*GTX 260/280 Unofficial TPU! Thread*

[Cold Storm]

The only thing about the coolers is this... It makes the card a 3 slot card.. It might not hurt you with that workstation mobo. I had to take my 8400gs that I was using for Physx out. I will be putting it back in once I get my 780i board back. But, I don't know if I'll keep that board or what.. Was doa when it came, and I like it, but I don't know if I'll do 2 280's...

Your right on temps. If you look at my score I did on stock with this board, and just the card oc, It does wonders!

 

[Kursah]

Did you notice any performance hits without the 8400GS vs with? I thought I remembered reading that it really makes little to no difference since the gt200 series was designed with CUDA as a strongsuit.

That cooler looks sweet for sure! I'm more interested in the Arctic Cooler tripple fan cooler tbh, but really on my 260 I can't complain about temps one bit! Plus I've yet to need any more performance...I might push it again to see what I can get for benches and what-not, but beyond that gaming is excellent!

 

[Cold Storm]

Did you notice any performance hits without the 8400GS vs with? I thought I remembered reading that it really makes little to no difference since the gt200 series was designed with CUDA as a strongsuit.

That cooler looks sweet for sure! I'm more interested in the Arctic Cooler tripple fan cooler tbh, but really on my 260 I can't complain about temps one bit! Plus I've yet to need any more performance...I might push it again to see what I can get for benches and what-not, but beyond that gaming is excellent!

With the GTX and the 8400, there was little to no difference... Only thing I could tell, is color difference.. A dark red was DARK red... But, since taking it out, it looks the same..
As for what you have heard, that's the same with me. It's design makes it not as worth wild.. I never did bench with it, due to having my mobo crapping out on me with the DIMM slots.. Wish I did.

As for the cooler, I've see a good difference In the temps. It was idling at 45 with the fan on 100% and now it's at 40c... It's almost a 10c drop from having Fur running for 2 mins..
But, it's not hooked up to my fan controller yet because of the modding I'm doing. So, once it is, and I get my third fan, I'll do the tests for us.

The triple cooler is sweet looking, yes, but I've fell in love with this cooler since TRT threw out that link..

 

[Bigjohn]

Ok guys...
need some little bits of help.
running EVGA 780i mobo / e8400 dual core CPU.
This is my CPU-z validation. I'm overclocked to 3.9ghz, so my voltages are all bumped up a bit. Anyone else who has this board is welcome to chime in - I am pretty happy with the performance and it seems to be stable.

Here is my GPU-Z
EVGA Precision reports 790/1192/1703 (core/mem/shader). GPU-Z says roughly the same...

This is watercooled, using the swiftech full cover plate, stock back plate, and swiftech MCW60 waterblock with the GTX200 series adapter.

With ambient temps of 70F, my GPU is 37c at idle. (cpu at 42-47 -- I have vmware running on this machine...)

I ran FURMARK and it locked up 73% through.

Does that typically mean the GPU/Shader clock is too high, or the ram clock?

 

[=THS= THEDDLE]

Hey

It is kinda trial by error. I would lower you clock to your next setting down. Try 3dmark again. If it passes then you are good if not lower the other two down a notch. Keep repeating until you find a good mark. Sometimes you can lower the shadder and memory and keep the higher clocks. Like I said trial and error. I have had sucess in 3dmark and fail in game. Just so you know. I have higher clocks on 3dmark and it wont work in game. So good luck. I have had my 260 FTW all the way up to 780 clock successfull in SLI on 3dmark. COD 4 hated it. COD 4 likes 756 however COD 5 has issues.

THEDDLE

 

[Tatty_Two]

Ok guys...
need some little bits of help.
running EVGA 780i mobo / e8400 dual core CPU.
This is my CPU-z validation. I'm overclocked to 3.9ghz, so my voltages are all bumped up a bit. Anyone else who has this board is welcome to chime in - I am pretty happy with the performance and it seems to be stable.

Here is my GPU-Z
EVGA Precision reports 790/1192/1703 (core/mem/shader). GPU-Z says roughly the same...

This is watercooled, using the swiftech full cover plate, stock back plate, and swiftech MCW60 waterblock with the GTX200 series adapter.

With ambient temps of 70F, my GPU is 37c at idle. (cpu at 42-47 -- I have vmware running on this machine...)

I ran FURMARK and it locked up 73% through.

Does that typically mean the GPU/Shader clock is too high, or the ram clock?

Might I suggest keeping your core clocks as they are and dropping the shaders down to 1600, the shader clocks have far less impact on performance than the core clock.

 

[Bigjohn]

Thanks guys. These clocks seem to be 'stuck'. Can't change them - with Precision - so I'll have to reboot. They're not working - I ran 3dmark06 and got a bunch of CRAP out of it... 5700 3dmarks! LOL

I do love my cooler setup, though! Damn. Highest I ever got it after 2 hours of Forged Alliance was about 44c....

 

[johnspack]

Darn ocing on this 280 isn't easy, it goes from 1458 straight to 1512, which it is not stable at. 713 core is top I can get, but core speed doesn't increase folding speed much at all. And I usually leave my memory clock at stock. Any ideas how I might get it to 1512? I've tried increasing sb vcore, sb link speed, nothing works. Heat is not an issue. Is this all it's got?

 

[dadi_oh]

Darn ocing on this 280 isn't easy, it goes from 1458 straight to 1512, which it is not stable at. 713 core is top I can get, but core speed doesn't increase folding speed much at all. And I usually leave my memory clock at stock. Any ideas how I might get it to 1512? I've tried increasing sb vcore, sb link speed, nothing works. Heat is not an issue. Is this all it's got?

Are you on stock cooler? These GTX2xx respond better to temps than to voltage.

From my experience with the 260 my stability point was somewhere between 60C and 70C for high overclocks. When I was on stock I could hit 756 core and 1512 shaders with the fans at 70% speed and under Furmark load hitting mid 60's. If I tried 1566 shaders (next step up) I would hit about 70C and would start to artifact. If I tried to bump the vcore from stock 1.06V to 1.12V I would end up getting an overcurrent protection kicking in (black screen).

Once I moved to water, I was able to bump vcore to 1.12V without the OCP kicking in but more importantly I was only hitting 42C on the core. This allowed me to bump 2 spots up in OC. Shaders to 1620 and core 810.

The 280's are hotter than the 260's and I think they are already topped out at 1.18V vcore so next step is to either run your stock fan at 100% or move to aftermarket, or move to water.

 

[Bigjohn]

Are you on stock cooler? These GTX2xx respond better to temps than to voltage.

nope - on water. See my first post, I'm 37c at idle... after furmark for 3 minutes I hit 45c on the GPU.

From my experience with the 260 my stability point was somewhere between 60C and 70C for high overclocks. When I was on stock I could hit 756 core and 1512 shaders with the fans at 70% speed and under Furmark load hitting mid 60's. If I tried 1566 shaders (next step up) I would hit about 70C and would start to artifact. If I tried to bump the vcore from stock 1.06V to 1.12V I would end up getting an overcurrent protection kicking in (black screen).

Once I moved to water, I was able to bump vcore to 1.12V without the OCP kicking in but more importantly I was only hitting 42C on the core. This allowed me to bump 2 spots up in OC. Shaders to 1620 and core 810.

The 280's are hotter than the 260's and I think they are already topped out at 1.18V vcore so next step is to either run your stock fan at 100% or move to aftermarket, or move to water.

yep. On water.
So I guess i need to understand what the 'barrier' is at which I need to fiddle the bios for more volts...

With the clocks at 720/1153/1557 (core, mem, shader) a 'benchmark' run full screen furmark (1680x1050) with 4x AA my score was 4300. My 3dmarks06 were 15320.

 

[dadi_oh]

nope - on water. See my first post, I'm 37c at idle... after furmark for 3 minutes I hit 45c on the GPU.


yep. On water.
So I guess i need to understand what the 'barrier' is at which I need to fiddle the bios for more volts...

With the clocks at 720/1153/1557 (core, mem, shader) a 'benchmark' run full screen furmark (1680x1050) with 4x AA my score was 4300. My 3dmarks06 were 15320.

I'm confused Are Big John and Johnspack the same John living in BC and Georgia at the same time? I thought I was replying to Johnspack's query but Bigjohn is replying to my reply. So here is a reply to Bigjohns reply to my reply to johnspack... Or something like that

Anyhoo... @Bigjohn... Great temps. Hadn't heard of Swiftech doing a full cover plate that works with the MWC60. I use the D-Tek Unisink with D-Tek Fuzion 2 which works really well. I can't see your system specs and can't tell from your post if you are a 280 or a 260. If a 280 then I think you are already maxed out at 1.18V core in BIOS. Only option for more volts would be a hardware mod. If a 260 then you may have some headroom for BIOS voltage increase. From my experience with the 260 the voltage doesn't help OC too much and I was actually getting into overcurrent protection @ 1.18V. One thought... maybe adding a fan on the Swiftech full cover? I have my front case fan blowing right across my unisink and that may help with both memory and power cooling.

 

[Bigjohn]

nope... that's what I get for thinking it's all about me...

Front case fan blows across a hard disk, but yeah, in that general direction too. and since the vents / "double card" configuration end plate can't be changed, there is a way for some air to get out the back.

I think, on my 260/c216 getting 15320 on 3dmark06, with a 780i mobo, e8400@3.9ghz, and 4g ram on XP 64 pro is decent as hell. My previous video setup was a pair of 7950GTX in SLI, and I got 10k....

 

[johnspack]

Darn, guess I'll have to invest another 100can into this thing then. My card folds in the 70c's and can break 80c in demanding games. It just plain stops working if it hits 83c, but since I cleaned my filters out I don't get those temps now. Fan is already at 100%, my case has 8 fans including a hi-output panaflo side intake for the video cards. Guess it's new cooler time!

 

[Fitseries3]

well guys....


my 260s are gone and with a little time i'll have the new toys up and running for your viewing pleasure.

i'll be sure to post all my results here.

 

[Cold Storm]

Sweet! New electrical blood! Can't wait to see those toys in action!

As for the review... I'm trying to get the last fan together with the little tid bit's I need.. But no luck... So gotta think if I really want to try it...

 

[BarbaricSoul]

nope... that's what I get for thinking it's all about me...

Front case fan blows across a hard disk, but yeah, in that general direction too. and since the vents / "double card" configuration end plate can't be changed, there is a way for some air to get out the back.

I think, on my 260/c216 getting 15320 on 3dmark06, with a 780i mobo, e8400@3.9ghz, and 4g ram on XP 64 pro is decent as hell. My previous video setup was a pair of 7950GTX in SLI, and I got 10k....

No offence, but I got that beat with my 8400 at 3.88, 3 gigs ddr2800 ram, 750ftw mobo, and a single 192 shader gtx260 (OC'ed@700/1509(linked)/1204) by 1600 points. You should be getting the same as me atleast. Same CPU at comparable speeds, chipset's are pretty much the same (acouple more sata and usb ports and it's 3rd PCI-x port is the only difference from what I read on EVGA.com) and you have a better version GTX260. What drivers you running? My run was with the beta 185.20.


http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=9476378

 

[BarbaricSoul]

btw, wanna trade?

 

[Bigjohn]

No offence, but I got that beat with my 8400 at 3.88, 3 gigs ddr2800 ram, 750ftw mobo, and a single 192 shader gtx260 (OC'ed@700/1509(linked)/1204) by 1600 points. You should be getting the same as me atleast. Same CPU at comparable speeds, chipset's are pretty much the same (acouple more sata and usb ports and it's 3rd PCI-x port is the only difference from what I read on EVGA.com) and you have a better version GTX260. What drivers you running? My run was with the beta 185.20.


http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=9476378

181.48 driver? On xp64 I don't like to play with beta drivers. Actual cpu is 3.897...LOL

btw, wanna trade?

Nope!

 

[Fitseries3]

wooot!

 

[Kursah]

Damn that's a lotta cash! Better you than me lol! I'm just fine w/my 260, but I can't wait to see what you can conjure up with those monsters! Keep us posted! I want some serious screenshot dedication and results in this thread!

 

[Fitseries3]

OH YEAH! you know i like to show off my results.

 

[Cold Storm]

Fits, whenever you sale one... Dibs please!!!! Man, can't wait for your show!

 

[Rafiluccio]

Hello, excuse my English ..... I've been using google to translate!
I bought a GTX 260 216SP BLACK EDITION few days ago, I tried to overclock and I have problems with sharder can not keep them stable at 1512 ... after a few minutes of games or tests of the artifacts appear to me, a blue screen and then restarts! I thought to make a vmode , bios by "extra" v 1.18 ,as home but I have to do damage fear! should I do it? or should I wait to get a good cooling or air or water?

Thank you very much

 

[dadi_oh]

Hello, excuse my English ..... I've been using google to translate!
I bought a GTX 260 216SP BLACK EDITION few days ago, I tried to overclock and I have problems with sharder can not keep them stable at 1512 ... after a few minutes of games or tests of the artifacts appear to me, a blue screen and then restarts! I thought to make a vmode , bios by "extra" v 1.18 ,as home but I have to do damage fear! should I do it? or should I wait to get a good cooling or air or water?

Thank you very much

First try setting the fan to 100% through something like eVGA Precision or Rivatuner. That will tell you if extra cooling can help. Stock fanspeed on my 260 was 40% and I immediately bumped it to 60% (until I watercooled it).

I can not do 1.18V on mine since it causes power protection to engage (black screen).

Make sure you know what you are doing before BIOS modding. Make a backup of your original and make sure you can flash back if things don't work out.

And just a final note... The general concensus that I have seen is that better cooling works on the GTX2xx series. Higher voltage does not help much.

 

[Binge]

The GTX295 is killer guys! With L2N we see some extreme overclocks. Imagine what these could do on water

28k Vantage with a single GTX295