Afraid of Upgrading 1070 Gaming 8G BIOS to Gaming X 8G Bios

[Sithtiger]

So I have a GTX 1070 Gaming 8G card. Was having some issues with the MSI Gaming App along with the card getting too hot at a lower temp and crashing. I was able to do a work around and do a custom fan profile. Anyway support came back and told me to update to a new BIOS and posted this link in their reply here: Support For GeForce GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G | MSI USA | Graphics card - The world leader in display performance
OK, so I looked at the pdf file to update the BIOS and it said "This guide is only meant for updating the bios on MSI Geforce GTX Gaming X 8G graphics cards that start with the Serial Number: 602-V330-06S" Well I have the MSI GeForce GTX Gaming 8G card with the Serial Number: 602-V330-15S. Is this gonna fry my card since it says it's made for the Gaming X and mine is not an X. I know both cards are identical, but I'm really confused. MSI has put the non-Gaming X version on the site, but now has taken it down again. When you do a search for downloads, only the Gaming X 8G comes up.

So, like I said, is this gonna fry my card and secondly I was wondering if this works will this card now be a Gaming X 8G card? That is, will the default clock speeds be raised to the speeds of the Gaming X because the one I have has lower default clock speeds. Newegg still has the GTX 1070 Gaming 8G card up for $439 and the GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G is up for $459. I just don't want to screw anything up.

Thanks in advance!

 

[noko]

Well I just ordered the Gaming X from NE in which was in stock until I checked out and paid - then it says back order 3-5 days . Anyways it looks like the wrong bios for your card. If you had problems before, going to a higher clock speed could make it worst. I say contact Gigabyte again to clarify.

 

[WheresWaldo]

noko you meant to say MSI

Sithtiger As noko mentions get clarification before doing the upgrade from MSI technical support.

 

[Sithtiger]

Thanks guys, yeah I think you're right. I'm such an impatient person, but frying the BIOS would just mean I'd have to sent it back either Newegg or MSI and then I could end up waiting weeks until I get a replacement. At least right now the card is working perfectly. I just have to use the profile I created in Afterburner to raise the fan speed up. Thanks, that really does help me see I just need to be patient.

It's weird though how MSI had the Gaming 8G card up and then took it down and they don't have anything regarding the Gaming 8G, only the Gaming X 8G. I think I'll be OK with this new BIOS because they knew what card I have and I input all the info including the serial, but yeah, I'm gonna double check and make sure to be on the safe side!

 

[KG-Prime90]

Was having some issues with the MSI Gaming App along with the card getting too hot at a lower temp and crashing.
I was able to do a work around and do a custom fan profile.

Anyway support came back and told me to update to a new BIOS and posted this link in their reply here: Support For GeForce GTX 1070 GAMING X 8G | MSI USA | Graphics card - The world leader in display performance
OK, so I looked at the pdf file to update the BIOS and it said "This guide is only meant for updating the bios on MSI Geforce GTX Gaming X 8G graphics cards that start with the Serial Number: 602-V330-06S" Well I have the MSI GeForce GTX Gaming 8G card with the Serial Number: 602-V330-15S. Is this gonna fry my card since it says it's made for the Gaming X and mine is not an X. I know both cards are identical, but I'm really confused. MSI has put the non-Gaming X version on the site, but now has taken it down again. When you do a search for downloads, only the Gaming X 8G comes up.

So, like I said, is this gonna fry my card and secondly I was wondering if this works will this card now be a Gaming X 8G card? That is, will the default clock speeds be raised to the speeds of the Gaming X because the one I have has lower default clock speeds. Newegg still has the GTX 1070 Gaming 8G card up for $439 and the GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G is up for $459. I just don't want to screw anything up.

Thanks in advance!

What does the bold underlined part mean? Getting too hot at a lower temp? Doesn't make sense. Were your fans working properly? Were you trying to overclock the card in the gaming App? If so, you should generally create a custom fan curve, though it shouldn't crash from heat unless you were doing it wrong or attempting to go beyond its limits.

I ordered the same card, which is on the truck as i type this. As far as that App, which i have payed zero attention to, so i am ignorant of it i admit, but i do know that all i need is Afterburner to overclock my card. Not sure why they are suggesting you update your bios unless they are just giving you the easy option to get the clock you want...

Edit: Ok i think it's just the bios for the OC enabled by default that caused all the controversy by the internet frothing mob regarding the reviewers getting cards ( with this bios) set to OC mode by default and retailers getting "gaming mode" default out of the box.

Personally none of that bothers me as I always intended to create my own profiles and use them as i see fit with Afterburner. If you want that configuration default then you can upgrade the bios, or you can just set it up in Afterburner where you select a profile to overclock ( or under clock ) as well as create your fan curves have an OSD ect.

.well let me look at this app..

Yeah i wouldn't personally use that, but i do see it controls the leds, which i don't care about either, but, yeah it might be you need those bios to even have an "OC" mode at all on this card. Perhaps the G series only has silent and gaming mode and boost, kind of makes sense since none were specified on the product page even,...therefore trying to use "OC" button in that App might not work properly or something.

If you want those bios, verify like everyone says it will work with the G series. I would suggest if you need to control the LEDS just use it for that and use Afterburner for overclocking, but your call.

 

[Sithtiger]

What does the bold underlined part mean? Getting too hot at a lower temp? Doesn't make sense. Were your fans working properly? Were you trying to overclock the card in the gaming App? If so, you should generally create a custom fan curve, though it shouldn't crash from heat unless you were doing it wrong or attempting to go beyond its limits.

I ordered the same card, which is on the truck as i type this. As far as that App, which i have payed zero attention to, so i am ignorant of it i admit, but i do know that all i need is Afterburner to overclock my card. Not sure why they are suggesting you update your bios unless they are just giving you the easy option to get the clock you want...

Edit: Ok i think it's just the bios for the OC enabled by default that caused all the controversy by the internet frothing mob regarding the reviewers getting cards ( with this bios) set to OC mode by default and retailers getting "gaming mode" default out of the box.

Personally none of that bothers me as I always intended to create my own profiles and use them as i see fit with Afterburner. If you want that configuration default then you can upgrade the bios, or you can just set it up in Afterburner where you select a profile to overclock ( or under clock ) as well as create your fan curves have an OSD ect.

.well let me look at this app..

Yeah i wouldn't personally use that, but i do see it controls the leds, which i don't care about either, but, yeah it might be you need those bios to even have an "OC" mode at all on this card. Perhaps the G series only has silent and gaming mode and boost, kind of makes sense since none were specified on the product page even,...therefore trying to use "OC" button in that App might not work properly or something.

If you want those bios, verify like everyone says it will work with the G series. I would suggest if you need to control the LEDS just use it for that and use Afterburner for overclocking, but your call.

I'm not sure why that part is underlined. I didn't do that intentionally. I know it doesn't make sense that it would crash at lower temps. Maybe it's just the MSI Gaming App causing this problem because I did have MSI Gaming App on and was benchmarking Fire Strike Extreme and it crashed and by crashed, I mean the driver shut down but then recovered. It does that when the GPU gets too hot. As I said, I know it doesn't make sense, but when I O/C the core to +190, it crashes. So I set up a custom fan profile so that the fan speed would spin up at around 40C and use 40% fan speed. After I did that I had no more crashes and I looped Firestrike Extreme in a continuous loop and that's where it would crash a lot before I changed the fan speed. It automatically goes faster as the temp goes up as well, but what the difference is having the fan spin up at 40C. I know it was reading the temp right, because I used Afterburner, MSI Kombuster, and GPU-Z and they all came back with the same temp readings. I've even now gotten the core to run at +200MHz over which equals to 2113.0MHz or 2.1GHz and the memory to +150 which equals to 4151.0MHz or 4.1GHz so in DDR terms that would be what 8.1GHz. I'm not finished messing with the memory. I believe it can go much higher. I haven't tested the core at 2.1GHz for very long, maybe 30 minutes, but so far it's been stable and it's completely stable at +190 which is something like 2.0GHz?

Hopefully MSI will get back to me soon but I believe the BIOS link they gave me will work because I had to fill out a form with all my components including the serial #, so assuming they read that, they knew. There's that and the fact that MSI removed everything regarding the Gaming 8G, only the Gaming X 8G can be found with BIOS and software.

 

[Sithtiger]

So I called MSI and apparently they still do have the Gaming 8G card listed, but only on the Global site. The U.S. site doesn't have it. He told me not to use the BIOS link that I was given, but he said if I did try to update it, it would just not update because it would detect a different serial. He closed the ticket, but I reopened it to ask the tech that was helping me to recheck again to see if this BIOS update for the Gaming X 8G would work on my Gaming 8G or not.

 

[Eric1285]

Let us know if the BIOS works. I'm curious about flashing it onto the non-X cards as well.

 

[funks]

This is the reason I went with the FE boards (I bought two 1070 FE's) , one for the living room and one for the desktop.. Want the BIOS coming from Nvidia (which should be interchangeable between all FE's).

 

[Sithtiger]

Let us know if the BIOS works. I'm curious about flashing it onto the non-X cards as well.

I'm not going to risk it. He's probably right, it probably won't let me update it to protect the BIOS, but if he's wrong I'll brick the card. I really have no need to because I've got the custom fan profiles. It's as stable as can be. They keep putting the Gaming 8G up and taking it down again at the US site, so it might or might not be there, but I can tell you that if you go to the MSI Global site, it is listed there, but the Gaming 8G does NOT have a newer BIOS like the Gaming X 8G does and if you go to the US site and the Gaming 8G happens to be there and you click on service and then downloads, it will give you the link to the Gaming X 8G BIOS.

If you're brave enough, you can try it and if you do, please let me know, because if it does work, then I'll do it too. Personally though, I wouldn't try it on the off chance it bricks your card. I know they'll replace it....well then, they might not because they didn't actually tell you to do it so. Do it at your own risk. If I were you, I'd try to O/C using MSI Afterburner. If you don't know how to do it, just ask me and I'll help you out. I just don't want to take that chance. Mine is working sooo good right now. I've had computers since the Commodore 64, back in 1984 I think it was. I also had the first video accelerator the Voodoo card....actually I had the Diamond Monster Voodoo 2 card with 2MB of RAM. It cost me $249 I believe. So, I've been O/Cking for years and I've never had a chip that O/Ced this well!

This is the reason I went with the FE boards (I bought two 1070 FE's) , one for the living room and one for the desktop.. Want the BIOS coming from Nvidia (which should be interchangeable between all FE's).

Well boards like these are able to overclock more than the FE boards. I've been playing around with mine some more and I've O/Ced more core to 2.1GHz and on the Fire Strike Extreme bench I scored even higher than a GTX 1080 (default speeds of course)!!! I scored overall 8667, which is good but not crazy good, but my graphics score, which is just testing the 1070 scored 9566. The 1080 scored 9506. I know it's just a hair faster, but a crippled 1070 scored higher than a 1080 that has all it's stream processors!!! In the Unigine Heaven 4.0 bench, the 1080 scored 109.3 FPS and mine scored 101.1. I lost that one, but it's in spitting distance of the 1080. My point, this baby O/C's like crazy and I still haven't messed with the memory very much. It's only at 8.1GHz. I'm sure I can go much higher. Here is the review site of these scores they used...not mine. MSI GTX 1080 & GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G Review » Page 9 - MSI GTX 1080 & GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G Testing: Unigine Heaven 4.0, Ashes of the Singularity, 3DMark I have my Heaven bench, I can show if you guys want, but not my Fire Strike Extreme score. Futuremark wouldn't except it "Officially" because it said the driver wasn't approved. I can always rerun it and take a screen shot if you guys don't believe me and just have to see it for yourselves.

If I had the money, I would have bought the GTX 1080 Gaming 8G.

 

[chameleoneel]

did you do a fresh OS install for the your 1070?

 

[KG-Prime90]

Well. Got mine in. I grossly underestimated it's size, lol. Godamn Humongous card. I had to "modify" my lower drive cage and it still only squeeked by.

I played Alien Isolation all night and stock this card laughed at it. I gave it a mild OC to 1.86Ghz that it didn't even need, at least in this game, and it stayed pretty much pegged at 1.86Ghz with little fluctuation, 120fps with fast sync is awesome, card stays ridiculously cool - 60c range. Overall my system temps are the same and vcard temps are the same as my twin frozer 4 but with much less fan use on the card.

did you do a fresh OS install for the your 1070?

4 year old Win 7 install for me. In 20 years i've never reformatted a drive just for the sake of reformatting, it's bs that you need to do that if you keep your pc clean. All my pcs run 3-6 years on the same install like the day i built them, never had a drive fail either. I install and uninstall stuff constantly and am writing and deleting from my drives constantly. When i put the 1070 i even put in an old sata 3gb HD that i used before for 6 years straight that had 100's of GB of games, torrents, work files ect downloaded and deleted from it. Crystal Disk Info says it's health is great. I did however try the driver remover that i saw on guru3d as i was getting my drivers and downloaded a few other monitoring stuff just to play with. Normally i would just uninstall a driver through add/remove programs and do a reg clean of Nvidia related files, never any problems.

 

[chameleoneel]

Well. Got mine in. I grossly underestimated it's size, lol. Godamn Humongous card. I had to "modify" my lower drive cage and it still only squeeked by.

I played Alien Isolation all night and stock this card laughed at it. I gave it a mild OC to 1.86Ghz that it didn't even need, at least in this game, and it stayed pretty much pegged at 1.86Ghz with little fluctuation, 120fps with fast sync is awesome, card stays ridiculously cool - 60c range. Overall my system temps are the same and vcard temps are the same as my twin frozer 4 but with much less fan use on the card.


4 year old Win 7 install for me. In 20 years i've never reformatted a drive just for the sake of reformatting, it's bs that you need to do that if you keep your pc clean. All my pcs run 3-6 years on the same install like the day i built them, never had a drive fail either. I install and uninstall stuff constantly and am writing and deleting from my drives constantly. When i put the 1070 i even put in an old sata 3gb HD that i used before for 6 years straight that had 100's of GB of games, torrents, work files ect downloaded and deleted from it. Crystal Disk Info says it's health is great. I did however try the driver remover that i saw on guru3d as i was getting my drivers and downloaded a few other monitoring stuff just to play with. Normally i would just uninstall a driver through add/remove programs and do a reg clean of Nvidia related files, never any problems.

Well, all that's nice. But not doing a fresh install is a pretty common source for problems with new video cards. Especially if you switch between AMD and Nvidia.

 

[KG-Prime90]

Well, all that's nice. But not doing a fresh install is a pretty common source for problems with new video cards. Especially if you switch between AMD and Nvidia.

Never experienced it myself and i've switched between Amd and Nvidia plenty of times, user error me thinks.

 

[Sithtiger]

did you do a fresh OS install for the your 1070?

No, that's not necessary at all. The only time you need to do a fresh install of an OS is if you change the motherboard unless you're changing a mobo with the same exact model. If you use DDU or Display Driver Uninstaller, that will remove all traces of a driver from the computer including the registry. It does leave behind the empty Nvidia folder in my case and I just delete it, but even if I didn't it wouldn't matter....all drivers removed. I then use Wise Registry Cleaner to get the important stuff like empty folders removed. I Just like to personally remove the Nvidia folder myself...just a querk. Anyway, I've never had any problem with any new and/or different card or driver as long as you remove the previous drivers completely and DDU does this. It even automatically turns off Windows automatically installing drivers after you reboot. You can always turn that back on if you want it back.

 

[chameleoneel]

No, that's not necessary at all. The only time you need to do a fresh install of an OS is if you change the motherboard unless you're changing a mobo with the same exact model. If you use DDU or Display Driver Uninstaller, that will remove all traces of a driver from the computer including the registry. It does leave behind the empty Nvidia folder in my case and I just delete it, but even if I didn't it wouldn't matter....all drivers removed. I then use Wise Registry Cleaner to get the important stuff like empty folders removed. I Just like to personally remove the Nvidia folder myself...just a querk. Anyway, I've never had any problem with any new and/or different card or driver as long as you remove the previous drivers completely and DDU does this. It even automatically turns off Windows automatically installing drivers after you reboot. You can always turn that back on if you want it back.

Yes, I am aware of and sometimes use programs, such as DDU.

 

[Sithtiger]

Yes, I am aware of and sometimes use programs, such as DDU.

Then you should be fine with installing a new card. Even if you were previously using a different brand, it shouldn't matter, but you are correct if people don't uninstall previous drivers, it can cause all sorts of problems with your card.

 

[Kalmarin]

I used the newer version of the bios update tool on MSIs 1070 X download page 2 weeks ago and it updated with no issues and haven't had a problem yet. I have even used Afterburner to push core clock an extra 100 and memory an extra 450 beyond the "OC" mode that the bios sets it at.


Edit: yes I made this account today, my old one was lost when my old email address got hijacked following the Blue Cross/Blue Shield hack.

 

[Bawler]

I'm a wait till more people try updating their cards before I do it

 

[Kalmarin]

I'm watching to see if a bios shows up for the Z version of the card.

 

[Sithtiger]

I used the newer version of the bios update tool on MSIs 1070 X download page 2 weeks ago and it updated with no issues and haven't had a problem yet. I have even used Afterburner to push core clock an extra 100 and memory an extra 450 beyond the "OC" mode that the bios sets it at.


Edit: yes I made this account today, my old one was lost when my old email address got hijacked following the Blue Cross/Blue Shield hack.

Are you saying you updated an MSI GTX 1070 Gaming 8G card (non-X) with a Gaming X BIOS or a 1070 Gaming X 8G card with a Gaming X BIOS?

 

[Kalmarin]

I updated my non-X version to the X with the bios update available on MSIs Gaming X support page. I didn't even try to tell me that I was trying to update the wrong card.

 

[Eric1285]

I updated my non-X version to the X with the bios update available on MSIs Gaming X support page. I didn't even try to tell me that I was trying to update the wrong card.

Any changes in performance? Better OC?

 

[Kalmarin]

Haven't noticed any really, I put in the bios that defaults to the OC mode of 1607 default and 1797 boost. I added another +100 Core clock with afterburner with no problems, actual boost clock in games hits 2026 constant with temps staying in the 60s. Now that I'm off work for the week I might see just how far I can push it.

What I'm wondering is why they haven't released bios files for these same options for the regular Gaming and the Gaming Z? I mean the whole reason for the bios options was so that users didn't have to install the MSI Gaming app right?

 

[Space_Ranger]

This is the reason I went with the FE boards (I bought two 1070 FE's) , one for the living room and one for the desktop.. Want the BIOS coming from Nvidia (which should be interchangeable between all FE's).

Shouldn't have to pay a premium to get a card to work.. There's no reason why the non-FE card shouldn't work out of the box.

 

[Hunched]

I just got my 1070 8G and it looks like they've removed the BIOS from their site... So now I can't upgrade it
Edit: Nevermind, just downloaded it from a cached version of the page. Time travel is great!

 

[amd7674]

Watch it guys, there was report on newegg somebody who did it had artificats issues and now is forced to run it in quiet mode or whatever is called. I would use software to o/C it before playing with BIOS updates. Unless you get evga ftw with dual BIOS.

 

[Hunched]

Watch it guys, there was report on newegg somebody who did it had artificats issues and now is forced to run it in quiet mode or whatever is called. I would use software to o/C it before playing with BIOS updates. Unless you get evga ftw with dual BIOS.

Worst case scenario you would have to downclock a bit.
It's only 1607mhz base so 100% of 1070's can make it into Windows and let you fix whatever you need to fix at that clock.

 

[Hunched]

I just flashed my BIOS and it worked. Use Google cache to obtain the BIOS from when it was still available.

Their live update BIOS thing said my BIOS was up to date on both which makes no sense, I was expecting it to tell me the BIOS I just flashed from, the one I'm technically supposed to have, would be an available update.
I don't think their BIOS tool is going to give me Gaming X updates, so I'll need to manually get them if they ever become available somehow unfortunately.
Hell I'll probably flash to the Gaming Z BIOS if it works for others when that becomes available.

I just ran Unigine Valley on Extreme HD preset and no issues, doesn't mean things are 100% though.
GPU-Z recorded max boost of 1999.5mhz core, 100mhz higher than 8G BIOS.

 

[Sithtiger]

Watch it guys, there was report on newegg somebody who did it had artificats issues and now is forced to run it in quiet mode or whatever is called. I would use software to o/C it before playing with BIOS updates. Unless you get evga ftw with dual BIOS.

Well after doing a ton of testing on the core, mine has settled stable at 2.1GHz which puts the core at +185. I still have yet to really fiddle with the memory. Does raising the memory speed really do very much because it doesn't seem like it would to me since I only raised my core speed and had really high benches. When I first played with it, I had the core at +230 and that was stable for a bit and I got all excited and thought I could stick with that. I think it was 2.3GHz or very close to that but it wasn't stable for very long. I did raise the core voltage to +50 with my +185 core O/C that gets me to 2.1GHz. Funny thing is, it didn't really get that hot when it crashed at +230. I think it crashed at around 53C or 55C. I even turned the fan to 100% didn't matter, yet at 2.1GHz, my temp gets to a high of 72C but stays at around 67 to 69C. That's just weird to me, but whatever. I really do want to use that BIOS, but I'm not going to because I would be sooooo pissed off if I had to l lower clock speeds to keep from artifacting. It's really no big deal. I just have to use Afterburner instead of preset temps, but even if it did work, I'd still have to use Afterburner to O/C because even the Gaming 8G Z doesn't only has a high preset core of 1860MHz or 1.86GHz, so mine is still crazy fast.

All the Gaming 1070 8G, Gaming X and Gaming Z cards are the same card. I just don't understand why they are selling 3 of the same cards with a $30 price difference when they all do the same thing. You could buy a Gaming Z and you might only get it to O/C to 1.9GHz. I would be so pissed to know that, while I paid $30 less and get 2.1GHz and I'm sure there are other people that get even higher speeds (on air); although I haven't seen any with the review sites at least. I was just going to check 3DMark for the highest clock speed on air or even with Liquid Nitrogen and see what the highest clocks were. It figures. I only go to 3dmark when I build a new system and/or get a new video card around every 2 years and now I want to see something on there and they're down...lol....right.....whatever.

Anyway, about the BIOS for the 1070 Gaming 8G. I've asked like twice if they are going to release a BIOS at some point for it and they never answer the question. I suppose it doesn't matter though as long as my card is working fine. I don't need to update the BIOS. Still though....it would be nice to get a straight answer. You'd think they would at some point.

 

[amd7674]

Sithtiger Great and Congrats VRAM o/c should help you too and it is worth push it a little.

With my last GPU for my kids HTPC, I used custom utility to build mod BIOS for Zotac GTX970 (plain vanilla). I set default speeds and adjusted fan curve. The beauty was I had stock BIOS so I could always came back. Also I repalced 2 tiny fans with 2 Noctuas, (I did adjust RPMs / fan curve accordingly). That was about 1.5 years ago, and the card is still rocking I'm only using Afterburner to monitor temps.

As for MSI Gaming Vanilla, X and Z... perhaps MSI uses binning process... it doesn't mean you can't end up with great vanilla card . Funny thing is In Canada's Newegg at the moment "Z" edition OOS is cheaper than vanilla... It is very weird how prices of 1070s (still very hard to get) are being set... Another reason why waiting a couple of months (I have no choice) is not a bad idea

 

[Sithtiger]

Sithtiger Great and Congrats VRAM o/c should help you too and it is worth push it a little.
With my last GPU for my kids HTPC, I used custom utility to build mod BIOS for Zotac GTX970 (plain vanilla). I set default speeds and adjusted fan curve. The beauty was I had stock BIOS so I could always came back. Also I repalced 2 tiny fans with 2 Noctuas, (I did adjust RPMs / fan curve accordingly). That was about 1.5 years ago, and the card is still rocking I'm only using Afterburner to monitor temps.

As for MSI Gaming Vanilla, X and Z... perhaps MSI uses binning process... it doesn't mean you can't end up with great vanilla card . Funny thing is In Canada's Newegg at the moment "Z" edition OOS is cheaper than vanilla... It is very weird how prices of 1070s (still very hard to get) are being set... Another reason why waiting a couple of months (I have no choice) is not a bad idea

Thanks and Wow, that's awesome that you used a modded BIOS to mod your 970! I have a question though. You say you had a stock BIOS with your card. Do you mean like a 'FE' or reference BIOS or just the basic BIOS from Zotac for your card? Also, did you mean you had the original bios on file? I know some companies won't allow you to 'downgrade' your BIOS. It seems most companies adhere to this practice now, so I wonder if you could do that with a 1070? I'm afraid of using a custom bios for my card as it could brick it. I believe, no in fact I did do that once before, that is flash with a custom bios and had no problems. I've never had a bios brick on me and I've done a lot of bios updates, but money is tight now days and even though I'd probably be able to get a new card, I'm afraid to do it. I don't even want to do it with Gaming X bios, but again, I really have no need to and it could only do more harm than good. I don't believe it would affect manually O/Cing with Afterburner or Precision as all the cards are the same....the MSI Gaming cards that is. I would probably risk it if Nvidia did things the old way and just cut off parts of the GPU between their top two models via software, but people became wise to this and if they still did that you could turn a 1070 into a 1080 with a bios update. I did have 2 MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G cards. Sold one and gave the other to my son. I never O/Ced the 970's, even before I got the 2nd. I know one 1070 is faster than 2 970's, but Nvidia has never had a wide of a gap between their top card and their 2nd best one. The top card used to only get around 10 to 15 FPS more, but that changed with the 1080. Now it's more like 20 to 25 FPS more between the two in some games and I know in some games there is virtually no difference, but for most games, the 1080 is about 25% faster on average. I believe my O/C shortened that gap to around what 1st and 2nd tier cards used to be, so I think I'm only 10 to 15% behind. Of course the bench I beat the 1080 at and other I basically tied it was against a 1080 at default speeds. If you were to O/C that 1080, it would probably regain it's large lead. At any rate, cutting off the stream processors, or CUDA cores from 2560 to 1920 cores makes me wonder which is more important, the cores or the memory. I know it's a combo of both, but I think it has more to do with the cores. I also remember reading that Nvidia wanted to use HBM2 in Pascal, but I don't know if it didn't make it in because of time constraints or AMD, since they developed HBM2. HBM2 is supposed to make a big difference. I'm sure HBM2 will be in the GTX 1170 and 1180, but it might even make it into the GTX 1080Ti.

I hope it was worth upgrading from my two 970's to one 1070, because I know it's not a huge difference, but then again with my O/C, I think it's worth it. I want to get a 4K monitor and although the 1070 will 4K, the 1080 is better suited and even then in the top games, you're talking about what 45 to 50 FPS on average and that's with AA off. I want to see a card get at least an average of 70 FPS (since you can't visually see more than 60 FPS that) with all the bells and whistles on. I don't want to see frames drop below say 50 at the lowest and then only for a second or two. I think the first card to do that will be the 1170 or 1180. There is an awesome video though of someone playing Battlefield 1 at 4K and the framerate is pretty smooth in almost everything. I do see a little hitch here or there, but I don't know what card their using (I think it's a 1070 or 1080) and I don't know the settings for sure, but I think everything is on high. Assuming you can post links here, check it out :
I'd like to know the framerate, but I'd guess it might get to 60 FPS, but probably dips down to high 30's or low 40's. Even if you don't have a 4K monitor, the game will still look better and it does. I have a 1080p LED, but maybe my 1070 is helping it. I did read that Pascal can benefit from running at 4K (playing a game of course) even if you don't have a 4K monitor because it can upscale it.

Well I hope the 1070 price will drop soon, but I don't think it will be much. If I had more money I'd get two MSI GTX 1080 Gaming Z 8G cards with a 4K monitor. Now that would be enough to easily get proper framerates for a 4K monitor.

**EDIT**

I was going to say I found a review of a GTX 1070 Gaming Z 8G from Guru3D and their Firestrike Extreme score was 10435. I was going to come back and say well it looks like the Z card is definitely worth getting. I went back to post the link and noticed it was for the 1080 Gaming Z. I will say I finally O/Ced my memory and got a score of 9611. My memory is at +425 on Afterburner. I don't remember what that translates to in actual speed but it's something like 4.4GHz which actually equals to 8.4GHz with the DDR. I couldn't figure out how they got a 1070 to score so high and now I'm relieved because my score of 9611 is one with a completely stable core....the same at +185 and that's 2.1GHz. The review at Guru3D of the 1080 Gaming Z only O/Ced +80, so they weren't able to O/C very much. Still, it's faster since they have those extra CUDA cores but their memory O/Ced to +535 which equals to 11,404MHz. So the DDR5X memory O/Ced very well but the core didn't. I'm starting to think either I got hella lucky....like one of the fastest cards on the planet or they aren't cherry picked.

 

[Sithtiger]

Just to put this out there, I do have the BIOS for the GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G. I'll upload here if anyone wishes to use it. And just to confirm, it has in no way been modified. That said, I don't know why MSI took it down. Either there is a problem with it, or there's not a problem and it works and turns a GTX 1070 Gaming 8G to a 1070 Gaming X 8G. I'm just speculating, though, but I'm pretty sure it's one or the other. I don't know why and if I find out why I'll update it, but I'll post the file they had. So be WARNED, I do NOT know what this will do. Use at your own risk. Also, as a side note, if you haven't already read my earlier posts I have NOT attempted to flash my Gaming 8G to turn it into a Gaming X 8G, so I don't know. I was only told by MSI, not to use it, but also told that if you were to try, it would not let you upgrade it. They could be lying because it actually works or it might do nothing or it might brick your card. Just be aware of the risks.

 

[amd7674]

Thanks and Wow, that's awesome that you used a modded BIOS to mod your 970! I have a question though. You say you had a stock BIOS with your card. Do you mean like a 'FE' or reference BIOS or just the basic BIOS from Zotac for your card? Also, did you mean you had the original bios on file? I know some companies won't allow you to 'downgrade' your BIOS. It seems most companies adhere to this practice now, so I wonder if you could do that with a 1070? I'm afraid of using a custom bios for my card as it could brick it. I believe, no in fact I did do that once before, that is flash with a custom bios and had no problems

I've used nvlash with vanilla Zotac GTX970 flash posted by someone... You can

Thanks and Wow, that's awesome that you used a modded BIOS to mod your 970! I have a question though. You say you had a stock BIOS with your card. Do you mean like a 'FE' or reference BIOS or just the basic BIOS from Zotac for your card? Also, did you mean you had the original bios on file? I know some companies won't allow you to 'downgrade' your BIOS. It seems most companies adhere to this practice now, so I wonder if you could do that with a 1070? I'm afraid of using a custom bios for my card as it could brick it. I believe, no in fact I did do that once before, that is flash with a custom bios and had no problems.

It was done using nvflash and maxell bios editior. I d/l someone's Zotac vanilla gtx970 bios and I modified it to my needs. Including custom fan curve for 2 new noctua fans slapped on the card. I like quiet GPU, thus I'm leaning toward MSI and EVGA solutions. I still have almost 2 months to make up my mind which 1070 to buy. I will still use my 32" 1080p 75hz IPS TV/monitor for a while and I will try using Nvidia's DSR (as someone recommend it) to boost 1080p if the game allows it.

Congrats on awesome o/c

 

[Sithtiger]

Thanks, amd7674, yeah, I've got a real special card apparently. I wonder when 3DMark will start displaying the results or rather allowing the results to be posted. I'm so curious to know what the highest 1070 scores are and I only have a slight disadvantage. Had I waited a month, I could have bought Skylake 6700K along with DDR4 and it's quad channel memory and I believe that chipset supports 128GB of RAM. I'm not too worried about that, but I like to have the fastest CPU and 1 or 2 on the video card list. Having said that there is little difference between the 6700k and the 4790k in terms of speed and performance, but between those two CPU's, it shouldn't be any real difference, in fact, the difference you see could be attributed to the + or - margin or error.

I've used nvlash with vanilla Zotac GTX970 flash posted by someone... You can

Yeah, I believe I uploaded the bios, the Gaming X 8G bios.

It was done using nvflash and maxell bios editior. I d/l someone's Zotac vanilla gtx970 bios and I modified it to my needs. Including custom fan curve for 2 new Noctua fans slapped on the card. I like quiet GPU, thus I'm leaning toward MSI and EVGA solutions. I still have almost 2 months to make up my mind which 1070 to buy. I will still use my 32" 1080p 75hz IPS TV/monitor for a while and I will try using Nvidia's DSR (as someone recommended it) to boost 1080p if the game allows it.

Question, how do I mod the bios to setup a custom fan profile? Is it difficult to do? Is there a guide somewhere I go follow or f not could you post something. I have no idea because I've never done this before!!!! That said I'm no novice at modding stuff. I rooted my Nexus 10 and it's fine, but I had to admit that was very hard to do. My point is I'm up to the challenge. I'd just like as much info as I can to assure the more probably success....especially if this is the first time I've done it before.

 

[amd7674]

Thanks, amd7674, yeah, I've got a real special card apparently. I wonder when 3DMark will start displaying the results or rather allowing the results to be posted. I'm so curious to know what the highest 1070 scores are and I only have a slight disadvantage. Had I waited a month, I could have bought Skylake 6700K along with DDR4 and it's quad channel memory and I believe that chipset supports 128GB of RAM. I'm not too worried about that, but I like to have the fastest CPU and 1 or 2 on the video card list. Having said that there is little difference between the 6700k and the 4790k in terms of speed and performance, but between those two CPU's, it shouldn't be any real difference, in fact, the difference you see could be attributed to the + or - margin or error.



Yeah, I believe I uploaded the bios, the Gaming X 8G bios.



Question, how do I mod the bios to setup a custom fan profile? Is it difficult to do? Is there a guide somewhere I go follow or f not could you post something. I have no idea because I've never done this before!!!! That said I'm no novice at modding stuff. I rooted my Nexus 10 and it's fine, but I had to admit that was very hard to do. My point is I'm up to the challenge. I'd just like as much info as I can to assure the more probably success....especially if this is the first time I've done it before.

From what I remember it is not rocket science, you can find some info in the link I posted . I'm sure there are good tutorials on how to set fan profile using Maxwell Bios editor up there. However if you are not sure and you are happy with your GTX970 stick with software.

 

[Sithtiger]

From what I remember it is not rocket science, you can find some info in the link I posted . I'm sure there are good tutorials on how to set fan profile using Maxwell Bios editor up there. However if you are not sure and you are happy with your GTX970 stick with software.

Well if I can root a Nexus 10 tablet manually, then I should be able to do this. and you mean my slick GTX 1070. Yeah, I'm freaking happy with it. This thing is almost as fast as a 1080, so I'll stick to what I've got. The only reason I would have to update the BIOS is if I had a problem with it. So far, so good though.

 

[amd7674]

Well if I can root a Nexus 10 tablet manually, then I should be able to do this. and you mean my slick GTX 1070. Yeah, I'm freaking happy with it. This thing is almost as fast as a 1080, so I'll stick to what I've got. The only reason I would have to update the BIOS is if I had a problem with it. So far, so good though.

AFAIK there is no Pascal BIOS editor yet. So you have to wait before playing with 10x0 BIos series yet. If you wanted to play with the BIOS, I like EVGA FTW with dual BIOS support.

 

[Sithtiger]

AFAIK there is no Pascal BIOS editor yet. So you have to wait before playing with 10x0 BIos series yet. If you wanted to play with the BIOS, I like EVGA FTW with dual BIOS support.

Yeah, that's the only thing I still l like about EVGA right now and that's their BIOS. There were a great company a few years ago and I'd still say they are very good, but in terms of quality I'd say their #3, Gibabyte #2 and #1 is MSI of course. At least for the time being. I will say that I believe all exchanges I had with the RMA department ended very well with EVGA and would say that they have or at least had the best support from 2007 all the way to possibly now, but the last EVGA card, which I still have, the 970 still has about 1 year and a half left on it. I just think MSI has slightly better caps circuits and boards...just slightly better hardware. That said, you really can't go wrong with buying EVGA, Gigabyte or MSI. I have had some quality issues with Asus in the past and it's been a while since I've dealt with Asus.

Worst experience I had was with Crucial. I used to buy only Crucial RAM because it was reliable and fast. Around 2005 - 2007 or so I received two DIMM's and you could order heat spreaders from Crucial to put on their DIMM's. Of course pretty much all companies put heat spreaders on their DIMMs now. Anyway, I noticed a warranty sticker on the DIMM and inquired about it. I was told by Crucial to remove it and then reapply it to the outside off the heat spreader, so I did. I asked what happens if I needed to return the RAM for some reason and they to told me to remove the heat spreaders and reapply the warranty sticker. So I did all of that and after I didn't receive word from them for a while I contacted them and they had the nerve to tell me that they could NOT replace my DIMM because the warranty sticker had been tampered with. I told them that they were the ones that told me to do that and the heat spreader was made by them tool. The bottom line is, the DIMM ended up being defective, but not from anything I did, but they would not honor the warranty. What pisses me off so much is that hey told me exactly what to do. My mistake was not making a copy of our conversations together and at that point I don't recall whether they recorded the conversations or not, but I'm guessing not, otherwise they would have known that or at least said they didn't. Anyway, I vowed never to buy Crucial memory again and I never have and also never used any Crucial memory in a customer's computer that I either built or replaced. My favorite is G.Skill right now, but I also like Kingston Corsair and Mushkin. Never has any problems with any of those companies. I think G.Skill is the best followed by Mushkin.

They'll probably introduce an editor at some point when they finally release a certain BIOS.

 

[amd7674]

Sithtiger

I think it all depends on your experiences. I guess overall I was lucky and I didn't have to RMA too many things. One HDD with WD (no issues) maybe 10 years, Corsair PSU few years ago (no issues). If I can, I try to stick with local shops where I always have 15 days return policy. If you get a lemon GPU/HDD or whatever you should discover it right away. (in most cases).

As for modding the BIOS, we are [H] members, however at the end of the day... Instead of chasing 1-5FPS boost, maybe it is better to use software to o/c and just enjoy the new toy... by actually playing games instead of spending countless hours watching benchmark applications. just saying...