GTX 670 power edition (overclocks)

[wand3r3r]

I was just reading up on the 670 power edition and was kind of surprised by TechPowerup's results, both for this card and in general. The overclocks they've achieved are in general not too special. (670s, 680s, and one 7970)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_670_Power_Edition/31.html
Card: Core: Memory:
MSI GTX 670 Power Edition 1055 MHz 1820 MHz
GIGABYTE GTX 670 OC 1060 MHz 1925 MHz
ZOTAC GTX 670 AMP! 1150 MHz 1890 MHz
NVIDIA GTX 670 1100 MHz 1760 MHz
ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II 1110 MHz 1890 MHz
Palit GTX 670 JetStream 1120 MHz 1750 MHz
NVIDIA GTX 680 1147 MHz 1833 MHz
ASUS GTX 680 DirectCU II 1207 MHz 1766 MHz
AMD HD 7970 1075 MHz 1715 MHz


While on the other hand hardwarecanucks had quite the opposite results:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...6-msi-gtx-670-power-edition-oc-review-20.html
the GPU hit an impressive 1388MHz while the memory petered out at 6524MHz


Guru3D got in between.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_670_power_edition_oc_review,24.html
Core Clock: +100 MHz
Boost Clock: ~1300 MHz
Memory Clock: 7012 MHz

KitGuru got somewhere between too.
1202/1280 boost
http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...670-power-edition-oc-twin-frozr-iv-review/20/

I'm curious to see how the GPU lottery turns out tomorrow. At least it has a decent cooler and easily matches the 680 at stock clocks. Any PE owners out there? How does your card do?

Apparently you need the older afterburner 2.2.3 or you have to edit the config on the 2.2.4 to overvolt. I'll have to check into that more.

I'll try get some benches from BL2 as I'm extremely curious how it is relative to a 690 and where the minimums are.

 

[blackened23]

I really wouldn't read too much into TPU's overclocking numbers. I've looked at many reviews at that website and have come to the conclusion that they just don't try very hard when it comes to overclocking -- i'm not saying they don't put effort into it, but I don't think they go as far as enthusiasts do. Their lightning sample 680 was the highest 680 overclock they achieved, yet was only 1240? or something like that. They just don't go all out for GPU overclocks, i've noticed this across many reviews. I'm thinking it's probably in the interest of timeliness of review completion. Think about it -- when you want a maximum overclock, there's a LOT of trial and error in terms of testing, rebooting, dealing with crashes, etc. It's pretty annoying to deal with that when you have an article deadline. That's my theory anyway -- i've noticed ALL of their overclocks in general are low compared to what others are getting.

They don't put special effort in terms of overvoltage, I do know that. I think, on average, the 670PE will outperform other 670 cards on the market simply due to the voltage options on it. Yes, you have to tinker with afterburner and it isn't "officially" supported, but it (over voltage) does work.

I think you'll be pleased. In my case, I think that once you've used a MSI Lightning product you'll not want to use anything else -- pretty sure i'll also have a lightning MSI card for the next gen 780/8970 whenever they are released. The PE uses the same cooler and similar electronics as the lightning, so it's a great product.

 

[tviceman]

I can hit 1320mhz if I up my voltage to +50. I don't do it though except for benchmark runs, simply because of how Kepler's voltage control works. It will increase your idle voltage too, resulting in excessively high power draw and the performance gains (2%) are not only not worth it - they're unnoticeable.

My card runs at 1250mhz boost and 7140mhz on the vram every day. The vram overclock is going to be your biggest out-of-the-box performance improvement, so concentrate on finding the max stable speed you can run with.

 

[stahlhart]

I'm curious to see how the GPU lottery turns out tomorrow. At least it has a decent cooler and easily matches the 680 at stock clocks. Any PE owners out there? How does your card do?

Apparently you need the older afterburner 2.2.3 or you have to edit the config on the 2.2.4 to overvolt. I'll have to check into that more.

I'll try get some benches from BL2 as I'm extremely curious how it is relative to a 690 and where the minimums are.

My two just arrived yesterday -- I'm seeing 1254 and 1241 out of the box. Just for grins I went with tviceman's VRAM overclock, and everything's running stable so far. Might not even bother with overvolting.

 

[wand3r3r]

This 670 PE card will do +50MHz core (1240 boosted and is about the max stable in 3Dmark) and +250 memory (not max yet - or actually I haven't tried higher yet).

I am using MSI Afterburner/Rivatuner 2.2.4 and Nvidia drivers 306.97.

Any more core MHz and it will crash 3D mark.

Attempting to add more voltage (it's visible in AB) +100 vcore, and + 30 vmemory with +10 vaux voltages doesn't do anything! I can't even raise the core +16 MHz more then without the voltage boost (67MHz above the default 670 PE speed ~1267MHz crashes). I think I need to check into the LN2 Bios stuff, and enable it if possible as in the Lightning.

It appears that the voltage doesn't change, or the core is simply at it's absolute limit which seems odd. The temps remain in the lower 60's.

When I was overclocking the 680 lightning it made a big difference adding the 100 vcore and went to about 1400MHz.

 

[zaydq]

Its a shame that Nvidia put the lockdown on raising the vcore, cards like the PE and lightning won't reach the heights MSI intended them to reach.

 

[stahlhart]

Attempting to add more voltage (it's visible in AB) +100 vcore, and + 30 vmemory with +10 vaux voltages doesn't do anything! I can't even raise the core +16 MHz more then without the voltage boost (67MHz above the default 670 PE speed ~1267MHz crashes). I think I need to check into the LN2 Bios stuff, and enable it if possible as in the Lightning.

It appears that the voltage doesn't change, or the core is simply at it's absolute limit which seems odd. The temps remain in the lower 60's.

When I was overclocking the 680 lightning it made a big difference adding the 100 vcore and went to about 1400MHz.

Have you tried w/2.2.3?

 

[wand3r3r]

Have you tried w/2.2.3?

I haven't yet. I'm just giving BL2 a little run and the fps are high as expected (so far only in single player). I'll have to go coop and join with 3 others and see the minimums.

I just find it odd that the voltage adjustment is adjustable but doesn't do anything.

When I was ocing the lightning I had 2.2.3 and now at some point I updated to 2.2.4 but I can't remember if I used 2.2.4 at all with the 680 lightnings LN2.

 

[tviceman]

I haven't yet. I'm just giving BL2 a little run and the fps are high as expected (so far only in single player). I'll have to go coop and join with 3 others and see the minimums.

I just find it odd that the voltage adjustment is adjustable but doesn't do anything.

When I was ocing the lightning I had 2.2.3 and now at some point I updated to 2.2.4 but I can't remember if I used 2.2.4 at all with the 680 lightnings LN2.

If you are using 2.2.4 there is a file setting you have to edit to allow voltage control to work.

 

[tviceman]

My two just arrived yesterday -- I'm seeing 1254 and 1241 out of the box. Just for grins I went with tviceman's VRAM overclock, and everything's running stable so far. Might not even bother with overvolting.

That is a great auto overclock, you don't have to overvolt. You just won't notice the gains. A good program (believe it or not) to test the vram stability is crysis 2. If you have it, google a search for the crysis 2 benchmark utility, and run 5-6 loops at the settings you would normally play at. I found instability with my initial vram overclock in Crysis that I could get away with in Heaven 3.0.

 

[stahlhart]

That is a great auto overclock, you don't have to overvolt. You just won't notice the gains. A good program (believe it or not) to test the vram stability is crysis 2. If you have it, google a search for the crysis 2 benchmark utility, and run 5-6 loops at the settings you would normally play at. I found instability with my initial vram overclock in Crysis that I could get away with in Heaven 3.0.

I do have it, and appreciate the suggestion; thanks -- I just got the MalDoHD beta a couple of nights ago, so now I have a reason to get that installed.

I think my approach will pretty much be the same as yours -- just find a stable memory clock and leave it at that. I was really happy that I got two cards that close together for the core clocks.

 

[wand3r3r]

I found some odd results, using Afterburner 2.2.3 and the latest nv drivers 306.97.

Firstly, I don't know if the 670 needs a LN2 BIOS to overvolt.

Overclocking tests with and without overvolting.

MSI GTX 670 PE

Test1:
core voltage + 100 (mV?)
core clock + ~72MHz

Test2:
core voltage + 100 (mV?)
core clock + ~102MHz

Test3
core voltage default.
core clock + ~50MHz

All had the memory at ~3250 = 6500MHz

Check out the results.

Running through 3DMark11 showed some strange results. Granted, this functionality may be made for some other overvolting BIOS, thus it may be failing as the BIOS isn't allowing the overvoltage, I don't know what's going on.

Boost seems to be going wild and just jumping around the whole time. The only time it was stable was when the final scene where it's spreading the use between CPU and GPU, thus is not as intense on the GPU.

I actually noticed the FPS jumping wildly during scenes where previously it was only changing a little (without overvolting).

Summary:

"Overvolting" was throttling the card pretty noticably and boost was all over the place. Granted I haven't determined if this is due to needing some special BIOS or something in the 670 PE, but there isn't the BIOS switch like in the lightning. The core clock/boost was actually lower then without trying to use overvolting.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

OP is mentioning GPU lottery.

I have an example. I ordered two ASUS GTX 670 DC II 'non TOP' from the same webshop. My upper card will easily do over 1300MHz on the GPU, whilst my lower card have trouble even hitting a stable 1124MHz. Both will do 6.8GHz on the memory.

Now, imagine if you got a MSI PE GTX 670 with the same GPU quality as my lower card. Even with voltage adjustments you would have a hard time reaching 1200MHz on the GPU. So really, it's all about the GPU lottery. Voltage adjustments are fine, but you also need a lucky GPU.

By the way, I don't overclock my cards for regular use. The only thing I use is a custom fanprofile in MSI afterburner to keep my upper card below 70c in the most demanding games. GTX 670 SLI is so fast I have no need for overclocking.

 

[Termie]

This isn't surprising at all. I've seen several reviews that show that adding voltage actually leads to lower overall performance even if the card hits a higher maximum speed.

Truth is Kepler isn't an overclocker's card. Lots of variation between cards and unpredictable response to voltage.

Just FYI, my FTW card doesn't clock as high as the reference card I had earlier but it uniformly performs better and holds much more stable clocks.

What were your scores for each of those 3dMark11 runs? Looks like you included a note saying it was 250 points higher without voltage.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

I guess there is a reason Nvidia have removed voltage adjustments on Kepler...

 

[wand3r3r]

This isn't surprising at all. I've seen several reviews that show that adding voltage actually leads to lower overall performance even if the card hits a higher maximum speed.

Truth is Kepler isn't an overclocker's card. Lots of variation between cards and unpredictable response to voltage.

Just FYI, my FTW card doesn't clock as high as the reference card I had earlier but it uniformly performs better and holds much more stable clocks.

What were your scores for each of those 3dMark11 runs? Looks like you included a note saying it was 250 points higher without voltage.

I didn't record the runs with voltage, but the run without voltage was this.
Score
P9474 3DMarks
Graphics Score
9740
Physics Score
9339
Combined Score
8011

The total was ~P9250 with more voltage and 20-50MHz higher core.

(i7 980 at just over 4GHz.)

I've been planning to bench BL2 with 4 player and I've joined at least 5 games for an hour+ to record some runs, but every time I've left the game forgetting to stop the fraps benchmark so it doesn't record anything! Lol at myself. I'll get some good runs one of these days.

 

[stahlhart]

CPU is actually running at 4.6 (offset mode). The minimum FPS has me a little concerned, unless that's normal for this game.

Are there standard settings for the purposes of comparison, apart from the resolution?

 

[Sharchaster]

I wanna ask you all owner MSI 670 PE

maybe I got a bad card? I got 1299 Mhz in 3dmark 11 (core +80mV, mem and aux @ full voltage) +149 core clock and +569 memory clock...

I was running 3dmark 11 and got

P9977

Graphics Score = 10.6k
Physics score = 8600
Combined Score = 8222

my processor are i5 @4.2 ghz, and my ram running @2133 10-11-10-27

is that bad result? or I can get higher than that?

Thanks

 

[wand3r3r]

I wanna ask you all owner MSI 670 PE

maybe I got a bad card? I got 1299 Mhz in 3dmark 11 (core +80mV, mem and aux @ full voltage) +149 core clock and +569 memory clock...

I was running 3dmark 11 and got

P9977

Graphics Score = 10.6k
Physics score = 8600
Combined Score = 8222

my processor are i5 @4.2 ghz, and my ram running @2133 10-11-10-27

is that bad result? or I can get higher than that?

Thanks

As mentioned above:
P9474 3DMarks
Graphics Score: 9740
Physics Score: 9339
Combined Score: 8011
(i7 980 at just over 4GHz.)

I think your score lines up. My card OCs to ~1240ish at most without voltage, and adding voltage only makes boost go crazy despite the max temp being in the low 60's. Overvolted I get a slightly lower score even with a few MHz more core. The boost and overvoltage on these cards seems pretty poor and is hit and miss which is probably to say they just can't handle it and will likely shorten the life (NV is forcing manufacturers to prevent overvolting).

 

[The_Golden_Man]

As mentioned above:
P9474 3DMarks
Graphics Score: 9740
Physics Score: 9339
Combined Score: 8011
(i7 980 at just over 4GHz.)

I think your score lines up. My card OCs to ~1240ish at most without voltage, and adding voltage only makes boost go crazy despite the max temp being in the low 60's. Overvolted I get a slightly lower score even with a few MHz more core. The boost and overvoltage on these cards seems pretty poor and is hit and miss which is probably to say they just can't handle it and will likely shorten the life (NV is forcing manufacturers to prevent overvolting).

Obviously there are reasons Nvidia is refusing voltage manipulation of Kepler.. MSI must have implemented it fully aware of this and that it does not work well, just to up their sales.

 

[Sharchaster]

As mentioned above:
P9474 3DMarks
Graphics Score: 9740
Physics Score: 9339
Combined Score: 8011
(i7 980 at just over 4GHz.)

I think your score lines up. My card OCs to ~1240ish at most without voltage, and adding voltage only makes boost go crazy despite the max temp being in the low 60's. Overvolted I get a slightly lower score even with a few MHz more core. The boost and overvoltage on these cards seems pretty poor and is hit and miss which is probably to say they just can't handle it and will likely shorten the life (NV is forcing manufacturers to prevent overvolting).

hmmm, maybe I am the only one who got a lower boost clock...., because during gaming, I only get an 1150 Mhz (boost included)..., which makes me think, that maybe I got the bad card. :| because a lot of people can get much higher boost clock from what I've see and heard.

for make sure, 30 minutes ago, I was testing my card (again), and I can get 1325 Mhz (with offset core clock +176 and add +640 on memory @full voltage)...which makes me think 1150 + 176 = 1326 (1325 according to afterburner), is my calculation are true?

I got on 3dmark 11

P10087

Graphics Score = 10605
Physics Score = 8929
Combined Score = 8610

second, how can I raise the physics score? at 9000 at least? I overclock my processor @4.4 ghz now, but just a little bit help.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

hmmm, maybe I am the only one who got a lower boost clock...., because during gaming, I only get an 1150 Mhz (boost included)..., which makes me think, that maybe I got the bad card. :| because a lot of people can get much higher boost clock from what I've see and heard.

for make sure, 30 minutes ago, I was testing my card (again), and I can get 1325 Mhz (with offset core clock +176 and add +640 on memory @full voltage)...which makes me think 1150 + 176 = 1326 (1325 according to afterburner), is my calculation are true?

I got on 3dmark 11

P10087

Graphics Score = 10605
Physics Score = 8929
Combined Score = 8610

second, how can I raise the physics score? at 9000 at least? I overclock my processor @4.4 ghz now, but just a little bit help.

1150MHz boost is actually pretty good. My two ASUS GTX 670 DC II 'Non TOP' have a stock Kepler boost of - Card 1: 1124MHz and Card 2: 1084MHz. Card 1 overclocks to over 1300MHz boost, while card 2 can only hit about 1124MHz. Both will do about 6.8GHz on the mem.

 

[wand3r3r]

hmmm, maybe I am the only one who got a lower boost clock...., because during gaming, I only get an 1150 Mhz (boost included)..., which makes me think, that maybe I got the bad card. :| because a lot of people can get much higher boost clock from what I've see and heard.

for make sure, 30 minutes ago, I was testing my card (again), and I can get 1325 Mhz (with offset core clock +176 and add +640 on memory @full voltage)...which makes me think 1150 + 176 = 1326 (1325 according to afterburner), is my calculation are true?

I got on 3dmark 11

P10087

Graphics Score = 10605
Physics Score = 8929
Combined Score = 8610

second, how can I raise the physics score? at 9000 at least? I overclock my processor @4.4 ghz now, but just a little bit help.

My stock 670 PE is under 1200 @stock with boost. It takes +50 core to hit ~1240 boost.

If you want faster physics it's tied to your CPU. Overclock or upgrade if you really care.

 

[wand3r3r]

Obviously there are reasons Nvidia is refusing voltage manipulation of Kepler.. MSI must have implemented it fully aware of this and that it does not work well, just to up their sales.

Well I believe they are becoming more aware over time, NV only really locked down on the overvoltage thing recently. They never allowed it, but now in September or so they forced EVGA and MSI to quit or they won't warranty the chips. That indicates to me at least that the chips are failing, or they have tested the theoretical limits longer now and see higher risks. There is the other side too, 670's can reach / surpass stock 680's quite easily so they may just be protecting those sales, or a combination of both factors.

Anyways, it's a chip lottery. I'm satisfied with the PE in comparison to other 670's. You get at least 100MHz over reference and likely more. (price/performance vs. AMD etc. is a whole other topic)

 

[stahlhart]

With SLI disabled, stock core, memory +564:

P9890 3DMarks
Graphics Score 10007
Physics Score 10873
Combined Score 8086

(assuming the second card bumped the PhysX score)