Cross-flashed the cheapest (KFA2 2060) to the most powerful one!

[dabyd64]

A year and a half I bought the KFA2 rtx2060.
It's by far the cheapest 2060 ever made.

Galax RTX 2060 VBIOS

6 GB GDDR6, 1365 MHz GPU, 1750 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

But it worked well and was only 289€.
The only thing that bugged me was the power limiter, throttling the clocks down to ~1700MHz under heavy load.
I made the shunt mod, but it still limited the power!

So I started flashing bioses. Suprisingly, the most powerful vbios available worked!
The Asus Asus, ROG-STRIX-RTX2060-O6G-EVO-GAMING:

Asus RTX 2060 VBIOS

6 GB GDDR6, 1365 MHz GPU, 1750 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

Use the nvflash version with board id mismatch disabled and flash with -6.

The temps are crazy hot in OCCT benchmarks, the fan needs to be at 95%, but who cares, I'm using headphones.
The card stays at 1980-1995MHz all the time!
Also the shunts seem to work with this one, the only limiters I get are no load, voltage or temperature.
VCore is 1.04V all the time unless temps rise too much.

In-game temps are way lower, around 75°C.

 

[Shrek]

Is it worth reducing the lifetime of the card for 15%?

 

[dabyd64]

I've never damaged a card.
Since 2003 100% of my cards, CPUs, rams, have been overclocked, flashed, voltmodded and violated in all manners!
I still remember my voltmodded Radeon 9600 running at 650MHz with an Athlon XP cooler attached to it
After 3 years, I screwed that card because I hit the card by accident and snapped the wire going to the regulator, frying it.

 

[Regeneration]

How to increase power limit by BIOS crossflash

Since BIOS editing isn't possible since Maxwell. The alternative to increase power limit is to cross-flash to another BIOS with higher TDP. This method can also help with other BIOS-controlled features such as: minimum fan speed, fan stop feature, voltages, clock states, and more. However, there...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[xrror]

I killed my first GTX 970 by removing the power throttle. Was it worth it? Heck yes - that two weeks where it would actually solid run at 1500Mhz core I actually got to see what maxwell2 could do even in it's crippled form.

The real disappointment though was realizing that the days where "as long as you keep the GPU cool, pump as much voltage as it will suffer" were over, since while temps were good, I'm pretty sure it "hot spotted" itself to death. We're to the density point where you just can't get the heat out of the silicon fast enough short of per-emptive sub-ambient cooling.

So I guess, to dabyd64 - I hope your card lasts (I mean, The Asus firmware is a stock firmware, so technically it was at least considered by asus to not outright degrade) but these modern GPU's are annoyingly killable even if you keep temps decent.

That said, if it wasn't for the stupid video card market were currently in where it's impossible to replace - I'm like heck yea burn that 2060 lol - at least it probably actually performs now vs. stock.

 

[dabyd64]

Holy crap, 1500MHz?? That's crazy!
Sold my 970 after 6 years, still worked pretty well, in fact I got 150€ for it, starting the auction at 1€! Then bought the 2060.
I didn't voltmod that card, just edited the BIOS for higher clocks and fan speed.

With this 2060 the limit is 1995MHz, getting errors if I pass that.
By no way I'd volt mod it. The cooler is really cheap in this one.
I just wanted that extra oomph when needed. Strangely now I get another bottleneck, my GPU usage went from 97% to 80%, but no more FPS!
Probably my good old 3770K can't do more, 9 years running 4.44GHz on all cores 24/7!

 

[xrror]

Yea I wish I had more experience with newer cards to know where the bottleneck might be. I ran socket 1366 until finally jumping to Ryzen... which is to say I know bottlenecks and they crop up in strange places lol.

Is there any way to "help out" the stock cooling on your vid card? If you still have any sort of warranty on it you may not want to do this, but if your GPU cooler has a copper base (or at least it's not aluminum) I've had good luck using liquid metal on bare GPU dies ... which I know the rest of the internet says that's a horrible thing to do (it's a PITA, and if you get a mess it's conductive) but that can get you a pretty good drop even with the stock sink.

This would be more about maybe having the card live longer (since you're bottlenecked) but ironically, killing the card with a bad paste job would kinda suck too ;p

---

Yea the thing that amazed me with the 970 is I didn't touch the voltage - all I did was basically set the "power limit" for the PCIe 6-pin connector to something ridiculous like 500w. My thinking was "I'll just let it drink what it wants from the well" and apparently she'll drink 'till she's dead.

The failure mode was very interesting too. After two weeks it just started blue-screening windows when in a game, hung in the video driver. No artifacting or other obvious problems - I thought maybe just driver problem. What finally cued me in is if I enabled v-sync it stopped.

I flashed back to stock bios, still blue-screened. Put card in different machine (to make sure wasn't drivers or something) and still did it.

The only reason I had conclusive proof that it was messed up, I ended up RMA'ing the card back to Zotac (and to their credit, they accepted it even after I told them I may have jacked it up) - at this point I still wasn't sure, nVidia had some crappy driver releases during that period too) but it actually did fail their testing. I honestly half-expected it was fine, and it was a gremlin with my system(s).

 

[dabyd64]

Yeah I have some liquidmetal... But not the issue. The temps slowly rise until the heatsink simply can't evacuate the heat faster.
This heatsink has copper heatpipes inserted in aluminium, LM would destroy it completely. It's fine like this.
I tried the artic cooling accelero extreme IV, sadly It didn't fit the holes in the board.

 

[eidairaman1]

Yeah I have some liquidmetal... But not the issue. The temps slowly rise until the heatsink simply can't evacuate the heat faster.
This heatsink has copper heatpipes inserted in aluminium, LM would destroy it completely. It's fine like this.
I tried the artic cooling accelero extreme IV, sadly It didn't fit the holes in the board.

You are heat soaking the heatsink, go back to stock before you mod again. Put a complete cover waterblock on it if available or get ramsinks with fans.

 

[cvaldes]

It is a total waste of money to put a complete cover waterblock on an entry-level graphics card like a 2060.

I'm not even sure which reputable custom cooling manufacturers produce a waterblock that is compatible with the 2060.

Hell, I have a 2070 SUPER FE with a waterblock and even that is marginally justifiable. The main benefit I gain is superior acoustics.

Realistically, waterblocks should be used on the premium GPU cards, e.g. 3080, 3080 Ti, and 3090 for Nvidia.

A $200 waterblock solution for a $200 (or $300) card is nuts. A $200 waterblock solution for a $1500 card is not so crazy. The former would be like installing NASCAR-grade spark plugs in your Honda Civic.

If you don't want to shell out the dough for a custom liquid cooling solution and you still care about acoustics, buy a graphics card with 3 fans in the stock cooler.

 

[eidairaman1]

It is a total waste of money to put a complete cover waterblock on an entry-level graphics card like a 2060.

I'm not even sure which reputable custom cooling manufacturers produce a waterblock that is compatible with the 2060.

Hell, I have a 2070 SUPER FE with a waterblock and even that is marginally justifiable. The main benefit I gain is superior acoustics.

Realistically, waterblocks should be used on the premium GPU cards, e.g. 3080, 3080 Ti, and 3090 for Nvidia.

A $200 waterblock solution for a $200 (or $300) card is nuts. A $200 waterblock solution for a $1500 card is not so crazy. The former would be like installing NASCAR-grade spark plugs in your Honda Civic.

If you don't want to shell out the dough for a custom liquid cooling solution and you still care about acoustics, buy a graphics card with 3 fans in the stock cooler.

Waste? Really? What other heatsinks are there that will fit his specific model of 2060 without having to mill it.

I suggested the wb because there are univeral 1s and 1s from Alphacool and EK that may be for the specific asic.

Spark plugs is a bad analogy to boot.

 

[Bones]

1: It is a total waste of money to put a complete cover waterblock on an entry-level graphics card like a 2060.

I'm not even sure which reputable custom cooling manufacturers produce a waterblock that is compatible with the 2060.

2: Hell, I have a 2070 SUPER FE with a waterblock and even that is marginally justifiable. The main benefit I gain is superior acoustics.

Realistically, waterblocks should be used on the premium GPU cards, e.g. 3080, 3080 Ti, and 3090 for Nvidia.

3: A $200 waterblock solution for a $200 (or $300) card is nuts. A $200 waterblock solution for a $1500 card is not so crazy. The former would be like installing NASCAR-grade spark plugs in your Honda Civic.

If you don't want to shell out the dough for a custom liquid cooling solution and you still care about acoustics, buy a graphics card with 3 fans in the stock cooler.

1:
You're applying your personal standards to someone else as if they were you and/are bound by your standards which they are not.
If they want to slap a nice WB on such a card, more power to them whether it personally makes sense to you or not.

2:
This also goes back to point 1, what is justifiable to do is up to the owner and only the owner.

3:
You obviously have alot to learn about OC'ing and why folks may want better or even the best for what they have.
The card has been modded so "Stock" no longer applies meaning it's cooling must be upgraded too or it won't have a very long life.
Water is the best overall solution to the problem and there is nothing wrong with that if the owner wants to do it - Their money, their card, their choice because that's how it is.

 

[eidairaman1]

1:
You're applying your personal standards to someone else as if they were you and/are bound by your standards which they are not.
If they want to slap a nice WB on such a card, more power to them whether it personally makes sense to you or not.

2:
This also goes back to point 1, what is justifiable to do is up to the owner and only the owner.

3:
You obviously have alot to learn about OC'ing and why folks may want better or even the best for what they have.
The card has been modded so "Stock" no longer applies meaning it's cooling must be upgraded too or it won't have a very long life.
Water is the best overall solution to the problem and there is nothing wrong with that if the owner wants to do it - Their money, their card, their choice because that's how it is.

Yup helped too many to crossflash anywhere from fake cards to the 5700XT, and GTX 1000 series and above to disregard thoughts about not WB a card, i mean arctic only fits OEM cards, not asics.

 

[dabyd64]

The temps stay around 75°C on game, it's good enough.
Yeah fanatics will spend another $300 on liquid cooling if It gets over 50°C, not my case!
This is the same as audiophools not wasting my money !

 

[cvaldes]

1:
You're applying your personal standards to someone else as if they were you and/are bound by your standards which they are not.
If they want to slap a nice WB on such a card, more power to them whether it personally makes sense to you or not.

2:
This also goes back to point 1, what is justifiable to do is up to the owner and only the owner.

3:
You obviously have alot to learn about OC'ing and why folks may want better or even the best for what they have.
The card has been modded so "Stock" no longer applies meaning it's cooling must be upgraded too or it won't have a very long life.
Water is the best overall solution to the problem and there is nothing wrong with that if the owner wants to do it - Their money, their card, their choice because that's how it is.

Do the math.

The launch price of the 2060 was $350. A decent waterblock is $150. That's $500 -- the same price as a 2070 SUPER FE at launch (I bought one at $499 a year ago). The waterblock isn't going to add any more transistors to the 2060's PCB.

Now if you had a $1000 graphics card (pre-scalping) and added a $150 waterblock, that makes more sense because the next step up might be another five hundred dollars.

And yes, I am familiar with OC-ing the 20 series. The realistic improvement is +5-7% with the Turing generation. Ampere's OC improvements are even less. Nvidia is now putting much of the OC headroom into the game boost.

GPU OC-ing today doesn't translate into an equivalent increase in framerates.

Watercooling for better acoustics is justifiable. Watercooling a high-end card for a modest increase in framerate is up to the owner. Watercooling a low-end card makes zero financial sense. Just start with a better card.

Now if OP wants to ignore my advice, that's fine. But don't ask the question if you don't want to hear answers that might be contrary to what you are hoping for. This is the Internet after all.

 

[Shrek]

What is the most powerful fan less video card? it's not just the noise, it's also that the fans wear out; at the moment I run the GeForce GT1030

 

[nguyen]

Well now is really not the time to destroy GPU for fun, so I would suggest OP to limit the 2060 down to 200W PL because the risk of frying the VRM is pretty high, the Asus Strix 2060 has strong VRM so there is no risk when running 238W PL but the KFA 2060 has weak ass VRM that cannot sustain 238W PL for long period of time.
Unlike GPU chip the VRM doesn't have any thermal protection and no sign of it starting to fail, when it dies it just dies.

 

[dabyd64]

Never changed a fan in my graphics cards either. Just keep them clean. If they start making noise, clean and grease the bearings.

 

[The red spirit]

What is the most powerful fan less video card?

GTX 1650 from Palit.

 

[Shrek]

Found it

:alit Products - GeForce® GTX 1650 KalmX ::

Palit GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX Review - The Fastest Passively Cooled Graphics Card | TechPowerUp

 

[The red spirit]

Found it

:alit Products - GeForce® GTX 1650 KalmX ::

Alternatively, if you don't mind modifying cards, you probably can still buy Arctic Accelerro S3 Passive and put it on any GPU, but if it works well is completely on you and you may need to modify card's vBIOS to lower card's TDP. RX 580 then may or may not be the fastest still passively cooled card. And if you want even more, well then there's a very expensive option to buy a beefy card and buy watercooling setup without pump and fans and hope that it cools well, but with this setup it's better to use big rad or big reservoir. And thus the limit is Vega 64, due to being the last card with rather easily modifiable vBIOS. Anyway, the most practical passively cooled card is GTX 1650 KalmX. And beyong GTX 1650 KalmX, there's enterprise Qaudro RTX 8000 Passive, but I heard it needs airflow to actually work and it costs a ton of cash. Not to mention, that you may not be able to buy it easily too.

 

[Bones]

Do the math.

The launch price of the 2060 was $350. A decent waterblock is $150. That's $500 -- the same price as a 2070 SUPER FE at launch (I bought one at $499 a year ago). The waterblock isn't going to add any more transistors to the 2060's PCB.

Now if you had a $1000 graphics card (pre-scalping) and added a $150 waterblock, that makes more sense because the next step up might be another five hundred dollars.

And yes, I am familiar with OC-ing the 20 series. The realistic improvement is +5-7% with the Turing generation. Ampere's OC improvements are even less. Nvidia is now putting much of the OC headroom into the game boost.

GPU OC-ing today doesn't translate into an equivalent increase in framerates.

Watercooling for better acoustics is justifiable. Watercooling a high-end card for a modest increase in framerate is up to the owner. Watercooling a low-end card makes zero financial sense. Just start with a better card.

Now if OP wants to ignore my advice, that's fine. But don't ask the question if you don't want to hear answers that might be contrary to what you are hoping for. This is the Internet after all.

Never referred to math or made the ridiculous claim it would add transistors to anything.

I said if the OP wants to, they can do it if they think it's worth doing.
The OP themselves have said above "No" and that's fine, it's their equipment and their money = Their right to or not to whether any of us agree or not.

 

[dabyd64]

I understand that top grade chips in $$$ cards might clock higher by keeping the temps lower.
Mine won't go over 1995MHz no matter what.
So why spend 2x graphics cards value just to keep it a little colder if it won't clock any higher.
71-75 degrees are completely normal temps on a GPU, it won't die in 2 weeks.

The tdp goes insane if you use it for mining or synthetic benchmarks. Not my case.
Anyways, I always uses osd to check the temps. Not the first time a case fan dies and the hot air starts building up. Or just too much dust blocking the vents.

This topic was just to tell anyone how to easily unlock all the power in that cheap 2060. At your own risk of course.
The bios modding died when they started to use certs/checkums.
The only way is to flash other vBios, which is risky for the typical user.
I've worked with electronics for the last 15 years. So a bad flash is not a problem for me.
Simply you don't need to flash the card 25 times and recover another 20 using a spi programmer like I did.

 

[eidairaman1]

You would need to look through this list, i thought i may have seen a few with a higher pl.

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

Been screwing with hardware since 99, bios restoration without spi flasher for 3 years, i look at tons of bios criteria.

 

[dabyd64]

That's what I did.
Before realising RTX2060 with TU104 have 0x10DE 0x1E89 ID, I flashed a lot of bioses with the spi programmer, all bricked the card (The patched nvflash version wouldn't let me bypass PCI id mismatch).

Then checked all non-verified pages, downloaded all bioses matching the ID and started flashing with nvflash.
The worst case was a gigabyte BIOS, that crashed when loading the driver, just requiring flashing in safe mode to flash a different one.

Once I found the 238w card worked, I stopped trying, why continue if that's the card with most tdp?

I also remember hot-swapping the plcc BIOS in a socket A mobo, and flashing It, to add compatibility with the XP athlons. Had some USB issues but could live with it.
If you screwed the BIOS back then, there was no "one-touch-recovery" neither dual BIOS and all that stuff.