HIGHEST 'BIOS' VOLTAGE LIMIT - GTX 1080 MANUFACTURER?

[Nicholas Peyton]

Hi everyone,

I am new to these forums.

I'd like to make my first post about voltage limits for GTX 1080's.

I am in the process (have spent days/hours) googling reviews/statistics to decide which manufacturer I will buy for my GTX 1080.

I am an upcoming over-clocker and have decided that 'due to' the Silicon Lottery I am going to have to base my final decision on 2 things.

Now before I state these things, I want to stress -- that I do understand that Nvidia demands manufacturers lock voltage at the hardware level at 1.25v on these cards -- but I also understand that the BIOS on these cards are under the 1.25v physical hardware limit.

Therefore I assume that there is headroom between the 'BIOS' limit and the hardware limit of 1.25v. So for example if the BIOS voltage is set at 1.0620v (and GPU TWEAK/MSI AFTERBURNER/etc allows a voltage increase this increase won't be able to go higher than the maximum BIOS voltage limit for that manufacturer.

This BIOS limit will probably NOT be 1.25v but probably a lot lower.

So my question is:

1) Which GTX 1080 manufacturer has a BIOS that allows an increase all the way up to NVidias maximum 1.25v hard limit? Or which manufacturer allows you to get closest to 1.25v out of MSI/ASUS/EVGA/ZOTAC etc etc?

2. Second question is the - same - but with POWER this time.?
(I notice that reference cards are rated at 180W but some aftermarket cards are rated a lot higher (I've seen one rated at 270W but then on a different website the exact same card is rated by a different retailer as still having a 180W TDP)? Which is correct? And which manufacturer has the highest BIOS POWER CAP?

It is easy to add more cooling by upgrading to waterblock or by picking a manufacturer with better rated cooler by viewing temperature benchmarks for different cards but none of this actually matters if these caps are in place and cards are never getting above 70c.

What 'does' seem to matter to me is WHICH manufacturer has the HIGHEST limits on POWER and VOLTAGE allowance in their BIOS's. (So we can squeeze every ounce of performance before we reach the physical hardware limit)...

Can anyone provide any insights?

Thanks so much. I hope any answers anyone can provide can go onto help others struggling to decide which manufacturer to go by.

Nick Peyton

 

[ผ่อมด]

AFAIK all manufacturer's supply VBIOS with less than 1.1V limit. GV-N1080XTREME VBIOS has 375W power limit.

However there is a modified Strix T4 VBIOS in the TPU database that allows up to 1.2V and no power limit.

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

AFAIK all manufacturer's supply VBIOS with less than 1.1V limit. GV-N1080XTREME VBIOS has 375W power limit.

However there is a modified Strix T4 VBIOS in the TPU database that allows up to 1.2V and no power limit.

Hi ผ่อมด thanks for reply. I went into the BIOS database, set the filters on Nvidia, Asus & GTX 1080 -- which gave me a search result with 7 entries. 6 Strix ones and 1 Founders Edition for Asus cards. I clicked the 'details' on each one and looked in the 'BIOS Internals' box for each BIOS and I am getting results like the following:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
GPU Device Id: 0x10DE 0x1B80
Version: 86.04.17.00.1D GTX1080 VB
Ver 86.04.17.00.AS04 Copyright (C) 1996-2016 NVIDIA Corp.
GP104 Board Connectors 1x DVI-D 2x DiplayPort 2x HDMI
Board power limit Target: 198.0 W Limit: 238.0 W
Adj. Range: -55%, +20%
Thermal limits Rated: 83.0C Max: 92.0C
Memory Support GDDR5X,
Micron Boost Clock: 1936 MHz
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The one above has the highest power target out of all BIOS's that came up but it still has a 238w limit and no mention of any voltage limit changes....

Can you provide a link to the one you mentioned?

Thanks.

Nick Peyton

 

[ผ่อมด]

Here you go.

 

[Caring1]

Zotac Amp Extreme - board power limit 326W.
https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/185303/185303

KFA2 - board power limit 350W.
https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/184365/184365

 

[Slizzo]

As far as I know, for the 1080, they're all still hard limited by nVidia to 1.09v. No matter what you select you'll max out there. There are a couple people that have seemed to have gotten around that limit using extra hardware and controllers to do so, but I don't think they got too far with it.

Truth be told, the 1080 is already close to it's max limits right out of the box, and extra volts haven't proven out to allow increased clocks. This may change as the process matures however.

 

[JalleR]

I could use a Asus Geforce 1080 Founders edition wit higher power limit, my card maxes out the power limit (120%) before i even start raising the vcore...

So please let me know if you find one

 

[qubit]

There are a couple people that have seemed to have gotten around that limit using extra hardware and controllers to do so, but I don't think they got too far with it.

Sounds like they blew up their cards lol.

 

[ผ่อมด]

For me it does seem performance gains are small once going over ~2GHz.

Here's a quick GPUPI bench run on water with cross flashed T4 VBIOS to 1080 FE before the card exploded into a thousand bits.

Spoiler

Note: run in P-State 2 with 1.2V and over 300W drawn (peak).

 

[Vayra86]

Really, your card died on that clock/voltage?

 

[ผ่อมด]

Really, your card died on that clock/voltage?

No, it's fine.

The response was to the previous post

Sounds like they blew up their cards lol.

the keyword being "before" rather than "then"

The curve itself does go up to just under 1.25V even though software such as AB may only show up to 1.2V and typically the VBIOS limit is set lower than that.

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

I have made my final decision: (Based on the fact there appears to be more BIOS mods like the one ผ่อมด posted).

EK also do a waterblock upgrade for this card which will future-proof it.

SO
Going for the: ASUS ROG STRIX-GTX1080-O8G-GAMING (1936Mhz boost in OC mode).

This is Asus's fastest 1080 STRIX.


ALL 1080 STRIX below:

The 08G (1936 boost)
The A8G (1836 boost)
The 8G (1771 boost)


I figured due to the Silicon Lottery I want to AT LEAST give myself the best chance of getting a higher binned card. Plus the waterblock possibility AND apparent wider availability of voltage/power mods -- this card is my final decision.

at £150 - £200 more than a custom reference card I hope I don't regret it lol -

Nick

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

Argh wait -- I've not quite ordered it yet (I get paid in 2 hours but I have been re-reading this thread again) and noticed ผ่อมด's mention of the GV-N1080XTREME (Gigabyte 1080 Xtreme Gaming) having a VBIOS Power limit of 375W.

The Gigabyte one also has 12+2 power phases and added ability to control memory voltage.

But EK don't do a full waterblock.

Anyone know which manufacturer between ASUS's STRIX 08G and Gigabyte's Xtreme Gaming which actually has the higher voltage and power limits of the two?

Why is picking a graphics card so stressful lol.


Nick

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

The other thing attracting me to the Gigabyte is that I had a STRIX 980 before I sold them. And I wanted the chance to fiddle around with something better than ASUS's 'GPU-TWEAK II' programme....

With 'GPU-TWEAK II' if you set the voltage higher than the 'allowed' BIOS limit it corrects it for you after hitting apply. (So as not to give you the illusion of having voltage set higher than the programme is actually allowing). -- such a thing is very annoying since it feels like it is overriding me but I suppose when I ponder it further its better than having it lie to me... lol

Nick...

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

cross flashed T4 VBIOS

ผ่อมด what do you mean by the above? cross flashed and T4?

I still haven't managed to pick between the 08G strix and the Gigabyte Xtreme lol...

 

[ผ่อมด]

T4 is the name for the Asus Strix OC VBIOS 86.04.17.00.76 as linked in post #4.

T4 BIOS for Extreme Overclocking. Power limit removed

Cross flashing is flashing a (V)BIOS meant for a different make / model. Quite often can end in bricking (not posting from power up). The above example was a Galax founders edition flashed with Asus strix which does have some incompatability such as display ports.

Strangely clock for clock the default FE VBIOS seems to perform better than the T4 VBIOS but the T4 can gain higher clocks and power draw needs to be considered too. The gain IMHO is quite small for the increase in voltage, heat and power.

Something else to watch out for is boost clocks. There's the advertised boost which for my FE is 1733MHz then there is the max performance clock which is 1911MHz so the card at stock actually boosts higher than the advertised boost clock. These are temperature linked so boosts nearer 1911MHz than 1733MHz with lower temperatures.

From posts out there it still seems to be much a lottery as to getting a good overclocker and there's also power and thermal's to consider. Might be better spending that extra money on a Pascal Titan X if your looking for some higher performance.

 

[cerealkeller]

I was very curious about this subject myself. I ended up going with the MSI Sea Hawk X EK cards to save some money on water blocks.
But what I'm curious about is how high clock speed are most people seeing with the 1.25v BIOS? And I saw the OP mentioned a Zotac with VRAM voltage, which would be really nice. Anyone have knowledge of that? As in, what is the stock voltage and the max voltage Zotac allows for VRAM and what kind of clock speeds are they capable of?
Thanks
My cards wouldn't even run past 1.063v with the version of Afterburner that was available when I bought my cards. But the most recent version finally allows 1.093v. So I was able to run 2063 MHz at 1.063 and not sure about 1.093v yet. But my VRAM achieved a very respectable 11.7 GHz, stable with no artifacts, without the ability to increase voltage.
Of course, the highest temp I've seen on my GPU core has been 42C. I was hoping that since my temps were so low it would allow me to run a higher than average OC. But that doesn't appear to be the case, for the GPU anyway. It may be what's allowing me to run such a high OC on my VRAM.
Actually, I should admit that one of my cards was "defective" out of the box. The water block was not installed correctly. One of the posts came unscrewed when they assembled the block. So there was this big gap between some of the VRAM modules, the GPU and the water block. One of the thermal pads was folded over and ripped and the PCB was bowed. I ran it like that for about 2 weeks during which the temps did reach 50C. Fortunately I have a decent cooling system that was able to keep it from frying itself. I caught it because GPU 1 was at 50C and GPU 2 was at 38C. Obviously something not right there.

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

Wow this is an old thread lol, one of my first ever posts. (as a newbie to these Forums) last year.

I went with the EVGA 1080 Classified and figured out how to put a full-cover block on it. (Despite noting official being available at the time).

I even worked with EK and got them to begin supporting it officially their older 780TI block.

I've written a few guides in that time since, too.

Anyway all stock VRAM on 1080's runs at 1.37v. Only way to increase that is if you own a Gigabyte Card. I think their overclocking app (although barely used by anyone) actually allows a small increase to memory voltage. But only works on their cards.

Or 1080 Classified owners can use the updated Classy Voltage tool. But not much use to anyone except classified owners.

As for all other cards you are locked to 1.093v maximum on the core. There are only two known ways to get past that.

1) Flash the T4 Bios which allows up to 1.2v
2) Be a classified 1080 owner and use the classified voltage tool which will take you all the way up to the *hard* limit. Which I think is still 1.25v.

However that's pretty pointless without at least going chilled water. I never got any extra gains from voltage until I got my water chiller.

I also know every card is different and I definitely do remember people who were indeed able to advantage of a little (not a lot) but a little more voltage on normal water.

Normal air/water voltage will do very very little on these cards though for vast majority.

As for highest power limit you can browse the BIOS's on the database on these forums; the power limits are listed in the details for each BIOS.

The 'advertised' max power draw for my card is advertised everywhere at 245w (not seen a review or a spec sheet or anything anywhere suggesting anything else. But the actual power limit is still higher (when overclocking and increasing power slider to 130% I can draw up to 320w). Which matches the BIOS info for this my card on the database here. (245w is the limit with power slider at default 100%)

Lastly; people have been getting higher benchmark scores flashing the T4 BIOS to their cards without even taking advantage of the voltage that it offers. The reason for this is roomered to be because it has tighter memory timings. So has nothing to do with higher memory overclocks.

 

[cerealkeller]

Good Info, you must have done a heck of a lot of research. Thanks

I had 980 Classified cards with full cover EK block. The Classy voltage tool worked for those as well and as you said, barely made a difference even with huge jumps in voltage. The voltage limit for those was far beyond the capability of liquid cooling. I ran it up to 1.45v and achieved 1650 MHz. But the sweet spot was 1.325v at 1530 MHz for gaming. 1.26v roughly was the voltage cap for factory BIOS. So the Classified cards did end up having at least some advantage of base models. They also had VRAM voltage control and which allowed me to go from 1.6v up to 1.8v. Which resulted in an extra 400 MHz on the VRAM OC from 8.2 GHz to 8.6 GHz.

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

Good Info, you must have done a heck of a lot of research. Thanks

Yes; I've learnt a hell of a lot in a very short space of time

Once I get into something I become obsessed with it lol

Edit: If you do decide to jump onto the "T4 BIOS bandwagon" and flash it to your card; be careful:

- it has no temp or power limit.
-if your fans or pump failed the card would melt down before it throttled
-FE cards on air using this BIOS will have slower fan speed
-the third display port on your card won't work anymore (nothing to worry about -- but don't let that mistake you into thinking you've bricked your card)
-don't use the 'certificates bypassed' version of nvflash to flash it (that seems back to front, I know - but don't worry about that there's a good reason)

 

[FireFox]

Once I get into something I become obsessed with it lol

I bet on that

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

I bet on that

haha

 

[PowerofT]

I've been trying to lock in 1.093V on my Asus 1080 FE. I can get 2.189GHz at full voltage, but when it drops down to 1.080V - CRASH. It's on a thermaltake waterblock and doesn't go over 55C. I might try flashing a new bios. Will post results...

 

[R-T-B]

I've been trying to lock in 1.093V on my Asus 1080 FE. I can get 2.189GHz at full voltage, but when it drops down to 1.080V - CRASH. It's on a thermaltake waterblock and doesn't go over 55C. I might try flashing a new bios. Will post results...

Make a backup, or regret it later.

 

[PowerofT]

did that... only after failing to flash the bios