unimpressed by Gigabyte GTX670 overclocking

[soccerballtux]

1. Max voltage is 1.175v (the silicon could go way higher),
2. The card seems to be thermally throttling itself at 55C,
3. and I can't even give it +80mhz core in EVGA PrecisionX without artifacting and the display driver crashing.

Mainly #2. I plan to get around #1 with a DIP switch hard mod, which should fix #1.

I'm routinely dropping below 60fps in Tribes: Ascend all settings on high, AA off, and 4xAF. Guess I was expecting a lot more from my upgrade. Coming from a 4890.

It feels like the card is being artificially limited. The Windforce cooler could dissipate gobs more heat, why am I thermally restricted? I want to max out this bad boy to 80C at 1.3v.

 

[Jaydip]

1. Max voltage is 1.175v (the silicon could go way higher),
2. The card seems to be thermally throttling itself at 55C,
3. and I can't even give it +80mhz core in EVGA PrecisionX without artifacting and the display driver crashing.

Mainly #2. I plan to get around #1 with a DIP switch hard mod, which should fix #1.

I'm routinely dropping below 60fps in Tribes: Ascend all settings on high, AA off, and 4xAF. Guess I was expecting a lot more from my upgrade. Coming from a 4890.

It feels like the card is being artificially limited. The Windforce cooler could dissipate gobs more heat, why am I thermally restricted?

What is ur power target?Can u use GPU Tweak?

 

[Zanovar]

My stock boost is 1176,max stable overclock with offset +55 1231,this baby needs more juice

 

[soccerballtux]

What is ur power target?Can u use GPU Tweak?

GPU Tweak crashed.
Set power target to 111%, max.

The card is definitely capable of more frequencies, especially when during gaming I'm only at 40% of TDP.

I think I'm going to look into hard modding the voltage. Frequency should definitely be able to go above only +30mhz.
Also I found that setting the driver to "maximum performance" eliminates a lot of the voltage and frequency hopping, and improved stability.

 

[soccerballtux]

where was that volt mod someone did?

 

[soccerballtux]

found it: http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1682

I'll be doing this later this weekend I think.

 

[lavaheadache]

1. Max voltage is 1.175v (the silicon could go way higher),
2. The card seems to be thermally throttling itself at 55C,
3. and I can't even give it +80mhz core in EVGA PrecisionX without artifacting and the display driver crashing.

Mainly #2. I plan to get around #1 with a DIP switch hard mod, which should fix #1.

I'm routinely dropping below 60fps in Tribes: Ascend all settings on high, AA off, and 4xAF. Guess I was expecting a lot more from my upgrade. Coming from a 4890.

It feels like the card is being artificially limited. The Windforce cooler could dissipate gobs more heat, why am I thermally restricted? I want to max out this bad boy to 80C at 1.3v.

Thermal throttling is part of how gpu boost works. As temp and tdp climb clockspeeds boost less. It is incentive to run higher fan speeds than needed to keep below thermal boost level increments.

 

[N4n45h1]

Without using the voltage changer and only with power target set to 111%, I'm able to do +140 MHz stable.

I guess it's just luck of the draw? Although mine does not seem to throttle at 55C. I seem to be able to hold a steady temperature of around 62C during load.

 

[Don Karnage]

Silicone lottery

 

[Meaker10]

Silicone lottery

I am trying to imagine that lol. Maybe those women who got those bad implants?

 

[Grooveriding]

This generation from nvidia in GK104 - 680/670 - are super underwhelming on the overclock front. Apart from a few cherry picked review site's samples you see posted, they are nothing special.

Plus no voltage adjustment = pure fail.

 

[Smoblikat]

I would never get a GPU where i cant simply adjust the core. Having to deal with +this of +that and thermal throttling sucks, i want t be able to set my card to XXX mhz and have it burn itself to death in the process due to my stupidity, its like they are bringing liberalism to graphics cards . noone is smart enough to handle their own buisness so they take care of it for you.

 

[BD231]

I would never get a GPU where i cant simply adjust the core. Having to deal with +this of +that and thermal throttling sucks, i want t be able to set my card to XXX mhz and have it burn itself to death in the process due to my stupidity, its like they are bringing liberalism to graphics cards . noone is smart enough to handle their own buisness so they take care of it for you.

MSI hawk gtx 460/560's were hitting something close to a ghz, almost matching their top teir 4xx gen gpu's in performance and the only thing holding them back was frame buffer. Now that 1gb cards are not optimal for quite a few popular titles they had to insert a new " clock block ".

 

[cmdrdredd]

Um...I dunno cause my GTX 670 is boosting to 1250(boost clock is 1165) TDP is +145%(this is the EVGA FTW's TDP limit), memory is at 6.8Ghz. Can probably get more out of the memory. The boost clock is about at the max edge cause a few more and it starts acting up.

Also my card runs 1240-1250Mhz until above 70c then it runs around 1230 or so... It has never gone above 70c in any games or benchmarks that mean anything. In furmark and stress testers it will heat up a bit, but it's never above what I'd consider a good range.

 

[Tempered81]

I would never get a GPU where i cant simply adjust the core. Having to deal with +this of +that and thermal throttling sucks

Plus no voltage adjustment = pure fail.

I can't help but think how awesome a robust GK104 would be with fully accessible voltage control to 1.3-~1.4v range (or even imagine a GK110 with that - WOWWEEEWEEEWOW!) GK104 would be capable of 1300-1450+ boost clocks and make more appealing than it already is. They settled on "just good enough" though, and kept it at a pre-defined range by locking the voltage on us. It takes one heck of a good clocking 7970 to tie a ~1250 boosted GK104.

I like the 670 though, good card for the $399 price considering its capability compared to 680/7970/7950. Just avoid that cheap tiny pcb that got recalled.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I can't help but think how awesome a robust GK104 would be with fully accessible voltage control to 1.3-~1.4v range (or even imagine a GK110 with that - WOWWEEEWEEEWOW!) GK104 would be capable of 1300-1450+ boost clocks and make more appealing than it already is. They settled on "just good enough" though, and kept it at a pre-defined range by locking the voltage on us. It takes one heck of a good clocking 7970 to tie a ~1250 boosted GK104.

I like the 670 though, good card for the $399 price considering its capability compared to 680/7970/7950. Just avoid that cheap tiny pcb that got recalled.

For the record, the reference design did not get recalled. EVGA has voluntarily went ahead and pulled stock of the SC cards and will replenish with a fixed version. It's isolated to one card from one brand. EVGA SC. Not the entire GTX 670 line.

 

[WMD]

1. Max voltage is 1.175v (the silicon could go way higher),
2. The card seems to be thermally throttling itself at 55C,
3. and I can't even give it +80mhz core in EVGA PrecisionX without artifacting and the display driver crashing.

Mainly #2. I plan to get around #1 with a DIP switch hard mod, which should fix #1.

I'm routinely dropping below 60fps in Tribes: Ascend all settings on high, AA off, and 4xAF. Guess I was expecting a lot more from my upgrade. Coming from a 4890.

It feels like the card is being artificially limited. The Windforce cooler could dissipate gobs more heat, why am I thermally restricted? I want to max out this bad boy to 80C at 1.3v.

Looks like protection measures in place to prevent users damaging the chip from high voltage/ temps. Kepler chips at 28nm may not be as durable to voltage as previous gen chips at 40nm.

Even a gtx570 will be a huge gain from your 4890. Dipping below 60fps could be your cpu limiting the card. Go check gpu usage if you are not getting a constant 99%, then you need to worry else where other than the gtx670 itself.

 

[exar333]

I can't help but think how awesome a robust GK104 would be with fully accessible voltage control to 1.3-~1.4v range (or even imagine a GK110 with that - WOWWEEEWEEEWOW!) GK104 would be capable of 1300-1450+ boost clocks and make more appealing than it already is. They settled on "just good enough" though, and kept it at a pre-defined range by locking the voltage on us. It takes one heck of a good clocking 7970 to tie a ~1250 boosted GK104.

I like the 670 though, good card for the $399 price considering its capability compared to 680/7970/7950. Just avoid that cheap tiny pcb that got recalled.

I really don't know if that would be helpful. Most GK104s seem to hit a freq wall that voltage really isn't helping with. My 670 still runs very cool up to max speed, and then just hits a wall. I am running at stock voltage at ~20% overclock and even upping the voltage to max makes no difference, not even 1-2mhz. I think you could maybe get some more out of these with insane voltage, but cooling it would be beyond even an above-average WC setup.

Edit: I agree with the 'silicon lottery' comment. These chips will OC as well as the core allows, and voltage may or may not even factor-in if your core has a hard-limit.

 

[soccerballtux]

Thermal throttling is part of how gpu boost works. As temp and tdp climb clockspeeds boost less. It is incentive to run higher fan speeds than needed to keep below thermal boost level increments.

sorry I take back what I said. I don't think thermal throttling is occurring, I'm nowhere near the TDP limit. I think the driver things the core isn't being used enough and is clocking down..

 

[soccerballtux]

Without using the voltage changer and only with power target set to 111%, I'm able to do +140 MHz stable.

I guess it's just luck of the draw? Although mine does not seem to throttle at 55C. I seem to be able to hold a steady temperature of around 62C during load.

is that with or without boost?
+140 before boost puts me ~1230mhz after boost. Maybe that's not so bad. ?
At any rate it looks like at 1.3v you can get ~1300-1400mhz. I guess that's what I'm going for.

 

[soccerballtux]

MSI hawk gtx 460/560's were hitting something close to a ghz, almost matching their top teir 4xx gen gpu's in performance and the only thing holding them back was frame buffer. Now that 1gb cards are not optimal for quite a few popular titles they had to insert a new " clock block ".

lol

 

[soccerballtux]

I really don't know if that would be helpful. Most GK104s seem to hit a freq wall that voltage really isn't helping with. My 670 still runs very cool up to max speed, and then just hits a wall. I am running at stock voltage at ~20% overclock and even upping the voltage to max makes no difference, not even 1-2mhz. I think you could maybe get some more out of these with insane voltage, but cooling it would be beyond even an above-average WC setup.

Edit: I agree with the 'silicon lottery' comment. These chips will OC as well as the core allows, and voltage may or may not even factor-in if your core has a hard-limit.

I think it's more that the voltage limit means a little less this generation with the boosting, and the fancy power adjustment features.
This generation feels like Nvidia is limiting the overclocking. Every card goes to "111%" (whatever that means) on TDP, an artificial constraint that shouldn't exist-- it should simply be voltage adjustment and heatsink dissipation. That people are hitting ~1350 on air at 1.3v (a reasonable voltage IMO) tells us these cards have a lot extra to give...

 

[The|Hunter]

Did you try to OC with MSI afterburner, i heard PrecisionX can be buggy and yeah crashing the driver..

Also try prefer max performance (per game profile) instead of adaptive, to prevent downclocking in certain games.

 

[N4n45h1]

is that with or without boost?
+140 before boost puts me ~1230mhz after boost. Maybe that's not so bad. ?
At any rate it looks like at 1.3v you can get ~1300-1400mhz. I guess that's what I'm going for.

That's with boost, so I'm getting 1342 MHz with boost.

My stock boost was 1202 MHz, similar to anonymouscrayon in the GTX 670 Windforce Owner's Club. I haven't tried stretching it any further though, but I guess that will have to wait until after Memorial weekend, so that I'm back at my apartment.

 

[blackened23]

This generation from nvidia in GK104 - 680/670 - are super underwhelming on the overclock front. Apart from a few cherry picked review site's samples you see posted, they are nothing special.

Plus no voltage adjustment = pure fail.

I don't like it either. Even worse is that all GK104 drivers cause the chip to throttle in 14mhz increments and 10-15mV voltage increments at 70C. So have to use manual fan speeds at ridiculously high levels just to prevent the 70C throttle on reference cards, why? Who knows. I'd like to have control over this, I don't want my cards to throttle at 70C, I think its ridiculous.

GPU boost is a good concept for the average joe, but I would like the ability to just override all of the throttling mechanisms....I'm tempted to go water just to avoid the 70C throttle zone, which is pretty stupid. 70C? Who thought that was a good target? 80C would be more sensible IMO. I mean, there's a LOT to like about the GTX 680 - the nvidia software ecosystem, all of the features new to the GTX 680, and good efficiency. But I really hate the OC limitations forced down our throats.

By the way groove, do you have both your CPU and GPU's on the same rad? Do you have an internal or external rad? I'm thinking of going water for the first time....