 4.0 Ghz

you would be shocked at how poorly it scales, i think, in those games once you get to about 3.4Ghz
- especially Crysis

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
Right now I got a GO Q6600 @ 3.2 on my evga 680i lt. I really only got it there after flashing the bios to an xfx 680i (not lt) bios. It has been happily ticking there for over a year. I'm feeling pretty lucky that my chips got some more grunt that is being limited by my sorry ass motherboard. Would I get a tangible difference in games @1920x1200 using my GTX 280 at higher speeds. Think at the very least I would get less dips in Crysis? I've been thinking about picking up a Gigabyte DS3R on newegg on the cheap and going for 3.6 or higher. I want a new board either way but just curious if I can expect to see any gains over my current clock speed.

This is in Vista 64

You probably don't want to hear this but GTX 285 will still scale with faster CPUs beyond 3.2GHz, particularly in games that make use of more than 2 cores. You may also see some improvement in single or dual-threaded games that aren't GPU bottlenecked (these are the titles you typically see fast duals like E8X00s @ 4GHz+ outrunning slower quads).

Personally at this point I don't think spending more on an LGA775 board would be worth it for another ~400MHz and PCIE 2.0. What's your Q6600's VID btw? If you don't have a low VID this thought process might be moot to begin with. Also, I believe Apoppin has some solid numbers showing the GTX 280 is limited by the PCIE 2.0.

I noticed a pretty big difference in a few games when I moved from a 650i @ 3.1GHz to my current board @ 3.6GHz. I never isolated whether it was due to the extra clockspeed, the PCIE bandwidth, or anything else, but there was a pretty significant difference, especially in Mass Effect. Maybe if I get a chance I'll run some benches at 7x and 8x multi.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
Right now I got a GO Q6600 @ 3.2 on my evga 680i lt. I really only got it there after flashing the bios to an xfx 680i (not lt) bios. It has been happily ticking there for over a year. I'm feeling pretty lucky that my chips got some more grunt that is being limited by my sorry ass motherboard. Would I get a tangible difference in games @1920x1200 using my GTX 280 at higher speeds. Think at the very least I would get less dips in Crysis? I've been thinking about picking up a Gigabyte DS3R on newegg on the cheap and going for 3.6 or higher. I want a new board either way but just curious if I can expect to see any gains over my current clock speed.

This is in Vista 64

You probably don't want to hear this but GTX 285 will still scale with faster CPUs beyond 3.2GHz, particularly in games that make use of more than 2 cores. You may also see some improvement in single or dual-threaded games that aren't GPU bottlenecked (these are the titles you typically see fast duals like E8X00s @ 4GHz+ outrunning slower quads).

Personally at this point I don't think spending more on an LGA775 board would be worth it for another ~400MHz and PCIE 2.0. What's your Q6600's VID btw? If you don't have a low VID this thought process might be moot to begin with. Also, I believe Apoppin has some solid numbers showing the GTX 280 is limited by the PCIE 2.0.

I noticed a pretty big difference in a few games when I moved from a 650i @ 3.1GHz to my current board @ 3.6GHz. I never isolated whether it was due to the extra clockspeed, the PCIE bandwidth, or anything else, but there was a pretty significant difference, especially in Mass Effect. Maybe if I get a chance I'll run some benches at 7x and 8x multi.

Yes, GTX280 is definitely limited in some cases by PCIe 1.0/1.1 compared to 2.0 in some situations and certain games at 19x12/16x10.

However, there are damn FEW games that even make a practical difference using a Core 2 Quad over a C2D - especially when you are near 4 Ghz
- also, my *latest* review [just finished] shows that scaling drops off drastically once you get over either Q9550S or E8600 stock speeds with both GTX280 and HD4870.

i have really expanded my 9 benchmark suite to 17 and still don't see a lot of difference with a single GPU. The "sweet spot" for a GTX280 seems to be about 3.5Ghz

but i would not pick a MB upgrade first; i might consider OC'ing my GPU before that to see if it makes enough difference

 

[lavaheadache]

upon double checking my vid, it is 1.264 in windows under 100 % orthos load and 1.3375 or something very close to that in the bios. So my 680i has a pretty substantial vdroop going on. I can definately boot up @ 400x9 3.6 but I think it is beating the crap out of my northbridge. My cores are all mostly locked @ 55 degrees with a little fluctuation between 54c and 56c 2 hours into a stability run. I have to set my SPP to 1.55 to get it stable at 3.2. This is why I know it is my motherboard holding back my OC. It's been like this for a year so I know it's stable. So are you guy's telling me that I should not get a DS3R because even if I do get 3.6 or higher it isn't worth it?

 

[chizow]

Not the actual Vcore reading, I was referring to the VID reading in Core Temp. That's the factory default minimum voltage to run at stock speeds, the common belief that the chips with lower VIDs leak less voltage and are ultimately able to hit higher clocks.

What you're referring to is Vdroop, the difference between BIOS set Vcore and actual Vcore and set Vcore vs. load Vcore, which was a problem I had with my 650i as well. The other major problem I had was FSB stability above 390MHz.

But ya I don't think its worth it at this point unless you plan on keeping everything else for at least a year. I think you'd see a gain from that extra 400MHz or so and PCIE 2.0 with a GTX 285 but not enough for a $120-150 P45 board at this point.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
upon double checking my vid, it is 1.264 in windows under 100 % orthos load and 1.3375 or something very close to that in the bios. So my 680i has a pretty substantial vdroop going on. I can definately boot up @ 400x9 3.6 but I think it is beating the crap out of my northbridge. My cores are all mostly locked @ 55 degrees with a little fluctuation between 54c and 56c 2 hours into a stability run. I have to set my SPP to 1.55 to get it stable at 3.2. This is why I know it is my motherboard holding back my OC. It's been like this for a year so I know it's stable. So are you guy's telling me that I should not get a DS3R because even if I do get 3.6 or higher it isn't worth it?

55C is idle or load ?

Q9550s and E8600 both are at 1.350v and the temps are high 30s at idle and mid 50s under load .. sometimes a bit higher depending on how warm the room is

is your MB the older PCIe 1.1 spec ? if so, a move to 2.0 plus a nicer overclock might make a difference. At any rate, i will PM you probably late this evening and you can see for yourself if a higher OC makes much difference for GTX280

How much more would you have to spend on a new MB? - including selling your old one to defray the expense. Frankly i hate changing out my MB [and i had to last week when my ASUS P5e deluxe died; of course, Rampage is a better OCer but i could have flashed my board's bios into it - fortunately i got it open box and the guy that returned it missed something very simple.]

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: chizow
Not the actual Vcore reading, I was referring to the VID reading in Core Temp. That's the factory default minimum voltage to run at stock speeds, the common belief that the chips with lower VIDs leak less voltage and are ultimately able to hit higher clocks.

What you're referring to is Vdroop, the difference between BIOS set Vcore and actual Vcore and set Vcore vs. load Vcore, which was a problem I had with my 650i as well. The other major problem I had was FSB stability above 390MHz.

But ya I don't think its worth it at this point unless you plan on keeping everything else for at least a year. I think you'd see a gain from that extra 400MHz or so and PCIE 2.0 with a GTX 285 but not enough for a $120-150 P45 board at this point.

sorry typo, my VID is 1.225. For my overclock the vcore is 1.264 after v droop.

And Apoppin, my 55c is load temp usually equal across the cores after a couple hours of stressing

 

[apoppin]

so you have a ways to go if you want a higher CPU OC. Your temps aren't bad. Have you tried higher?

 

[TC91]

lavaheadache, have you tried 378x9 for 3.4ghz or 389x9 for 3.5ghz? What are your settings for your other voltages? Also, is your ram 2x2gb or 4x1gb? You may have to try running the ram unlinked at a lower speed like say 667mhz. When I had my 680i, I had to keep the spp (northbridge) voltage @1.5v whenever oc'ing otherwise it was not fully stable. Also make sure the spread spectrum settings are disabled.

 

[lavaheadache]

well I haven't tried running a lower fsb with a higher multi cause I really like to be able to be linked and synced @400 fsb. My Spp also has to be @ 1.5 to be stable. other than the SPP and vcore being changed i think maybe the FSB I have set to 1.3. I would bet my bottum doallr that it is my frigging north bridge that hold my overclock back. I ahve tried 400x9. I can get into windows easily but I get lock ups if I try to stress it. Again, I think the motherboard is weak link because I can get into windows with a low vcore but no matter how much voltage I get lock ups. My ram is 4x1 gig sticks but even if I take out 2 it doesn't help.

Oh well I guess maybe i should just live with 3.2ghz and upgrade in a year or so.

Or just go ahead and spend the money so I can boost the economy = )

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
sorry typo, my VID is 1.225. For my overclock the vcore is 1.264 after v droop.

And Apoppin, my 55c is load temp usually equal across the cores after a couple hours of stressing

Hmmm ya 1.225 is an excellent VID, so you should have additional headroom. You're certainly going to be limited by that 680i though, and it looks like you're running into a lot of the same problems I did on my two 650i boards.

You're probably seeing heavy Vdroop at idle that gets even worst under load, which is going to seriously limit your overclocking. I remember I had like 0.08V difference idle that went over 0.1V under load. It got to the point I capped out voltage setting in the BIOS and still wasn't getting enough to keep it stable at 3.2GHz+.

The FSB/north bridge also sucks on those boards, but ya its not surprising you're having problems going over 400MHz, even when you drop the multiplier. Some folks claimed there was a memory hole ~400MHz and had success going to like...413MHz or 420+ but that just increased the likelihood of having to reset the CMOS for me. Those boards also have problems with VTT with FSB overclocking and Quads. I capped out VTT% at 20%, which also likely limited my OC.

Again, I'd say it comes down to how long you plan to keep the Q6600 and DDR2, but I do think you'd see gains with the faster chip and PCIE 2.0. If you think you'll stick with them for a year or more than it'd be much more worthwhile. Also, what kind of cooler do you have on there now? There's a huge temperature spike once you eclipse 1.35V (actual under load) and ~3.5GHz. I'm talking like...20C difference under load. I ended up having to upgrade my Tuniq Tower for a TRUE Black with custom bolt-through mount to compensate, so that's something else to consider.

 

[lavaheadache]

I have a Tuniq Tower. Maybe I will get a DS3R, It's only like a hundred bucks at the egg

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
I have a Tuniq Tower. Maybe I will get a DS3R, It's only like a hundred bucks at the egg

at this point, you just might consider another CPU or MB if you are gonna spend a hundred bucks on a CPU cooler
.. Tunig Tower is still a decent cooler and might not make enough difference in your OC

 

[Tempered81]

@ lava: since your 680i is stable at 400mhz fsb, just change the multi on the q6600 to 9 and increase vcore voltage to reach 3.6. You might try 378 x 9 as in intermediate point as tc91 suggested - in case you fear you are raising your vcore too high to reach stability at 3.6

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
@ lava: since your 680i is stable at 400mhz fsb, just change the multi on the q6600 to 9 and increase vcore voltage to reach 3.6. You might try 378 x 9 as in intermediate point as tc91 suggested - in case you fear you are raising your vcore too high to reach stability at 3.6

not that simple, my motherboard just can't handle the added stress. Known limitation of quads and a 680i