# 780i unofficial thread



## shawnizzzle (Oct 28, 2008)

I have had my Evga 780i since about march. I bought it at tiger direct and I just love it. I was almost going to upgrade to the 790i but I think ill wait till intel i7 comes out till I do.

Ive ran sli on it with great results. I had 2 9800gtx in sli mode overclocked to 800/1998/1106 and my Q6600 overclocked to 4.02ghz and broke the 20,000 mark on 3dmark06. It did take a hell of a radiator to get the cpu that high and a D-tek fuzion v2 to cool it but the board made it there without braking a sweat at the fsb over 425. 

This is a picture of my SwordM which was a birthday gift from my fiance. This is one of the biggest and nicest cases I have ever worked with.

 Everybody is complaining about the gtx 260 and 280 barely fitting in there case well i got about 2 inches of clearance on mine before the hard drive tray. This case weighed 55lbs before i even put any of my stuff in it. 

I want to hear how people are enjoying there 780i and mabe answer some questions for you guys that have sum.

Feel free to post some numbers on performance on what your getting with your setups. 

Currently my cpu is clocked at 3.6ghz cuz at 4.02 my lil chip takes 1.78volt to get there so I only put it there for benchen.

I am currious on what you guys get for your gtlvref lanes for voltages. Ive read quite a bit on what it is for and what not just curious on what you guys need with them to get stable.
Here are some pics of my system and liquid cooling



Now another problem that people are reporting is the mcp temp. I for one do not have this problem even at 448fsb. 

One thing that alot of people dont realize it the fsb voltage. For a front side bus up to 450, you still only need about 1.3volts if you have your gtlvref lane voltage set right

here is some info on what they are http://www.edgeofstability.com/articles/dfi_p35/gtl/gtl1.html

And some more here http://www.edgeofstability.com/articles/dfi_p35/default_gtl.html[/UR

It is surprizing when you get them set right and your super high fsb and your only running like 1.3volts for the northbridge.

*gtlvref lane voltage*
When i go to set my gtlvref I start out with 1.3v for the fsb voltage. Boot and run prime95 and when it shows errors ill move the lane volts up 10mv till there is now more errors in 10 minutes. Then ill write them down lets say its 20mv. Then ill move up 10mv each time and run prime again for 10minutes. Ill do that till it starts showing errors again.

Write that mv down and lets say its 120mv. Now find the median for the to and that would be 60mv now i know that im right in the middle of my stability voltages for the gtlvref. Any time i mess with the fsb i do this thats why its so nice that they let you save settings in the bios and load them. 

Now for the spp and mcp-spp I always keep these values in the green and on the low side were i can. If i start to have problems with stability i start moving one up at a time till it is resolved.


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## DrPepper (Oct 28, 2008)

The most overclock I ever got was 3.9ghz on one core of my q6600 don't ask how I did it  it just happened one day and that was on air, So I kinda want a water cooling kit to see where I can take it.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 29, 2008)

3.9 is very good on a q6600 my vid is 1.3125 so i have a hot running chip to begin with and its very voltage hungry
How do you like your asus board mine evga.


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## ntdouglas (Oct 29, 2008)

I love my 780i. 2 9600 gt's sli. Best run on 3dmark06 is 18767. I'm at 3.42g with 1.34 vcore 24/7. Haven't had to reset cmos once. I will buy evga again definately. Runs 8g of ram fine. To me, nvidia rocks.


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## DrPepper (Oct 29, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> 3.9 is very good on a q6600 my vid is 1.3125 so i have a hot running chip to begin with and its very voltage hungry
> How do you like your asus board mine evga.



It's an ok board but when I want to get 3.9 again I need a higher votlage  Also the heatsink for the chipset covers half the board and if I want to water cool it I need to find a way to cool the bits it covers if you get what I mean. How's the EVGA board I really wanted one of those.


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## largon (Oct 29, 2008)

> 780i *unofficial thread*


I've always wondered what _is_ the difference between "official" and "unofficial" topics?


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## DrPepper (Oct 29, 2008)

largon said:


> I've always wondered what _is_ the difference between "official" and "unofficial" topics?



isn't official when a company starts the thread or the creator of whatever the subject is.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 29, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> It's an ok board but when I want to get 3.9 again I need a higher votlage  Also the heatsink for the chipset covers half the board and if I want to water cool it I need to find a way to cool the bits it covers if you get what I mean. How's the EVGA board I really wanted one of those.



I love my evga board i havent had to clear the cmos eigther. I wish i had some higher cpu voltage options the highest mine goes is 1.8v.


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## ntdouglas (Oct 29, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> I love my evga board i havent had to clear the cmos eigther. I wish i had some higher cpu voltage options the highest mine goes is 1.8v.



1.8v. Wouldn't that be hot even on water?


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 29, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> 1.8v. Wouldn't that be hot even on water?



lol a lil bit but my huge radiator and dtek v2 really helped. Running prime95 my highest temp was 66C and the lowest was 62C so yea it did run hot but not as hot as the max thermal range intel gives which is 71C


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 29, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> I love my 780i. 2 9600 gt's sli. Best run on 3dmark06 is 18767. I'm at 3.42g with 1.34 vcore 24/7. Haven't had to reset cmos once. I will buy evga again definately. Runs 8g of ram fine. To me, nvidia rocks.



And a run of almost 19,000 is very good. Dont let the current highest 3dmark score intimidate you. I know how hard it was for me to hit 20,000 with my dual 9800gtx's in sli @4.02ghz on 1.78v. And you would be very surprized how easy it is to hit 20,000 if your already at almost 19,000 if you could just get a lil bit more out of your cpu it wouldnt take long at all you break the 20,000 barrier. With your low vcore and your Zalman im sure you could hit 3.6 or 3.7 ( just for benching though).


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## ntdouglas (Oct 29, 2008)

That 3dmark run was at 3.6 on the quad at 1.4 vcore. I've had it up to 423x9 for 3.8  on my quad. lol Too much for me though, plus the temps were up too.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 29, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> That 3dmark run was at 3.6 on the quad at 1.4 vcore. I've had it up to 423x9 for 3.8  on my quad. lol Too much for me though, plus the temps were up too.



Well when you look up what speeds people are getting with their q6600 your 3.8 is very good alot of them only get them up to about 2.8ghz-3.5ghz.  1.4vcore is really good you must have a low vid.  And about your temps that surprizes me seeing that you have a zalman. I hear there really nice. Mabe you need some more case airflow to help drop temps but thats not my place to say as its not my computer and that may not be true at all. You could just have a hot running chip like I do. My first liquid cooler was a $70 coolermaster and it was ok to get me to 3.6ghz but temps were in the 40's idle and 68-71 load.  If your intersted I can give all the places were i got my water cooling stuff. for like $200 you can get a kick ass custom water cooled setup there not that much money. I tried to get top of the line on my stuff and i think i got like $400 into it.  Other than liquid cooling i do think you got the best air cooler on the market from reviews. All the ones that beat the zalman are way to loud for me. 

How do you like the zalman that you got i want to get one for my fiance's computer and i just want to know how you like it. She isnt to convined to go to water yet on her computer. She still has the stock inter cooler its not overclocked at all. Its also the q6600.

Temps can be different though becuase what you think is to hot i might think is perfercly fine. Unless its like in the 50's idle or something.  If your interested in watercooling let me know i can help you look around for deals and what not.

Although I do think when the nehhalems come out that my setup will be completely overkill when i see what kind of volts those run. 0.8volts is insane.


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## DrPepper (Oct 29, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> lol a lil bit but my huge radiator and dtek v2 really helped. Running prime95 my highest temp was 66C and the lowest was 62C so yea it did run hot but not as hot as the max thermal range intel gives which is 71C



Actualy the thermal max is 95 degrees


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 29, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> Actualy the thermal max is 95 degrees



Oh im sorry i thought i read it was 71C. As soon as my system hits 71 it will shut down
IT might be 95 thanks for letting me know


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## DrPepper (Oct 29, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> Oh im sorry i thought i read it was 71C. As soon as my system hits 71 it will shut down
> IT might be 95 thanks for letting me know



I used to really anal about mine going over forty especially when I was running at 3.9 Then I learned the thermal max was 95 so I just swapped it out for a cooler fan.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 29, 2008)

does yours run over 71 degrees without shutting down?

I just looked it up and you are right it is 90C sorry guys


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## DrPepper (Oct 29, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> does yours run over 71 degrees without shutting down?
> 
> I just looked it up and you are right it is 90C sorry guys



You've probly got a setting on in the bios that will cause it to shutdown or prolly some kinda software, Mines went upto 100 before it shutdown.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 29, 2008)

This is a screenshot of my computer at 4ghz so you guys can take a look at voltages and temps


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## DrPepper (Oct 29, 2008)

I think my mobo is the limit to my overclock, The chip has great potential since it goes 3.9 at 1.5v


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## phanbuey (Oct 29, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> View attachment 19767This is a screenshot of my computer at 4ghz so you guys can take a look at voltages and temps



nice OC on that 260!... hell... nice OC on that quad!!!


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## ntdouglas (Oct 30, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> Well when you look up what speeds people are getting with their q6600 your 3.8 is very good alot of them only get them up to about 2.8ghz-3.5ghz.  1.4vcore is really good you must have a low vid.  And about your temps that surprizes me seeing that you have a zalman. I hear there really nice. Mabe you need some more case airflow to help drop temps but thats not my place to say as its not my computer and that may not be true at all. You could just have a hot running chip like I do. My first liquid cooler was a $70 coolermaster and it was ok to get me to 3.6ghz but temps were in the 40's idle and 68-71 load.  If your intersted I can give all the places were i got my water cooling stuff. for like $200 you can get a kick ass custom water cooled setup there not that much money. I tried to get top of the line on my stuff and i think i got like $400 into it.  Other than liquid cooling i do think you got the best air cooler on the market from reviews. All the ones that beat the zalman are way to loud for me.
> 
> How do you like the zalman that you got i want to get one for my fiance's computer and i just want to know how you like it. She isnt to convined to go to water yet on her computer. She still has the stock inter cooler its not overclocked at all. Its also the q6600.
> 
> ...



Not really interested w/c right now, thanks for the offer though. I believe my vid is 1.3125. I love the zalman. Lapping both dropped temps 8c. Can't even hear it either. At 3.8 I was idle at between 45c-50c, didn't even bother priming it just for bragging rights I guess. I might try it again because that was in the summer. Its now getting cool in the Chicago area.


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## ntdouglas (Oct 30, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> does yours run over 71 degrees without shutting down?
> 
> I just looked it up and you are right it is 90C sorry guys




90c? Wow. Thats 194f. Are you guys sure? Maybe I will try 4.0 on my quad.


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## ntdouglas (Oct 30, 2008)

Here's my validation. lol


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## spearman914 (Oct 30, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> 1.8v. Wouldn't that be hot even on water?



Not really. 1.8 V water is like 1.55 air. But in general it depends on air flow.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 30, 2008)

phanbuey said:


> nice OC on that 260!... hell... nice OC on that quad!!!



As for the gtx 260 when i got it last week it would only clock to 686 on the core. After running it for a day i got a lil bit more. Then day after day it got more and more i can run it higher than that but it will crash on some games and runs fine on others.


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## DrPepper (Oct 30, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> As for the gtx 260 when i got it last week it would only clock to 686 on the core. After running it for a day i got a lil bit more. Then day after day it got more and more i can run it higher than that but it will crash on some games and runs fine on others.



I had to do that with my 8800GT it oc's like crap but to get 50mhz it took me about 2 week gradually nudging it up a few mhz then letting it settle and on and on then did a 3dmark run when I lost patience lol.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 30, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> Not really interested w/c right now, thanks for the offer though. I believe my vid is 1.3125. I love the zalman. Lapping both dropped temps 8c. Can't even hear it either. At 3.8 I was idle at between 45c-50c, didn't even bother priming it just for bragging rights I guess. I might try it again because that was in the summer. Its now getting cool in the Chicago area.


Thanks ntdouglas than Im sure that  this will be the one ill get for her. She has the 680i and is iching to overclock it and i wouldnt recommend it on the stock cooler. And your validation is identical to my chip mine is 1.3125 alos


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 30, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> 90c? Wow. Thats 194f. Are you guys sure? Maybe I will try 4.0 on my quad.



Yeah i didnt think so eigther but i forgot who corrected me but yes they were right i wouldnt recommend running it at that temp all the time but it can run at it though


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## DrPepper (Oct 30, 2008)

My VID is 1.3250

I'd run my system 24/7 at 80 degrees but it would reduce lifespan about 6 months or something which wouldn't bother me.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 30, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> I had to do that with my 8800GT it oc's like crap but to get 50mhz it took me about 2 week gradually nudging it up a few mhz then letting it settle and on and on then did a 3dmark run when I lost patience lol.



Its weird they like loosen up or something but mine sure does. The thead that kurash started has alot of good information on these cards but its like 30 paged long it took me a weekend to read it all


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 30, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> My VID is 1.3250



Thats what my gf's vid is and hers takes alot of voltage in my system to get to 3.6 i think it was like 1.55v or 1.6v


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## DrPepper (Oct 30, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> Thats what my gf's vid is and hers takes alot of voltage in my system to get to 3.6 i think it was like 1.55v or 1.6v



Mine's eats alot of voltage now


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## ntdouglas (Oct 30, 2008)

When you guys oc the card/cards, do you keep the shaders linked to the core or not? I don't know if its sli or what, but I can't seem to get the same oc on the core as other guys do. In evga precision they come linked and I've just left it like that. Leaving them linked, anything over 720 on the core and I start artifacting and crashing.


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 30, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> When you guys oc the card/cards, do you keep the shaders linked to the core or not? I don't know if its sli or what, but I can't seem to get the same oc on the core as other guys do. In evga precision they come linked and I've just left it like that. Leaving them linked, anything over 720 on the core and I start artifacting and crashing.



First off use furmark to do all your stability testing http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

Second. In sli you can only overclock as far as your slowest card. One of your cards might overclock very well and the other not and in sli you can only go as high as your slowest cuase both of your cards are linked to the same speed.

3. 720 is low on the core but you say its linked with the shader. That puts your shader around 1566. Thats more shader than mine will run. So this means that you can unlink and just move the core up im gessing you could prolly get around 750-760 on the core no problem. How much of a performace increase that yeilds you is prolly not worth the hassle but try it and see for yourself. I can take my core up to 755 unlinked before i get artifacts but the extra 10 isnt worth it to me. When you look at your linked speed with the shaders your about were alot of people are including me. If you unlink however the card will only let your core go alittle bit higher and then it will drematically downclock if you get to high because these cards have to have a 1:2 ratio or about 43% anything out of this range makes them downclock. My core can prolly get to 780-790 but the shaders is my problem.

4. Sorry but i just seen that your cards are 9600gt's so the linking thing might be different for you i dont know give it a try and see.

5. what you can do is take one of your cards out and see how far each one overclocks individually and rma the one thats lowest. Evga's rma program is just sweet. I always did the advanced rma so you get the new card then send in yours. Mush better than sending yours in first then waiting.  I did this on my 2 9800gtx's till i got both to break 800 and 2000 on the core and shader linked. Just put down that they overheat or aritifacts ive never had a problem with them on doing this.


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## ntdouglas (Oct 30, 2008)

I have furmark already, so thanks. What your saying about sli makes sense. You were way low on guessing my shaders though. At 720 on the core, my shaders are over 1800. I'm gonna do some experimenting tonight after work with unlinking them. Maybe I will post some screenies. What do the shaders actually do anyways? And how can you go on the ram?


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 30, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> I have furmark already, so thanks. What your saying about sli makes sense. You were way low on guessing my shaders though. At 720 on the core, my shaders are over 1800. I'm gonna do some experimenting tonight after work with unlinking them. Maybe I will post some screenies. What do the shaders actually do anyways? And how can you go on the ram?



Yeah i realized at the last minute that you had 9 series gpu's and i was referring to my gtx 260. The shaders if you look up is i beleave the stream processors or sp's. You have 64sp's  so if you overclock your core to 720 thats your 1 core. If you get your shaders overclocked higher that is were you will get more performace. The memory on the other hand really does not offer very much perfomance increase from stock. Though my 9800gtx would get to about 736 and then stop. Once i overclocked the memory more i could hit 800 on the core and 1998 on the shaders. Though with my gtx 260 its stock at 999mhz on the memory. I have it overclocked to 1246 and it gave me 1fps increase. A huge overclock and very little to show for it. But the shaders is were you will get your most performace.  The more shaders you have helps alot in producing images faster in games as so does increasing the speed.


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## SK-1 (Oct 30, 2008)

Pencil mod, that's all I can say for my 780i...pencil mod


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## ntdouglas (Oct 30, 2008)

SK-1 said:


> Pencil mod, that's all I can say for my 780i...pencil mod



My buddy did that for me along with lapping my zalman and quad. Almost zero vdroop.


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## ntdouglas (Oct 30, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> Yeah i realized at the last minute that you had 9 series gpu's and i was referring to my gtx 260. The shaders if you look up is i beleave the stream processors or sp's. You have 64sp's  so if you overclock your core to 720 thats your 1 core. If you get your shaders overclocked higher that is were you will get more performace. The memory on the other hand really does not offer very much perfomance increase from stock. Though my 9800gtx would get to about 736 and then stop. Once i overclocked the memory more i could hit 800 on the core and 1998 on the shaders. Though with my gtx 260 its stock at 999mhz on the memory. I have it overclocked to 1246 and it gave me 1fps increase. A huge overclock and very little to show for it. But the shaders is were you will get your most performace.  The more shaders you have helps alot in producing images faster in games as so does increasing the speed.



So the shaders being over 1800 is what was holding me back then. So what should you try to push harder, core or shaders?


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 30, 2008)

lower them down a hair and then move one up at a time running furmark and see where each one tops out at then that will let you know what you can run when unlinked. It will also let you know which one is holding you back do this also with your ram in some cases i think it becomes a bottleneck and you have to overcome that. So do it with you ram also.


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## ntdouglas (Oct 31, 2008)

shawnizzzle said:


> I have had my Evga 780i since about march. I bought it at tiger direct and I just love it. I was almost going to upgrade to the 790i but I think ill wait till intel i7 comes out till I do.
> 
> Ive ran sli on it with great results. I had 2 9800gtx in sli mode overclocked to 800/1998/1106 and my Q6600 overclocked to 4.02ghz and broke the 20,000 mark on 3dmark06. It did take a hell of a radiator to get the cpu that high and a D-tek fuzion v2 to cool it but the board made it there without braking a sweat at the fsb over 425.
> 
> ...





Ok, now on to the fun stuff. I thought everybody including me left all that on auto.
Here are all my settings:

380 fsb
cpu fsb = auto  1.4v
nforce spp = 1.45
nforce mcp = auto  1.5v
ht nforce spp <-> mcp = auto  1.2v
gtlvref   lane 0 = auto  +00mv
            lane 1 = auto  +110mv
            lane 2 = auto  +00mv
            lane 3 = auto  +00mv


So cpu fsb is the fsb voltage correct? And nforce spp is nb, because if I can remember I had to up that when I went with 8g of ram. So whats all that other shit?


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 31, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> Ok, now on to the fun stuff. I thought everybody including me left all that on auto.
> Here are all my settings:
> 
> 380 fsb
> ...



Mcp=southbridge
spp=northbridge
Alot of people do leave their stuff on auto because it works for them and heres why. Your board including mine will overvolt all the settings on auto once you get away from the stock specs. This is why it works although you really can drop alot of the voltages and keep  the same stability with alot less heat. Nforce's are famouse for that.
 You shouldnt need anything over 1.3volts on the fsb till you hit 400-415. Adjust it to be stable with your gtlvref lane voltage. As in my first post the two links give alot of information if you can understand it and yes it took me a few times of reading i suggest read it 3 times in a row and write some stuff down. The first page and the last give some nice graphs that will show you what there for. Start off with dropping your mcp and spp voltages to the second step down thats green. You got the same board i do and mine worked perfect at 450fsb at them voltages. Move your gtlvref off of auto and start out with setting them at 0mv on all four. This doesnt add more to your cpu cores just your fsb
FOR QUAD CORES: 
Lane 0 is for Core 0,1 Data Bus (die 0) 
Lane 1 is for Core 2,3 Data Bus (die 1) 
Lane 2 is for Core 0,1 Address Bus (die 0) 
Lane 3 is for Core 2,3 Address Bus (die 1) 
When you do this prime95 it and see what core fails. Raise it 10mv till till your stable for like 2 hours write the mv down. Also write down which core fails because that data bus or address bus will require more gtlvref than the other cores. My core 2 requires 15mv more than the rest of them. Once you get all your cores stable at the lowest gtlvref, raise all of them 10mv till you start to fail again. Now find the middle number in that and that is your perfect fsb voltage for maximum stability at that fsb speed. Once you move your fsb speed now your gtlvref lanes will be different. This is why the auto settings are no good because it adds like 95mv to core 0,1 address bus die 0 and none to the rest.


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## ntdouglas (Oct 31, 2008)

Would spp or mcp be different than your settings because I'm running 8g of ram? Also you said I shouldn't need anything more than 1.3v on fsb. Do you mean for mcp or cpu fsb voltage?


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## shawnizzzle (Oct 31, 2008)

ntdouglas said:


> Would spp or mcp be different than your settings because I'm running 8g of ram? Also you said I shouldn't need anything more than 1.3v on fsb. Do you mean for mcp or cpu fsb voltage?



fsb voltage. You may need a little bit more on the mcp for your ram. Im assuming you got 4 sticks of 2gig. That would require more volts then.


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