*GTX 260/280 Unofficial TPU! Thread*

[Irish_PXzyan]

OK thanks! I will do that instead!

[ZenZimZaliben]

So I installed my new Radiators in hopes of gaining more outa my GTX280. Unfortunately it did not have the effect I hoped for. Temps did not drop more then a couple of degrees. What it did do was allow me to run my watercooling system at a much lower dB level. I can hardly hear it now. But as of yet no real gains on the GPU OC, I think I have hit the MAX oc on this card with out going to phase or peltier cooling, which im not doing. Now I guess I should focus on the CPU/NB.

I also attempted to remove the IHS. But because I used epoxy on all the Ramsinks I can not remove them and I have no room to slide the razor in. So this card is pretty much as high as it will go I think.

I am going to try that software that "may" allow a higher voltage level.

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by ZenZimZaliben

So I installed my new Radiators in hopes of gaining more outa my GTX280. Unfortunately it did not have the effect I hoped for. Temps did not drop more then a couple of degrees. What it did do was allow me to run my watercooling system at a much lower dB level. I can hardly hear it now. But as of yet no real gains on the GPU OC, I think I have hit the MAX oc on this card with out going to phase or peltier cooling, which im not doing. Now I guess I should focus on the CPU/NB.

Those are still some mighty fine clocks for a GTX280.

And on the lower noise WC solution. That is the main reason I wateercooled in the first place. Quieter system... OC was a bonus.

[Cold Storm]

Man, I know your feeling on sound and the water loop. I changed out to 37db fans, and now I can't really hear it. I should be able to this weekend be able to fully shut the case, and just have to mod it for my switches..
Glad it worked... some what, fort ya.

[Tatty_One]

Originally Posted by ZenZimZaliben

So I installed my new Radiators in hopes of gaining more outa my GTX280. Unfortunately it did not have the effect I hoped for. Temps did not drop more then a couple of degrees. What it did do was allow me to run my watercooling system at a much lower dB level. I can hardly hear it now. But as of yet no real gains on the GPU OC, I think I have hit the MAX oc on this card with out going to phase or peltier cooling, which im not doing. Now I guess I should focus on the CPU/NB.

I also attempted to remove the IHS. But because I used epoxy on all the Ramsinks I can not remove them and I have no room to slide the razor in. So this card is pretty much as high as it will go I think.

I am going to try that software that "may" allow a higher voltage level.

Bah, I dont think it does, well unless the 280 hardware is so limited but no matter how much "so called" voltage I put thru her, I cannot jump to the next incremental step, this is the max I can get in ALL apps 100% stable, whether it be a variety of games, Furmark, Vantage, 2006 etc, I can go higher in some games but not across the board and thats what counts for me.....nothing voltage wise gives me any performance improvement over the stock 1.18v which I find strange........ dont like this card, think it's gonna have to go

[ZenZimZaliben]

Originally Posted by Tatty_One

Bah, I dont think it does, well unless the 280 hardware is so limited but no matter how much "so called" voltage I put thru her, I cannot jump to the next incremental step, this is the max I can get in ALL apps 100% stable, whether it be a variety of games, Furmark, Vantage, 2006 etc, I can go higher in some games but not across the board and thats what counts for me.....nothing voltage wise gives me any performance improvement over the stock 1.18v which I find strange........ dont like this card, think it's gonna have to go

Thats what I fear. I can hit the next level, 783/1566, but it artifacts immediately in ATITool. So it looks like 756/1512 is it for this card, not bad, just sucks I can get to the next shader level and not quite make it 24/7 stable. Hopefully mine will respond better to extra voltage, but I am doubting it.

I am suprised about your ram though, it should be able to do 1300Mhz with ease.

[Cold Storm]

I'll have to try going to 783/1566.. I've gotten it stable to run benches at 756/1512. Bad thing is.. If I go above 3.5 on my CPU, I get lower benches for Vantage.. But, I can get over 40k on the CPU.

[ZenZimZaliben]

Holly crap. I just did this for my card, and raised the voltage to 1.24 and it worked!! Well so far. I am able to run at the next level with no artifacts in the 3d test with atitool. Which i couldnt do at all before it without instant artifacts.

http://www.ocxtreme.org/forumenus/showthread.php?t=4427

http://www.omega-art.com/logic/tut/dec2hex.html

[dadi_oh]

Originally Posted by ZenZimZaliben

Holly crap. I just did this for my card, and raised the voltage to 1.24 and it worked!! Well so far. I am able to run at the next level with no artifacts in the 3d test with atitool. Which i couldnt do at all before it without instant artifacts.

http://www.ocxtreme.org/forumenus/showthread.php?t=4427

http://www.omega-art.com/logic/tut/dec2hex.html

Wow. Keep us posted. I wasn't going to bother with this since raising my voltage in the BIOS to 1.18V resulted in black screens when entering 3D. I assume some sort of voltage protection. Might try the 1.24V on my GTX260 to see what happens. I am under water so temps shouldn't be an issue.

[trt740]

Originally Posted by Tatty_One

Bah, I dont think it does, well unless the 280 hardware is so limited but no matter how much "so called" voltage I put thru her, I cannot jump to the next incremental step, this is the max I can get in ALL apps 100% stable, whether it be a variety of games, Furmark, Vantage, 2006 etc, I can go higher in some games but not across the board and thats what counts for me.....nothing voltage wise gives me any performance improvement over the stock 1.18v which I find strange........ dont like this card, think it's gonna have to go

I got my 285 gtx today and it has some serious overclocking ram, however, my 280gtx core went a lot higher, but it seems the 285's shaders go alot higher. Also this bad boy need some voltage, because heat is not a issue here.

[kid41212003]

What kind of temp do you get at stock clock?

[ZenZimZaliben]

Very nice. Finally above 22K. That command line voltage mod works.

[Fitseries3]

after 2 days of playing with this 55nm 260 i have come to the conclusion that it is shit for OCing.

there is no voltage control at all. not through bios or from evga's voltage tool.

i would trade it straight up for a 192 card in a heartbeat.

[Binge]

Originally Posted by Fitseries3

after 2 days of playing with this 55nm 260 i have come to the conclusion that it is shit for OCing.

there is no voltage control at all. not through bios or from evga's voltage tool.

i would trade it straight up for a 192 card in a heartbeat.

I've got an EVGA 192 just chillin out.

[Tatty_One]

Originally Posted by ZenZimZaliben

Thats what I fear. I can hit the next level, 783/1566, but it artifacts immediately in ATITool. So it looks like 756/1512 is it for this card, not bad, just sucks I can get to the next shader level and not quite make it 24/7 stable. Hopefully mine will respond better to extra voltage, but I am doubting it.

I am suprised about your ram though, it should be able to do 1300Mhz with ease.

Sorry, that screenie I posted was misleading, thats not a full ram overclock, just kept it low so it didnt become a factor.

[Tatty_One]

Lol, I just figured why in my recent runs at the same CPU speed and system/ram settings I was getting a huge decrease in CPU score in 2006 against my earlier runs with my old 260....... Duh the old runs were with Windows XP, I am running Vista now! Damn thats some serious difference, well over 1000 CPU points, makes me almost wanna go back to XP on my 2nd drive but sadly i can be bothered, I have the 2 drives set up real nice now, both with Vista and Vista dont like being overwritten by XP and I really cant afford to re-format.

[Cold Storm]

Originally Posted by Tatty_One

Lol, I just figured why in my recent runs at the same CPU speed and system/ram settings I was getting a huge decrease in CPU score in 2006 against my earlier runs with my old 260....... Duh the old runs were with Windows XP, I am running Vista now! Damn thats some serious difference, well over 1000 CPU points, makes me almost wanna go back to XP on my 2nd drive but sadly i can be bothered, I have the 2 drives set up real nice now, both with Vista and Vista dont like being overwritten by XP and I really cant afford to re-format.

Well, it looks like you get to try and talk the wife into letting you spend some money for another drive!!!

Wish you the best at talking her into it!

[OnBoard]

Originally Posted by Tatty_One

Lol, I just figured why in my recent runs at the same CPU speed and system/ram settings I was getting a huge decrease in CPU score in 2006 against my earlier runs with my old 260....... Duh the old runs were with Windows XP, I am running Vista now! Damn thats some serious difference, well over 1000 CPU points, makes me almost wanna go back to XP on my 2nd drive but sadly i can be bothered, I have the 2 drives set up real nice now, both with Vista and Vista dont like being overwritten by XP and I really cant afford to re-format.

You sure there isn't something funny going on with your system? These are my scores when I went Vista:

XP
Inno3D 8800GT 169.06 600/1500/900 C2D E4300 FSB333 3000mhz 833mhz 5-5-5-12
3dmark06: 11289 (SM2.0: 5256 SM3.0: 5042 cpu: 2661)

Vista
Inno3D 8800GT 169.25 600/1500/900 C2D E4300 FSB333 3000mhz 833mhz 5-5-5-12
3dmark06: 10902 (SM2.0: 5063 SM3.0: 4876 cpu: 2574)

Yep it's a drop but nowhere near what you get even when doupling the CPU score for Quad.

[Tatty_One]

Originally Posted by OnBoard

You sure there isn't something funny going on with your system? These are my scores when I went Vista:

XP
Inno3D 8800GT 169.06 600/1500/900 C2D E4300 FSB333 3000mhz 833mhz 5-5-5-12
3dmark06: 11289 (SM2.0: 5256 SM3.0: 5042 cpu: 2661)

Vista
Inno3D 8800GT 169.25 600/1500/900 C2D E4300 FSB333 3000mhz 833mhz 5-5-5-12
3dmark06: 10902 (SM2.0: 5063 SM3.0: 4876 cpu: 2574)

Yep it's a drop but nowhere near what you get even when doupling the CPU score for Quad.

Possibly but I cant see what else it could be, the overclock profile in my BIOS for 4.4gig is saved so all the settings will be identical, no other significant new programmes running, the only change is that I have a Xifi Elite Pro now with the Big I/O box on the desktop which is an additional power draz as it requires a floppy power cable into the card to crank it up, however with the full Xifi suite there are an additional 4 processes running in task manager and 2 of them will not end./close, even thru control panel.

[OnBoard]

Updated chipset driver lately? Don't have that many ideas either, unless there is more than a few% of CPU load, tasks shouldn't matter. Although I'm no hardcore bencher, mIRC, antivirus and browser open in most of my bences (oh and no fresh boots, could be two weeks of uptime )

[_jM]

Well guys I just wanted to pop in and say that I am a very proud owner of a BFG GTX 260 OC edition (216 model). Traded in my Visiontek HD 4870 for it and I am amazed at the performance this card has to offer. I even have it overclocked to the XFX Black edition speeds from 590Mhz to 666Mhz I even noticed that the HS is pretty good for a stock cooler, this is the first card I have ever owned with out taking off the stock bullshit cooler and adding a aftermarket one. It idle's around 35c-42c load temps are anywhere between 55c-65c (depending on what bench im running or what game im playing at the moment) Needless to say I am very happy with this card and now I see why the GTX 200 series cards are so popular. That Vtek 4870 had no temp sensor or any fan control on it. The wire from the fan has three wires (one is for fan control) but when I took the plug out the connector on the card itself only had 2 pins instead of three. Damn thing kept crashing ever 5 minutes or so... GO Nvidia


Quick edit... What is the best driver out right now for these cards.. I have 182... but I also have 181 and 180 if I feel that I need to go back to a previous driver. I know that you guys have figured out what driver is the best for performance, so please reply in a timely fashion. Thanks all feedback is greatly appreciated !

Here's some proof .. a little screenie of GPU-Z

[Kursah]

I keep 180.48's in the download folder for stability, but the current WHQL 182.06 work quite well and give pretty damn good performance, so I'm planning to stick with them. Nice OC's btw, that memory can go quite far, I run mine at 1200 (1188 detected by Rivatuner/Precision), but it's not very necessary, probably helps a little, but I've yet to have an issue at those speeds on any GTX260 I've owned or oc'd.

You should get the GPU2 Folding client going, my card runs around 55-60C when folding, but it get's around 6.5-8.2kPPD depending on WU's.

A little fyi, to see your true clocks, open up Rivatuner or Precision that detects hardware clocks, the driver-level that GPU-z detects may be incorrect depending on how close you are to reaching the next clock "step", these cards OC in increments of around 15-20Mhz iirc. It's been a while since I've messed with my clocks on my GTX, I run 666/1458 1188, set the fan at 75% and enjoy gaming! Glad to see your card is treating you well!

[trt740]

Originally Posted by Cold Storm

Well, it looks like you get to try and talk the wife into letting you spend some money for another drive!!!

Wish you the best at talking her into it!

I agree hes rich spend it ya old monkey.

[_jM]

Originally Posted by Kursah

I keep 180.48's in the download folder for stability, but the current WHQL 182.06 work quite well and give pretty damn good performance, so I'm planning to stick with them. Nice OC's btw, that memory can go quite far, I run mine at 1200 (1188 detected by Rivatuner/Precision), but it's not very necessary, probably helps a little, but I've yet to have an issue at those speeds on any GTX260 I've owned or oc'd.

You should get the GPU2 Folding client going, my card runs around 55-60C when folding, but it get's around 6.5-8.2kPPD depending on WU's.

A little fyi, to see your true clocks, open up Rivatuner or Precision that detects hardware clocks, the driver-level that GPU-z detects may be incorrect depending on how close you are to reaching the next clock "step", these cards OC in increments of around 15-20Mhz iirc. It's been a while since I've messed with my clocks on my GTX, I run 666/1458 1188, set the fan at 75% and enjoy gaming! Glad to see your card is treating you well!

Yea .. I just got back to folding last nite. I usually do all my folding when I go to bed or im at work. When folding my card runs the same temps.. round 60c . I use EVGA Precision Tool to OC my card also. Seems to be the best and its pretty much noob proof if you know what i mean. This is pretty much the 1st real Nvida card I've ever owned.. I've been using ATi since my first PC witch had a Radeon 9800XT in it. So im pretty much a noob to the whole nvida gig and OCing. Im still tinkering with my OC and fine tuning atm. But the performance at stock is really nice. At the stock clocks, this card beat my 4870 in 3DMark 06 by a good 600 marks and I had the 4870 OC'd to its limits (well OC'd enough for stock cooling) So yea!, Im really happy with my switch over to the GTX 260

[Tatty_One]

Originally Posted by trt740

I agree hes rich spend it ya old monkey.

Lol..... Sadly "rich" dont count for much with the wife, she sees PC's as pure folly, however, I have got her to agree a full system upgrade so in a few weeks I will be selling my CPU, memory, Mobo and case and either going AM3 or i7, I quite fancy going back to "noob" status with a completely new setup and learning to overclock again.