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Overclocking with liquid cooled GPUs.

Bense

Bense

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
136
Hi, I have an Nvidia GTX 770 with a Heatkiller full coverage waterblock in my system. I never see this thing go over 65c and I was considering overclocking it.

I have read up on the subject a bit, and it seems that most have difficulty keeping the temperatures down on their air cooled GPUs. Since heat isn't an issue for me, it seems that I should be able to overclock this card relatively safely.

But here's where I am confused. Do I need to flash an "unlocked" BIOS to this card?

If my understanding is correct, I can overclock this card up to 15% with EVGA Precision X / MSI Afterburner, but beyond that I would need an unlocked BIOS?

Sorry if this is a tired question, I have searched and read up on this a decent amount but what I've read is inconclusive and outdated.
 
I would start checking the loop, 65C with a custom loop for a GTX 770. its very high.. some air cards even have lower temps than that so its a thing to check for sure.. my brother with a Asus 770 dcii have gaming temps up to 69C peak just as example and we live in a hot place..

what model of GTX 770 do you have?.. depending on that overclocking will vary a lot.. but in general yes, the best overclockers kepler cards are BIOS flashed to unlock the power limit which its the main limiting factor before Temperature...
 
65C on a GPU with a full block is bad. You should bee seeing no more than 35-40C. My GTX 780 is heavily overclocked and never hits over ~42C.
 
I gave 65c as a very liberal guestimate. I ran some video benchmark tests for a while, max temp was 47c with my PWM pump on lowest setting and all my rad fans on the lowest settings.
 
i don't know about your card exactly but you only need to flash other bios if the voltages/clocks are locked low, if you can adjust voltages with msi afterburner then you don't need to flash your bios,
more voltage = higher clocks = more heat,
and yeah you should not be getting 65* with a stock card, 47-50 at full load is more like it,
once you over-volt it and start pushing the clocks to the limits, then you could be around 60-65* on a good water loop
 
Bense said:
According to Nvidia, the max safe temperature is 98c.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-770/specifications
Click to expand...

yeah that is the max operating temp, but the lower it gets the better it is for overclocking,

jedimasterben said:
And that matters why? Again, under water cooling with a full cover block, a 770 should never exceed 35-40C.
Click to expand...

i have no experience with 770, im guessing it's a power efficient gpu?
still if you put 1.25v+ on it i would guess it would be over 50* at full load
 
Last edited:
Bense said:
According to Nvidia, the max safe temperature is 98c.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-770/specifications
Click to expand...

I think they're referring to the fact that, under a good custom loop, a 770 probably shouldn't even reach that high a temp considering it doesn't draw nearly as much power as say a 780Ti/Titan/R9 290(x), which are the kinds of cards you'd expect to run that hot when highly overclocked and on water given the amount of power they can pull (although this is also heavily dependent on how much rad you have).
 
Bense said:
I gave 65c as a very liberal guestimate. I ran some video benchmark tests for a while, max temp was 47c with my PWM pump on lowest setting and all my rad fans on the lowest settings.
Click to expand...

47C seems ok for low, what's your temp with fans at say, "medium" or max?
 
jedimasterben said:
And that matters why? Again, under water cooling with a full cover block, a 770 should never exceed 35-40C.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if that is the vendor specification for the maximum temperature, then that would be value that I would never want to exceed under any circumstances.

I am not asking what temperatures that I should be seeing on my GPU that happens to have a full coverage waterblock. I am asking how I can push it beyond the normal 15% overclock that folks typically do with their air cooled GPUs.

As of right now, looking it in boost mode keeps me at less than 50% of that 98c that Nvidia listed. If temperature becomes an issue, I will just dial up my pump and add stronger radiator fans and more radiators. Or I'll route the radiator outside and run antifreeze.

I am not asking for help on keeping my card cool, I can handle that. For the sake of this discussion, assume that my GPU temperatures are 100% ideal and never exceed 50c under any circumstances, Even with a 100000000000000% overclock.
 
Bense said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if that is the vendor specification for the maximum temperature, then that would be value that I would never want to exceed under any circumstances
Click to expand...

not really, that's the temperature you don't even want to get close to,
my personal rule is 84*C max for air and 65*C max for water
 
Araxie said:
what model of GTX 770 do you have?.. depending on that overclocking will vary a lot.. but in general yes, the best overclockers kepler cards are BIOS flashed to unlock the power limit which its the main limiting factor before Temperature...
Click to expand...

It's an actual Nvidia card that was purchased from best buy.
gtx770.gif
 
Bense said:
I can overclock this card up to 15% with EVGA Precision X / MSI Afterburner, but beyond that I would need an unlocked BIOS.
Click to expand...

You can overclock the card an unlimited percentage, not just 15%. You're probably confused about the Power Limit, which is the amount of power your card can draw, which is I guess locked to a 15% increase on your card. That can be unlocked with a modified vBIOS, however, the next stepping stone is that you will hit the physical limit of power you card can draw or the amount of voltage required to maintain a stable high core clock. The other thing that you may or may not have available at the moment (since your card is OEM NVIDIA) is voltage control, which can be modified using a modded vBIOS also.


Just keep in mind: you may not be able to achieve whatever overclock you want even with the increased power limit. You're just playing the silicon lottery.
 
Suprfire said:
You can overclock the card an unlimited percentage, not just 15%. You're probably confused about the Power Limit, which is the amount of power your card can draw, which is I guess locked to a 15% increase on your card. That can be unlocked with a modified vBIOS, however, the next stepping stone is that you will hit the physical limit of power you card can draw or the amount of voltage required to maintain a stable high core clock. The other thing that you may or may not have available at the moment (since your card is OEM NVIDIA) is voltage control, which can be modified using a modded vBIOS also.


Just keep in mind: you may not be able to achieve whatever overclock you want even with the increased power limit. You're just playing the silicon lottery.
Click to expand...

This was helpful, thank you. It seems that adjusting my voltage is in fact locked, thus I need to pursue flashing an unlocked vBIOS.
 
Off topic, but I just wanted to throw this out there.

I'm sick of hearing all this talk about how these new GTX 970s are amazing. They're not. Nvidia is being stingy.

And why the hell do people build "high end" LGA 1150 machines with a ~$300 CPU and a $300 board? With a budget like that, they're better off going X79 or X99.

LGA1156/1155/1150 are a waste of time IMO.

I miss the 775 and 462 days. :(
 
Bense said:
Off topic, but I just wanted to throw this out there.

I'm sick of hearing all this talk about how these new GTX 970s are amazing. They're not. Nvidia is being stingy.

And why the hell do people build "high end" LGA 1150 machines with a ~$300 CPU and a $300 board? With a budget like that, they're better off going X79 or X99.

LGA1156/1155/1150 are a waste of time IMO.

I miss the 775 and 462 days. :(
Click to expand...

WTH are you talking about?. what are you smoking? let's bite a bit..

300$ board +300$ CPU = 600$ worth of more than enough processing power for anything out there?. why X99?. a 5820K, 5930K or even the 1000$ 5960X none are able to perform better gaming than a 300$ 4790K... :rolleyes: do you have any better gaming processor than a 4790K to call it waste of time?. the only cost of DDR4 + lets call "ultra high end" for you x99 board + 560$ (just guessing a 5930K) + a high end cooler. and still you will not be gaming anything better than a 300$ 4790K CPU?.. guess yes, waste of money to go with 1150+4790K.. :rolleyes:

do you have any better card than a gtx 970 to say isn't a amazing card? you even know how to build the sweet spot of a gaming machine nowadays?

why isn't a gtx 970 a great card?:eek: because you don't have it and instead you have a mid range GTX 770?:D.. isn't the 770 the same "stingy" thing of nvidia? a rehash of a gtx 680.. oh lets remember even worse the 770 was at 400$ launch price and the 970 at 330$.. :eek: and the performance offered by the 770 in those days aren't even in comparison to what its offering a 970 for that price... :eek: I want to smoke the same thing you are using really.. :D and yes im a bit drunk right now..
 
Suprfire said:
Just keep in mind: you may not be able to achieve whatever overclock you want even with the increased power limit. You're just playing the silicon lottery.
Click to expand...

Yup, best advice possible. Overclocking is a crapshoot.
 
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