Overclocking of GTX 9xx series

[RejZoR]

Oh my god, for one, I'll be looking again at AMD so I can actually squeeze all I can from GPU instead of dealing with this nonsense on Maxwell 2 cards. The thermal design is so stupendously overcomplicated it's not even funny.

Overclocked the core to 1500MHz and guess what card did? Instead of simply being unstable like all graphic cards to this date, instead it downclocked to 500MHz during Killing Floor 2 match. To friggin 500MHz! Game ran, but it felt like I'm playing KF2 on GT740 on Ultra, not friggin GTX 980.

And while it only does this on one particlar super open map, the fact it's doing this is worrying. So, when I'll feed a more demanding game to it in the future, it'll just downclock like insane instead of getting warmer. Fans don't even crank up because it downclocks sooner than that happens. Which is absolutely idiotic design. It's maximizing power efficiency instead of performance. I want performance, I don't care if it pumps out 500W of power, jesus.

And don't get me started with the Maxwell II Tweaker. The most overcomplicated tool (not by its fault, but NVIDIA's) that makes no sense on so many parts. And after supposedly increasing the clocks, card didn't even have clocks I've set in BIOS. Aaarrgh.

I hope AMD won't go this way and the chance is I'll be going AMD just because of this alone.

 

[Keullo-e]

Well, that's just a problem when overclocked to the max, what everyone doesn't do.

 

[Ferrum Master]

What kind of hysteric post is this?

Maxwell tweaker IS simple. Gains are superb if you use your head.

 

[RejZoR]

What kind of hysteric post is this?

Maxwell tweaker IS simple. Gains are superb if you use your head.

Use my head? Maxwell II Tweaker has no description what so ever for half the entries. Just values in mV or mW. After following some guides, values didn't even match up with mine so I could be tweaking another Chernobyl without even knowing it.

Not to mention values set weren't actually in effect after flashing. Should be 1506.5 MHz and it was at 1300 something.

Unless you have some better guide that explains it for GTX 980...

 

[Ferrum Master]

Unless you have some better guide that explains it for GTX 980...

It is a reverse engineered software. What do you expect? A teacher vixen dressed in leather costume giving you proper "instructions"?

Just see other bios versions from other same gpu makers, extreme editions, compare. Look for better voltage table and voltage gain ramp, and add more POWER... it is all a simple logarithmic function, you will see know hows. Edit FAN curve and hysteresis for better temps or noise. It ain't a rocket science. The clock settings must be set in power state location in various places, the ones you desire. Look in OCN forums for modded bioses, they have plenty of info to get started.

 

[BiggieShady]

I don't care if it pumps out 500W of power

Why mod all values in gpu bios anyway? Can't you just raise maximum power target in modded bios, and do the rest tweaking maxwell boost params and fan ramp in afterburner?

 

[Ferrum Master]

Why mod all values in gpu bios anyway? Can't you just raise maximum power target in modded bios, and do the rest tweaking maxwell boost params and fan ramp in afterburner?

It still causes throttling... to avoid that limits in the BIOS must be raised... they are many. I have my card running and it never throttles and always stays on max boost clock.

 

[Frick]

It is a reverse engineered software. What do you expect?

You just said it was simple.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Just raise the power limit and implement a fan curve to start the fans earlier, increasing with temp. These things will prevent the issues of not enough power and too much heat, which will both cause the GPU to downclock.

This is protection of your expensive card. Intel CPU's throttle also if attention is not paid to adequate cooling.

 

[Ferrum Master]

You just said it was simple.

That's about the existence of specialized guides etc stuff... have you opened the tool? Anything really unseen?

Hexediting a raw image on blind, that's hard! Here the tough research job is already done, just play around.

 

[RejZoR]

I know how Intel CPU's throttle. When they hit 100°C and even then for just few 100MHz down from 4GHz. The GTX 980 was throttling down to 500MHz at 60°C and nearly no fan noise. Idiotic. It just makes no sense why it would downclock before ramping up the fan. Anyone can deal with some fan noise, because you at least have a performance. That's why I got myself GTX 980. But if it throttles down, silence doesn't help me much if game runs like a turd. I might not even play a game then.

Yeah, I've made a linear ramp from 55°C upwards to 100°C which means it would use fan speeds I'd never consider because it would get so loud at 80°C. Guess what. It never reached those fan speeds because it downclocked way before that even happened. Now tell me that ain't dumb at all.

EDIT:
I'll look into it again today. The TDP adjustment for HD7000 series was so much easier. 1 value. Here, TDP is scattered across 10 entries. Because that's somehow better...

 

[cdawall]

No idea what you are complaining about, I will take the little extra effort to get a 980 stable over the lack of an overclock you get out of the competing 390x

 

[dcf-joe]

I didn't really read the entire thread. Have you tried modding your bios? I used this page initially and I got great results: http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/...d-980-firmware-zosons-h2o-and-air-custom-bios

Most of the power restrictions are removed. On my current modded G1 Gaming GTX980, I play BF4 multiplayer stable at 1541 MHz core, and it stays at 1541 MHz throughout my gaming sessions.

Edit: For those of you who are interested, this guy has made excellent modded BIOS's for the Gigabyte brand GTX 9xx cards: http://www.overclock.net/t/1544574/gigabyte-gtx-9xx-g1-gaming-h2o-air-bios-tweaking

 

[newtekie1]

Overclocked the core to 1500MHz and guess what card did? Instead of simply being unstable like all graphic cards to this date, instead it downclocked to 500MHz during Killing Floor 2 match. To friggin 500MHz! Game ran, but it felt like I'm playing KF2 on GT740 on Ultra, not friggin GTX 980.

And while it only does this on one particlar super open map, the fact it's doing this is worrying. So, when I'll feed a more demanding game to it in the future, it'll just downclock like insane instead of getting warmer. Fans don't even crank up because it downclocks sooner than that happens. Which is absolutely idiotic design. It's maximizing power efficiency instead of performance. I want performance, I don't care if it pumps out 500W of power, jesus.

That has nothing to do with power efficiency or keeping the card cool. That is a feature that has been in the nVidia drivers since at least the GTX 400 series. If the drivers crash, they go into a default safe mode. It used to be 405MHz, it is 500MHz with the current cards. So instead of just hard locking the computer when the card is pushed too far and is unstable, it will go into safe mode.

Also, I hope you aren't trying to push the base clock over 1500MHz, because the card will never be stable at that.

 

[R-T-B]

I'm skilled at using Maxwell Bios tweaker... at least to lock clocks/volts to a set overclock for eternity. Yes, you lose all power saving functions, but I don't care as I've never had a clock scaling issue from the driver being stupid, or otherwise.

Yes, you lose boost clocks, but you just set it somewhere sustainable and it works like that forever. Generally you don't lose much performance.

If you're interested, I can probably help you. But energy efficiency is out the window when you do this.

My card at idle:

 

[RejZoR]

Not to mention stuff you set for boost doesn't do ANYTHING by itself. You still have to use Afterburner later on to even use all that crap. To hardcode clocks into BIOS I'd have to use another stupendously overcomplicated clocks table.

There is no need to click it at 1.4GHz in idle, but there is also no need to downclock it at bloody 60°C instead of ramping up fans by freaking 5%.

As much as they've complicated the power delivery, they've done NOTHING to the fan control to prevent overheating without compromising performance. It's almost as if they've never designed a graphic card before.

BOOST -> TOO HIGH TEMPERATURE -> INCREASE FAN SPEED -> STILL TOO HOT -> DOWNCLOCK

What NVIDIA does is:

BOOST -> TOO HIGH TEMPERATURE -> DOWNCLOCK TO BOTTOM -> at 40% FAN RPM. w00t mate!?

Can someone tell me how can you decode what each entry in Power Table even means? It's just bunch of entries with NO description. And none of my listed stuff looks the same as on other GTX 980 cards. What people say it's PCIe power molex 1 and 2 is nothing like it on mine. Only total TDP is the highest value of them all. The rest doesn't even add up to that if I sum it up.

 

[Jborg]

Uhh it was pretty easy for me. Although I don't OC my cards anymore because it does literally nothing besides give higher synthetic benchmark scores. Although I understand why people do it, its a feature right?

+150 Core Clock
+500 Memory Clock

my 970 was running fine without even touching anything else besides those 2 changes.

 

[R-T-B]

Can someone tell me how can you decode what each entry in Power Table even means? It's just bunch of entries with NO description. And none of my listed stuff looks the same as on other GTX 980 cards. What people say it's PCIe power molex 1 and 2 is nothing like it on mine. Only total TDP is the highest value of them all. The rest doesn't even add up to that if I sum it up.

Honestly, no, I can't. Why? Because I've yet to find a soul who really understands or can explain what they do. Most of it is just "I poked at it until I got the result I wanted" type stuff.

 

[dcf-joe]

A quick overview of the voltage tables: http://www.overclock.net/t/1544574/...aming-h2o-air-bios-tweaking/380#post_23888246

 

[newtekie1]

What NVIDIA does is:

BOOST -> TOO HIGH TEMPERATURE -> DOWNCLOCK TO BOTTOM -> at 40% FAN RPM. w00t mate!?

Yeah, I've already explained this isn't how it works.

 

[qubit]

I don't believe this rant, rejzor.

Look, modern graphics cards are very, very powerhungry and will burn out in a moment if power and temperature are not controlled like they are. I agree it sucks that they throttle and you can bet that NVIDIA also wish they didn't have to do this to improve the benchmarks, but that's just the way it's gotta be if you don't wanna kill your GPU.

Even my 780 Ti Gaming with its great cooler will do that at stock when pushed hard.

Even though one can push the power limit up to increase the clock speed and reduce throttling, you're still gonna get it and for me it's just not worth the bother to have that impressive overclock compromised by throttling.

Good luck overclocking current gen AMD cards, which are rather less overclockable than NVIDIA ones.

 

[trog100]

It still causes throttling... to avoid that limits in the BIOS must be raised... they are many. I have my card running and it never throttles and always stays on max boost clock.

the cards are set up to be idiot proof.. so are intel cpus.. that is the only reason you get to be able to play with them so easily.. whatever the user does will not harm the product.. the makers dont like rmas for the fun of it..

most "idiots" wont flash a bios they will just move all the slider over to max.. he he

trog

 

[newtekie1]

I don't believe this rant, rejzor.

Look, modern graphics cards are very, very powerhungry and will burn out in a moment if power and temperature are not controlled like they are. I agree it sucks that they throttle and you can bet that NVIDIA also wish they didn't have to do this to improve the benchmarks, but that's just the way it's gotta be if you don't wanna kill your GPU.

Even my 780 Ti Gaming with its great cooler will do that at stock when pushed hard.

Even though one can push the power limit up to increase the clock speed and reduce throttling, you're still gonna get it and for me it's just not worth the bother to have that impressive overclock compromised by throttling.

Good luck overclocking current gen AMD cards, which are rather less overclockable than NVIDIA ones.

The thing is, he is complaining the card is dropping down to 500MHz. That isn't how it works with nVidia cards. Worst case is they will drop to the base clock and not turbo, but they don't do that until something like 80°C

 

[R-T-B]

The thing is, he is complaining the card is dropping down to 500MHz. That isn't how it works with nVidia cards. Worst case is they will drop to the base clock and not turbo, but they don't do that until something like 80°C

It's a driver bug that affects some cards, the so called "540 Mhz bug." Look at NVIDIA driver forums for examples.

 

[qubit]

The thing is, he is complaining the card is dropping down to 500MHz. That isn't how it works with nVidia cards. Worst case is they will drop to the base clock and not turbo, but they don't do that until something like 80°C

Yeah, I think mine drops to something like 700MHz when running Furmark (I know it's not a good stresstest) but I've not seen 500MHz. Do some models hit 500MHz when throttling? Is it an extreme downclock only when they overheat too much?