The Official GTX980/970 OC & Benchmark Perf. Thread

Womper said:
comparing two 8GB 290X's is not equivalent to testing a theoretical 8GB card with twice the # cores.
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Not equivalent, but very close, especially in applications that have good SLI/Crossfire scaling. Some are close to 100%.

Comparing two 4GB cards vs. two 8GB cards in SLI/Crossfire with the same GPU is precisely what can currently be done to see if the additional memory is of any considerable advantage or not.
 
Parja said:
Not equivalent, but very close, especially in applications that have good SLI/Crossfire scaling. Some are close to 100%.

Comparing two 4GB cards vs. two 8GB cards in SLI/Crossfire with the same GPU is precisely what can currently be done to see if the additional memory is of any considerable advantage or not.
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I'll try again- SLI and crossfire will not tell you any more information over a single card. If you say scaling is 95% for SLI, then we don't need to run the experiment. Each card contributes the same amount of FPS, and you scale it down by that 5% of the scaling factor. Done.

Each card has to process an entire frame all by itself. It will take the same amount of time regardless of whether you have other cards in the system. It does not get any help from the other cards' cores or VRAM. Instead, SLI and Crossfire assign future frames to those other cards so everybody is working on their own independent frame.

So, we can see that as you add more cards, you can be processing more frames at the same time. Since each card has the same amount of horsepower, you only need to know how long 1 card took on 1 frame to calculate your overall FPS if you had additional cards.

If 1 card doesn't see an advantage of 8GB, then neither will 2 cards, since nobody is getting their assigned frame done any faster. The sum cannot be greater than the parts.

If 1 card does see an advantage of 8GB, then so will 2 cards, but your performance can already be predicted as (ideally) twice what 1 card gives.

If one 4GB card is 50% slower than one 8GB card, then two 4GB cards will be 50% slower than two 8GB cards. The performance ratio doesn't change.

I hope that helps.
 
So this last week I had a lot of time to spare. So I decided to flash a new bios on my G1 GAMING 970's to see if I could fix the voltage issue. And let me tell you its a......horrible dream lol.

So first I will go on to explain my 2 cards I ran by themselves. I found a decent bios that I would give a try. Worked like a charm, it disabled boost, let me hit 1.275v constantly solid! (no voltage variations).

ASIC 63.7%: Max GPU: 1548 Memory: 8100 (WOW)

ASIC 73.5% Max GPU: 1598 (0_o) Memory: 7750

After finding the max bench and game stable (2 hours of BF4 testing and 3 hours of wow raiding @ DSR 4k 3dmark and valley stable). I decided to put them both together to see what I could do.

So for some weird odd fucking bug of a reason or something. Even when they are both flashed with a new bios, and TESTED by themselves, if I put them both together for SLI, It looks like the bottom card will revert back to its original bios.

How I know that it reverted, was I looked in GPU-Z and noticed that boost was enabled again on the secondary card only, then I went to MSI AB to see what my max MV was, and it was once again +87 instead of +100mv with the new flashed bios.

I also when bench test again, I loaded up Valley to see what voltages I was getting with the bottom card. 1.225 (while the top card was 1.275 and a solid speed since boost was disabled on the top card still).

So THEN I switched the cards to see what would happen, and the exact same thing happen. The bios would revert back to its original bios if its in the secondary card in SLI.

So after my long road of trying to get stable volts (Which I can if I run them by themselves). I went back to my original bios's on both cards and leave it at that.

I am just wondering since the G1 GAMING's have a dual bios (one as a fallback) if something is happening while in SLI to make it go into bios safemode or something?

Anyway that is my experiences. Modded bios's do work, but SLI modded bios's will not work (at least for me).
 
Gigabyte G1 have a dual BIOS and the bios being used can depend on what is connected to the card and how the card is being used. One BIOS isn't "primary" as far as I can tell based in reading stuff over at OCN.
 
ocellaris said:
Gigabyte G1 have a dual BIOS and the bios being used can depend on what is connected to the card and how the card is being used. One BIOS isn't "primary" as far as I can tell based in reading stuff over at OCN.
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Hmmmm makes me wonder if I can flash both of the bios's
 
Update to my previous post. After chatting with a few people at OCN I was able to get both cards flashed, and properly working together.

By flashing with both cards in the system, and choosing 1 card first, then the other I was able to fix the issue of not being able to use the same bios on each card.

***I CAN NOW RUN BOTH CARDS AT 1.275v*** with no downvolting on 1 card, and I can run them in Sync.

This now allows me to run 1549/7650 (which sucks you are limited by each cards weakest link).

Valley Extreme HD: 4783

3dmark11: 18088 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4647726

Will be trying BF4 here in a sec.

Anyone nervous about flashing, follow this guide. It really works like a charm!!!
http://www.overclock.net/t/1523391/easy-nvflash-guide-with-pictures-for-gtx-970-980
 
DASHlT said:
Update to my previous post. After chatting with a few people at OCN I was able to get both cards flashed, and properly working together.

By flashing with both cards in the system, and choosing 1 card first, then the other I was able to fix the issue of not being able to use the same bios on each card.

***I CAN NOW RUN BOTH CARDS AT 1.275v*** with no downvolting on 1 card, and I can run them in Sync.

This now allows me to run 1549/7650 (which sucks you are limited by each cards weakest link).

Valley Extreme HD: 4783

3dmark11: 18088 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4647726

Will be trying BF4 here in a sec.

Anyone nervous about flashing, follow this guide. It really works like a charm!!!
http://www.overclock.net/t/1523391/easy-nvflash-guide-with-pictures-for-gtx-970-980
Click to expand...

Where is the BIOS you used to flash your GBT G1 Gaming cards?
 
I'm reallty ignorant in GPU overclocking so I ask you guys some lume.
My two GTX980 scores 20300 3dmark with the default clock, if I simply raise the fan speed to 100%, my two GPUs scores 20880 3dmark.

As far as I can understood, this means that my GPUs is "temperature limited" with the auto fan setting.
If the GPU is temperature limited, why overclock the cards?

Is there a guide on how to overclock this cards?
 
sblantipodi said:
I'm reallty ignorant in GPU overclocking so I ask you guys some lume.
My two GTX980 scores 20300 3dmark with the default clock, if I simply raise the fan speed to 100%, my two GPUs scores 20880 3dmark.

As far as I can understood, this means that my GPUs is "temperature limited" with the auto fan setting.
If the GPU is temperature limited, why overclock the cards?

Is there a guide on how to overclock this cards?
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All you have to do is raise the power target which has the temp linked right to it. This has been explained for years now in reviews and overclocking guides. Once you have raised the power target to max then you can start raising clocks. You can still then do a custom fan curve too to keep it from ever hitting a temp that will make it drop in speeds. This is not needed in most cases with non reference cards. Personally I do not mind dropping a measly 13 mhz at around 80 C and will take that over additional fan noise.
 
DASHlT said:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/...are-nolimits-and-gamestable/370#post_23057648

Post #378 bios. I had saved it since he released it, and tried it out. Really do love it. BF4 was stable the whole time.

P.S. That bios at stock will boost your cards to 1519. Thats with +100mv and +120 power limit.
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How's your CPU usage? 18k is pretty nice... I max out around 13,000 to 13,250 on my single 980. I haven't even had time to look at the hard voltage mod, and everything is running so nicely I'd hate to touch it.

I am thinking the 3770k can handle a full maxwell pretty easily. I might need to setup a second computer in a year or two when the third child starts using electronics. Of course they need a $2,000 computer! Hehe
 
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Dayaks said:
How's your CPU usage? 18k is pretty nice... I max out around 13,000 to 13,250 on my single 980. I haven't even had time to look at the hard voltage mod, and everything is running so nicely I'd hate to touch it.

I am thinking the 3770k can handle a full maxwell pretty easily. I might need to setup a second computer in a year or two when the third child starts using electronics. Of course they need a $2,000 computer! Hehe
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When playing BF4 its usually around 85-100% usage (120hz 1440p). The 3770k will not hold back maxwell at all.
 
misterbobby said:
All you have to do is raise the power target which has the temp linked right to it. This has been explained for years now in reviews and overclocking guides. Once you have raised the power target to max then you can start raising clocks. You can still then do a custom fan curve too to keep it from ever hitting a temp that will make it drop in speeds. This is not needed in most cases with non reference cards. Personally I do not mind dropping a measly 13 mhz at around 80 C and will take that over additional fan noise.
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this means that in your hopinion overclocking GPU does not worth the effort. am I right?
 
I can confirm that the voltage issue is gone with a bios flash too. I've been teaching myself more and more about bios editing and learned how to fix the voltage thing with some exploration and some help from some guys at OCN. Both my cards are stable and solid now.
 
DASHlT said:
Hmmmm makes me wonder if I can flash both of the bios's
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Some more Gigabyte Dual BIOS talk is going on over at OCN right now, the BIOS being loaded depends on what is connected;

http://www.overclock.net/t/1514085/official-nvidia-gtx-970-owners-club/6570
 
I own a EVGA 970 FTW so factory overclocked, it hits 1531mhz without me adjusting it. It was not jumping up and down, it stayed pegged at that speed during unigine benchmarks.
 
Booyaah said:
My pair of EVGA GTX 970 FTWs just came in last night. Temps are running a bit hotter than I'd like. This is with a +120 overclock on a stock BIOS:

900x900px-LL-3f0e593f_valley_crop2_zps36a63aaa.png

(Unigine Valley demo @ 6040x1080 on Ultra settings)

I think I'm pretty much capped as is...I think the highest I got was 1540 clock, but it wasn't stable.
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can I ask how you get precision to show all that info? mine just shows power.
 
Booyaah said:
My pair of EVGA GTX 970 FTWs just came in last night. Temps are running a bit hotter than I'd like. This is with a +120 overclock on a stock BIOS:

900x900px-LL-3f0e593f_valley_crop2_zps36a63aaa.png

(Unigine Valley demo @ 6040x1080 on Ultra settings)

I think I'm pretty much capped as is...I think the highest I got was 1540 clock, but it wasn't stable.
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79C is horrible, do you have a tiny case with poor airflow?
 
ocellaris said:
I top out at 70C running Valley @ 4800x1200 with +125 core. I had two other GTX 970s and none of them got close to 80C
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he could be using a less aggressive fan curve. you could have been using cards with better coolers, or even blowers. in no universe is 79 C a bad temperature, especially when running two cards, both with open design coolers. it's pretty apparent by the second card's temperature that the one at 79 C is the top card, which is sucking up the second's exhaust. no big deal.
 
Odellus said:
he could be using a less aggressive fan curve. you could have been using cards with better coolers, or even blowers. in no universe is 79 C a bad temperature, especially when running two cards, both with open design coolers. it's pretty apparent by the second card's temperature that the one at 79 C is the top card, which is sucking up the second's exhaust. no big deal.
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Ah SLI too card, makes total sense now.
 
Odellus said:
he could be using a less aggressive fan curve. you could have been using cards with better coolers, or even blowers. in no universe is 79 C a bad temperature, especially when running two cards, both with open design coolers. it's pretty apparent by the second card's temperature that the one at 79 C is the top card, which is sucking up the second's exhaust. no big deal.
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But but my Gigabyte 970 top card in SLI only goes up to 72C even when overclocked to 1506/7700.
Innocent.png
Sorry couldn't resist :p

Seriously though these Gigabyte cards have spectacular cooling. If I add a side fan to blow directly at the cards the top card doesn't inch past 68C, and the bottom card chills out at 62C. Although to be fair my case allows ridiculous amounts of airflow (Enthoo Primo).
 
so what are people's preferred OC/temp monitoring utility?...EVGA Precision X or MSI Afterburner?
 
I went with Afterburner this time around because the new Precision lacks the ability to adjust the font size in the G13 LCD applet ... or at least it did a month or so ago. I cram a lot of monitoring info for two cards in that small panel so I need to have tiny font. :)
 
sblantipodi said:
80c is standard temperature that all Maxwell cards reach while on reference design.
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True. The reference BIOS sets the temperature target to 80C, meaning you start throttling at that point. The reference fan curve is geared for low-noise, so it's pretty easy to each the 80C limit. Precision or Afterburner let you adjust both of those, or you can get a custom BIOS with the settings you want.
 
polonyc2 said:
so what are people's preferred OC/temp monitoring utility?...EVGA Precision X or MSI Afterburner?
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I had never used neither until I put in my 970.

evga precision seems to stop working after a short period of time in games.

If I toggle it off and leave it for a few mins I then cannot toggle it back on again, if I leave it on, the figures stop updating.

By the way why do people like reference blowers?

When I had the blower 760 gtx it sounded like a vacuum cleaner and still was hotter than ACX cooling.
 
polonyc2 said:
so what are people's preferred OC/temp monitoring utility?...EVGA Precision X or MSI Afterburner?
Click to expand...

Afterburner. I tried to run Precision but I had issues with it not applying my custom fan curve after rebooting.
 
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3187213

Here's my sli 970 setup with custom bios just around my 24/7 settings, including memory crossbar and L2 cache speeds matched to the core instead of below like the stock bios has. Never throttles or goes out of sync on voltages.

"1510c/l2/xbar, 8164m, sli 1.218v unleashed tdp in SLI on stock air (MSI Gaming)"

Nets a graphics score of 26,282. When testing I found this is as fast as my cards at 1620mhz core or more without the tweaks :D.

If I then raise the core to 1553 but leave the crossbar and L2 at 1510 I get to 26.7k gpu score: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3191520

May try to get 1570 synchd stable as 24/7 sometime if I get bored soon, but as you can see the performance even at 1510 synchd up is nuts.
 
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