Overclocking of GTX 9xx series

[RejZoR]

Mine had a very weird power delivery for one of the external PCIe power connectors. One was 160W and the other one was around 80W. Where most BIOS-es and guides I've seen had equal value on both connectors. Now I have 2x 150W on external power plugs and 300W on the total power limit. Same 300W on TDP limit. Didn't change the voltages at all.

 

[basco]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/...ns-h2o-and-air-custom-bios/2990#post_23498416

 

[Vellinious]

Mine had a very weird power delivery for one of the external PCIe power connectors. One was 160W and the other one was around 80W. Where most BIOS-es and guides I've seen had equal value on both connectors. Now I have 2x 150W on external power plugs and 300W on the total power limit. Same 300W on TDP limit. Didn't change the voltages at all.

There are usually 3 slots. One for each of the 8 / 6 pins, and one for the PCIe slot. The PCIe slot is very likely 3rd table down, and the max on that table is probably 75000...it may already be set to 80000. The highest I've seen them set is 82000...I wouldn't go any higher than that. If you have an 8 pin, they can be set to 175000, and the 6 pins...I usually would max those out at 150000. Technically, the should be able to pull as much power as the 8 pin, but with 2 less ground wires.....eh, don't think I would.

Depending on how much you're overclocking it, but, if you're wanting to push it hard, I'd get the power limits as high as I could (380 watts on TDP and max power limit). Microsecond spikes in the power usage give Maxwell power limits in the bios fits, and many times are the culprit for bad performance and small stutters in clock speeds.

As for voltage....you have a STRIX. Changing the voltage in the bios file won't do anything. Gotta find the voltage tool to unlock the voltage. The STRIX cards are all locked at 1.212v. Shamino's Lair in the KingPin forums have a TON of information on STRIX overclocking and the voltage tool, as that's the only thing that's going to get you past the 1.212v mark.

G'luck

 

[RejZoR]

Can anyone tell me what does "Fix invalid clocks" means when you right click on the "Boost table" tab clocks chart? It always seems to default to 1443 MHz no matter what I've set clocks to elsewhere which might be the reason why card goes up to max 1443 MHz no matter what. But if I fiddle with 980 HOF BIOS instead, it always resets to 1508 MHz even though I've copied every single other value into my own BIOS from it (expecting they'd then behave the same afterwards). Is there some hidden value that BIOS editor isn't reading it, but is enfocing it when using "Fix invalid clocks" thingie?

Also, is there a rule for Boost States table? It seems I have to change several values in order for card to boost to 1443 MHz (where none of them are actually 1443). If I only change P00 and P02 GPC value to max boost value and leave the rest at stock, it just doesn't boost as high even if I give it 400W of available input power. So, power delivery itself isn't the issue, it must be some sort of gap or ratio of Boost States that are limiting it somehow.

 

[Vellinious]

Can anyone tell me what does "Fix invalid clocks" means when you right click on the "Boost table" tab clocks chart? It always seems to default to 1443 MHz no matter what I've set clocks to elsewhere which might be the reason why card goes up to max 1443 MHz no matter what. But if I fiddle with 980 HOF BIOS instead, it always resets to 1508 MHz even though I've copied every single other value into my own BIOS from it (expecting they'd then behave the same afterwards). Is there some hidden value that BIOS editor isn't reading it, but is enfocing it when using "Fix invalid clocks" thingie?

Also, is there a rule for Boost States table? It seems I have to change several values in order for card to boost to 1443 MHz (where none of them are actually 1443). If I only change P00 and P02 GPC value to max boost value and leave the rest at stock, it just doesn't boost as high even if I give it 400W of available input power. So, power delivery itself isn't the issue, it must be some sort of gap or ratio of Boost States that are limiting it somehow.

Can you drop the file in google drive so I can look at it? Try to see what you're seeing?

 

[RejZoR]

Interesting. Apparently it's doing that when you're editing the BIOS. If you close the app, open modified BIOS, it stops resetting back to 1443. It seems it doesn't remember that state when you save the BIOS, you have to actualyl restart the whole BIOS editor. Just a glitch I guess.

 

[Vellinious]

Hmm. Which version are you using?

 

[RejZoR]

What do very first and very last sliders in Voltage Table mean? It doesn't have min-max sliders, it's just one slider and the "Fixed voltage" is checked and greyed out next to both. God, why this thing has to be so god damn cryptic!?

 

[Vellinious]

What do very first and very last sliders in Voltage Table mean? It doesn't have min-max sliders, it's just one slider and the "Fixed voltage" is checked and greyed out next to both. God, why this thing has to be so god damn cryptic!?

Man, Maxwell is easy....you should see the AMD GPUs bios.....lol

Post a screenshot of the voltage table / sliders you're seeing. I'm in meetings pretty much all day today, but I'll try to hop back on during a break.

 

[Vellinious]

Just to keep it simple. The 3 sliders at the top. Move all 3 of them to the max voltage you want the card to run at. On my bios versions, I found the best voltage to run on my cards was 1.275, so I set all 3 sliders at the top, to 1275. Some cards will accept up to 1.3v, but.....none of the cards I've helped with the bios, have actually seen any gains in core clock or stability at anything above 1.275.

 

[RejZoR]

It's easy to modify BIOS they said. Bullshit it is. I had to figure it out myself, the pattern no one bloody mentions anywhere. So many guides and all of them are useless guessing which is why I couldn't figure out anything.

Boost Limit slider
To get boost limit slider functional, all MAX values under Boost States tab for P00 and P02 profile have to be the same. If they are not, like on my factory GTX 980 Strix BIOS, the Boost Limit slider is greyed out in Common tab, complicating everything on the Boost States tab.

Sweetspot Voltage Step
In my case it's CLK 63. Which surprise surprise is one of the first values that has the highest MAX voltage of 1281.3 mV. All CLK's before this one have lower MAX voltages.

Boost Table Tab
Since CLK 63 is the voltage sweetspot in my case, I have to move slider so far that desired GPU clock gets aligned with 63rd position on the chart. Whatever clock I have it set there will also be reflected in the game.

Boost States P05 Profile
Keep MAX values for entire profile set to same clock as used for TDP/3D under Common tab.

Boost States P08 Profile
Do NOT change this profile as it is a fail safe profile. If shit goes south, card will downclock to these values.

I still have to figure out the role of Boost clock on Common tab. For some reason it doesn't seem to actually affect anything. It's the Boost limit that dictates mostly and what clock I align with position 63. Still more testing needed before I can fully understand things that appear to be very specific to my card.

 

[Vellinious]

It's easy to modify BIOS they said. Bullshit it is. I had to figure it out myself, the pattern no one bloody mentions anywhere. So many guides and all of them are useless guessing which is why I couldn't figure out anything.

Boost Limit slider
To get boost limit slider functional, all MAX values under Boost States tab for P00 and P02 profile have to be the same. If they are not, like on my factory GTX 980 Strix BIOS, the Boost Limit slider is greyed out in Common tab, complicating everything on the Boost States tab.

Sweetspot Voltage Step
In my case it's CLK 63. Which surprise surprise is one of the first values that has the highest MAX voltage of 1281.3 mV. All CLK's before this one have lower MAX voltages.

Boost Table Tab
Since CLK 63 is the voltage sweetspot in my case, I have to move slider so far that desired GPU clock gets aligned with 63rd position on the chart. Whatever clock I have it set there will also be reflected in the game.

Boost States P05 Profile
Keep MAX values for entire profile set to same clock as used for TDP/3D under Common tab.

Boost States P08 Profile
Do NOT change this profile as it is a fail safe profile. If shit goes south, card will downclock to these values.

I still have to figure out the role of Boost clock on Common tab. For some reason it doesn't seem to actually affect anything. It's the Boost limit that dictates mostly and what clock I align with position 63. Still more testing needed before I can fully understand things that appear to be very specific to my card.

BOOST LIMIT SLIDER: What's a boost limit slider? The clock offset? The power limit?

Sweetspot Voltage Step: If you want to get it dead nuts on, you need to set the voltages on the CLK settings....you really shouldn't be using the slider at the bottom of that page at all....ever.

Boost Table Tab: See above

Boost States P05 Profile: again....don't need to mess with this.....ever.....

Boost States P08 Profile: See above

As for the boost clock on the common tab, that's always set to the base boost clock as advertised by the manufacturer. On the EVGA 970 FTW, it's 1367 (the minimum it will run with boost). The 3D Base clock is the base clock that it will run without boost. And the TDP base clock is the generic base clock...

To disable boost, and just assign a clock for it to run at all times when it's under load, change ALL of those to whatever clock you want. OR, like I did with mine, I left the base clock alone, and assigned the 3D Base Clock and Boost Clock to 1531. So, whenever I played a game, unless I overclocked it more, it just went to 1531.

Which card is this that we're working on again? There are some things that I'd suggest, based on the model #...... I apologize if you've stated before, I get people / cards mixed up all the time. I'm old.....

 

[RejZoR]

This last advice bricked my card. Bullshit. Now I'm fucking around with a backup card, flashed it back to stock and I still can't get any image from it. Fucking hell. I don't get it why it wont work even when restored back to stock bios. it's not like i've changed any voltages, just clocks. wtf

EDIT:
Got it working with HDMI, but refuses to work with DisplayPort. What the serious fuck!?

EDIT2:
Fixed this crap by pulling a power cord of my monitor for a minute. This crap is now working. I don't know what the hell happened, but it only happened after I've tweaked the BIOS as advised by the guy above. Not cool. I've made countless tweaks myself and it never bricked itself like this.

 

[Vellinious]

This last advice bricked my card. Bullshit. Now I'm fucking around with a backup card, flashed it back to stock and I still can't get any image from it. Fucking hell. I don't get it why it wont work even when restored back to stock bios. it's not like i've changed any voltages, just clocks. wtf

EDIT:
Got it working with HDMI, but refuses to work with DisplayPort. What the serious fuck!?

EDIT2:
Fixed this crap by pulling a power cord of my monitor for a minute. This crap is now working. I don't know what the hell happened, but it only happened after I've tweaked the BIOS as advised by the guy above. Not cool. I've made countless tweaks myself and it never bricked itself like this.

Dude....you should really just let me make a bios for you. You're obviously having some issues..... My advice was that you shouldn't be messing with all the crap you're messing with, because it's gonna play hell with your GPU. So, if you're talking about MY advice....best back up and think again.


OR....go here, and have one made for you. Either way....I'm done here. lol, you obviously won't accept help.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1573308/nvidia-gtx-900-cards-custom-bios-upon-request

 

[RejZoR]

Enlighten me...

 

[Vellinious]

Enlighten me...

Is this a STRIX? I'll raise the power limits for you, but if it's a STRIX, there's nothing I can do for the voltage. Looks like a 6 pin and an 8 pin power connector?

 

[RejZoR]

Yes, it's Strix with such power configuration.

 

[Vellinious]

Ok...gave it a 300 watt TDP. I raised the PCIe slot to 75 watts at 100% and 82 watts at 109%. I raised the 6 pin to 90 watts at 100%, and 100 watts at 111%, the 8 pin I left at 150 / 160, and raised the power limit to 260 at 100% and 300 at 115%.

If there's a clock that's 100% stable for gaming, we can add that to the boost clock and the 3D base clock and it'll run there without boost 2.0 having to kick in....I personally prefer it that way. But you'll need to stress test it pretty hard to make sure it's 100% stable before setting those....

Since it's a STRIX, there's nothing in the bios that we can change to alter the voltage. They're locked at the VRM to 1.212v. There was, at one time, a voltage tool (software), that would allow for voltage adjustment on the STRIX 980 and 980ti. It was posted on the Kingpin forums for a while, but I'm not sure if it still works or not. If you want to raise the voltage, you'll have to find it.....

With these power limit settings, you shouldn't have to worry about a power limit perf cap or anything, especially with 1.212v, but.....if you're able to dig up the voltage tool, we can always raise the 6 pin up a tad more and give it some more headroom.

IF, you find the tool, and can raise the voltage, if you get to the point where it's hitting a power limit perf cap, and you can't raise it any higher, that's when it'll be time to take a look at the CLK / boost table to dial in the higher clocks so when it DOES throttle, it won't throttle so far. But...I digress. Cross that bridge if you have to. I'm willing to help walk you through that as well.

This is your original with the changes I made to the TDP and Power Limits.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6zqzZ0qTCB5VHhjZ0U0Ny0wRW8

 

[RejZoR]

Well, that's what I've been already using. It's the clocks that I want to run through boost instead through setting it as fixed 3D value. So that in case I somehow overload the graphic card, it won't just downclock to fail safe clocks of 500MHz, but would instead just gradually slightly decrease clocks to a point where it's still really fast but wouldn't totally fuck up in-game/in-app performance (like it does when it goes into fail safe and then never recovers until you restart app or system).
That's the whole reason I'm "complicating" with clocks.

 

[Vellinious]

Well, that's what I've been already using. It's the clocks that I want to run through boost instead through setting it as fixed 3D value. So that in case I somehow overload the graphic card, it won't just downclock to fail safe clocks of 500MHz, but would instead just gradually slightly decrease clocks to a point where it's still really fast but wouldn't totally fuck up in-game/in-app performance (like it does when it goes into fail safe and then never recovers until you restart app or system).
That's the whole reason I'm "complicating" with clocks.

Why would the card "overload" and down clock to 500mhz? You'll have to explain that one to me, because......I've never seen one do that. Are you talking about driver crashes because of instability in the overclock? Overheating?

 

[TheHunter]

This crap never even goes to specified boost clocks, not even for a second. At all. It just sticks to some clock half way in between. TDP and 3D clock is 1200 MHz, Boost is 1506 MHz and yet in games stay at exactly 1367 MHz no matter what. TDP and power limit were both raised from 190 and 240 respectively to 300W.

Raising Max limits also does NOTHING. It just increases the limit slider so you can drag it in MSI Afterburner higher than 125%. You have to increase Standard limit to be in effect by default.

Some games just dont need that much OC, if gpu stays bellow 50ish % it will use lower freq. since higher won't matter much. This is especially visible if playing at certain fps limit or vsync @ older games.


btw that low 500mhz clock only occurs if you have a bad gpu OC to begin with, its like a fall back gpu protection issue instead of artifacting it ti locks gpu to low 3d perf. mode. System reboot usually fixes that.. In rare cases driver reinstall.

Imo your 1500mhz wasn't stable at all, not that its gpu boost issue, some gpu's wont do 1500mhz, its not a golden rule that every Maxwell chip does 1500mhz, it can get even worse if you combine it with vram OC.

 

[Ithanul]

Yeah, and its a STRIX....sounds like what mine does when it gets pissed off when I push it to far. Piece of crap GPUs considering if it got the cooler I think it does. That cooler does not directly touch the VRMs so they do get toasty.

Mine won't do even near 1500MHz. I think I have only been lucky at getting around 1450-1470MHz range. But that with it getting super toasty with fan going 80-90%. Think it was stupid of ASUS for voltage locking them. Plus, the cooler is just crappy. Mine sounds like a killer bee attacking my computer if I even dare to put a 100% load on it.

 

[Vellinious]

Some games just dont need that much OC, if gpu stays bellow 50ish % it will use lower freq. since higher won't matter much. This is especially visible if playing at certain fps limit or vsync @ older games.


btw that low 500mhz clock only occurs if you have a bad gpu OC to begin with, its like a fall back gpu protection issue instead of artifacting it ti locks gpu to low 3d perf. mode. System reboot usually fixes that.. In rare cases driver reinstall.

Imo your 1500mhz wasn't stable at all, not that its gpu boost issue, some gpu's wont do 1500mhz, its not a golden rule that every Maxwell chip does 1500mhz, it can get even worse if you combine it with vram OC.

Interesting...I've never seen one do that. I guess I just pushed them far enough they just crashed, instead of "OMG, don't ever do that me again" throttled.

The STRIX cards, on the whole, are pretty limited because of the voltage. Without the voltage tool, (I think it was a modded version of GPU Tweak), they just don't get enough voltage to stay competitive.

 

[trog100]

i think people read shit on the internet and expect too much.. 1450 stable maybe but not 1500.. its all way over reference clocks anyway..

fishermans tales at work i think..

trog

 

[Vellinious]

i think people read shit on the internet and expect too much.. 1450 stable maybe but not 1500.. its all way over reference clocks anyway..

fishermans tales at work i think..

trog

Not really....the GM204s are pretty easy to get clocked to 1500, even on air. The STRIX are just limited in what they can do...as are some of the GALAX cards, and the early EVGA reference cards...and a few others.