*GTX 260/280 Unofficial TPU! Thread*

[Lethalrise750]

Yeah these newer drivers do that...mine will turn back down after closing some games, or watching a dvd. The 182.50 drivers were a little better about that, but the downclocking hasn't really worked right in the 180 series of drivers, though iirc the 180.48/84's might have been ok.

Yeah, I tried 185.68 and it seemed better but I moved back to 182.50 heh.


Kursah, You recommend 182.08 or 180.48/84?

 

[Kursah]

I've had good experience on both the 182.08's and the 180.48/84's. Solid gaming, folding, no issues. I had a few small issues with the 182.50's, but it could be a number of other things I suppose, the 185 beta's weren't any good for gaming, at least in the games I was playing while I was trying those drivers out. I haven't tried the .68's, but I did try the .65's and .66's and was not impressed. I did notice a PPD decrease with the 182.50's that I regained with the 182.08's though. But 3d/2d switching was better in the newer drivers...it's all give and take, but at this point I'll be sticking to older 182.08whql drivers for a better overall experience for gaming and folding.

 

[OnBoard]

Anyone try and drop voltages to see what kind of stable voltages they can attain for their OC's? I'm curious to see what is attained and if results are similar and what others can achieve for different oc's.

I'm tempted, but these new drivers need to go. Though I could at least find the max OC values first.

NiBiTor 5 seems to work in Vista now too, so I got to look at my bios and was thinking of flashing lower voltages in. 2D could be dropped to 1.06V and Extra to 1,15V (from 1,11 and 1,18) and most likely do just good.

If I change the Vendor from my bios to EVGA, is it enough to make the voltage tuner work, or is there a deeper bios check in place?

 

[Kursah]

I'm tempted, but these new drivers need to go. Though I could at least find the max OC values first.

NiBiTor 5 seems to work in Vista now too, so I got to look at my bios and was thinking of flashing lower voltages in. 2D could be dropped to 1.06V and Extra to 1,15V (from 1,11 and 1,18) and most likely do just good.

If I change the Vendor from my bios to EVGA, is it enough to make the voltage tuner work, or is there a deeper bios check in place?

I had no issues with Nibitor 4.4 in Vista x64...glad 5 works though!

I dunno if it goes beyond the vendor ID, but the ID's I have under Adv. Info is:

Device ID: 05E2 (assuming that's GTX260)
Sub Vendor ID: 3842 (EVGA)
Sub System ID: 1265 (That's EVGA's P/N for this specific card, the 192sp 65nms were 1260)
Board ID: D023

You could try and change the Sub Vendor ID, 3842 ID's as EVGA in GPU-z...give it a shot with the 182.08 drivers and see what happens. That'd be sweet if your card could run on 1.06-1.12v stable!

 

[OnBoard]

I dunno if it goes beyond the vendor ID, but the ID's I have under Adv. Info is:

Device ID: 05E2 (assuming that's GTX260)
Sub Vendor ID: 3842 (EVGA)
Sub System ID: 1265 (That's EVGA's P/N for this specific card, the 192sp 65nms were 1260)
Board ID: D023

Device ID: 05E1
Sub Vendor ID: 1043
Sub System ID: 8290
Board ID: D023

So quite different, seems it would be best to find a matching stock EVGA bios first, if they have stock cards

Well have to start OCing first, am a bit bored, so that's good.

I had no issues with Nibitor 4.4 in Vista x64...glad 5 works though!

Seems the program works fine, bios reading just doesn't. 4.7 was what I had earlier and says cannot start driver like this 5, but got the bios with GPU-Z

 

[OnBoard]

Hmm, this thing OCs like a beast. 750 core was giving artifacts, but 735 seems stable. Shaders are @ 1566, isn't that quite good for a GTX 280? VRM temps are throught the roof though with these clocks Oh well, it's not like I'm going to use these 24/7.

Now to find out memory limits and then some Vantage!

ps. that's with the 40% fan speed still

edit: FurMark stable doesn't seem to be the same as Vantage And talk about something weird & funny. Vantage crashed during Jane Nash and my card went to 2D clocks, it still is there even with 2 displays? Want to get 2D clocks working, OC too much!

1566 shaders crach Vantage with cloth covered Sapphire boat So close to 15k, would have been nice. Well dropped core and mem a bit as I wasn't sure what crashed it, so it'll break.

 

[OnBoard]

give it a shot with the 182.08 drivers and see what happens. That'd be sweet if your card could run on 1.06-1.12v stable!

Well I used 180.48 drivers as I've had them before and already extracted. Dropped the voltage and had 2 profiles with different shader value. Run FurMark on window and applied the higher 1566 shader on the fly and it artifacted, back to 1512 and fine again.

That was with 1.125V and here's a Vantage run with it. Clocked core and memory a bit higher even, but score dropped. Seems the PhysX part run was slower this time, something to do with lower voltage or probably just score fluctuation.

So I'm definitely dropping the default voltages from the bios one notch. The GTX 280 default voltage seemed overly high and it was.

 

[OnBoard]

Went and flashed my card, still works Took Sub Vendow and System ID from another bios and now I have an EVGA card:

EVGA bios didn't have the 1,15V that I wanted for my load and my bios was a bit newer, hence the edit.

Quite different ASUS and EVGA default voltages.
ASUS has Extra 1,1875V (1,1500V) 3D & 2D 1,1125V (1,0625V) (not used)
EVGA has Extra 1,1875V (1,1250V) 3D 1,0625V 2D 1,0375V (not used)

Did a bit of combination and my card now has
EVGASUS (1,1875V) Extra 1,1500V 3D 1,0625V 2D 1,0375V (not used)
seems though I messed up a bit and video uses 1.03V and 2D 1,06V Oh well, new flash some day not a biggie, that voltage identifier having set values made it kinda hard to pick new value to right spot.

 

[Kursah]

Nice work man! Keep us posted!

 

[Lethalrise750]

So I decided to be brave...And I reflashed my GTX 260 to increase the voltages. I also lowered the 2D Voltage.

Normal:
2D = 1.05V
3D = 1.062V
Extra = 1.062V

Modified:
2D = 1.03V
3D = 1.06V
Extra = 1.12V

 

[OnBoard]

Accelero Xtreme GTX280 now available at quietpc:
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/vgacoolers/ac-acc-xtreme-gtx280

 

[mlee49]

Can you guys help with my 2xx questions?! I'm upgrading to an Nvidia card soon and I initially wanted a 280 but then upon reviewing the 275 I'm persuaded to go with that. Here are the questions I have:
1st are they both 55nm cards?
2nd why is the 280 nearly $100 more than the 275 but within 10-20% preformance?
3rd Any real numbered advantage to upgrading to a 285 from either card? I'm not seeing the preformance gain from moving from a 280 to a 285, does anyone see that?

Thanks for the help guys. hope to join yer club soon.

 

[Cold Storm]

The 280 is a Gt200 65nm chip.. the 275 is a 55nm GT200b chip

The 275 has more Flops and Texture Fill rate.

I can't say much on the 275's since I haven't seen them in action, but the 280's can do pretty much anything.. Play any game you want at the res you can take it..

285 is the upgrade to 55nm chip for the 280.. They don't clock to high from what I've seen, but is a tad cooler on everything...

 

[mlee49]

Thanks I'm looking at the EVGA 275 FTW edition. Looks like the overall preformance is better and so are the details like mem bandwidth and clocks(even overclocks).

Either that or dual 216 260's in sli.

 

[Cold Storm]

I say anything from 260 on would be a great choice... I'm not to keen on the 250's... But, that's just me...

 

[mlee49]

Well the 275 seems to be the best price for preformance for me and I'm going to be snagging one when they are released.

 

[Cold Storm]

So your going to get the 896mb version? Not the 1792MB version?

Ether way... I think you'll Love the card! I know I love my 280's!

 

[mlee49]

Considering it, any advantage to the more memory? I guess future upgrades would help since adding a larger memory card may help right.

Does it fold better with more memory?

 

[Tatty_Two]

Well the 275 seems to be the best price for preformance for me and I'm going to be snagging one when they are released.

They are great cards! You dont need more than the 896MB version, I run COD WaW at 1920 x 1200 res, with max detail and forced 8x AA and I get 2 FPS more than I did with my 280 running at just 4 x AA .

They also run cool, they dont really overclock much better than the 280 if at all, well not on the core but the shaders seem to take a bit more, not had time to really put the card through it's paces much yet as I have been trying to get to grips with DFI X58 motherboards!

The 275 does have more Flops and Fill rate than the 280 but it has 4 less ROP's @ 28.

 

[Retro*]

Went and flashed my card, still works Took Sub Vendow and System ID from another bios and now I have an EVGA card:

http://img.techpowerup.org/090413/ASUS_EVGA.jpg

EVGA bios didn't have the 1,15V that I wanted for my load and my bios was a bit newer, hence the edit.

Quite different ASUS and EVGA default voltages.
ASUS has Extra 1,1875V (1,1500V) 3D & 2D 1,1125V (1,0625V) (not used)
EVGA has Extra 1,1875V (1,1250V) 3D 1,0625V 2D 1,0375V (not used)

Did a bit of combination and my card now has
EVGASUS (1,1875V) Extra 1,1500V 3D 1,0625V 2D 1,0375V (not used)
seems though I messed up a bit and video uses 1.03V and 2D 1,06V Oh well, new flash some day not a biggie, that voltage identifier having set values made it kinda hard to pick new value to right spot.

Very good work on that EVGASUS bios. I decided to check into this thread from your Accelero thread to see what you were able to do for your bios/voltage mods. I have a post there as well to say thanks for the new tests and what I really think of your Accelero mod If you do ever need a vanilla EVGA 280 bios I can send a copy of mine, haven't messed with it yet.
But it looks like your hybrid bios is doing fine. I have often wondered if flashing my early bios to a newer bios revision would net any kind of gains or improvements but I doubt it.
And it looks like you are about 1000 points ahead of me on your Vantage score, and that's with the lower one

 

[OnBoard]

Very good work on that EVGASUS bios. I decided to check into this thread from your Accelero thread to see what you were able to do for your bios/voltage mods. I have a post there as well to say thanks for the new tests and what I really think of your Accelero mod If you do ever need a vanilla EVGA 280 bios I can send a copy of mine, haven't messed with it yet.
But it looks like your hybrid bios is doing fine. I have often wondered if flashing my early bios to a newer bios revision would net any kind of gains or improvements but I doubt it.
And it looks like you are about 1000 points ahead of me on your Vantage score, and that's with the lower one

Ah you read this here, replied on the Accelero thread a bit about the voltage. Yes the EVGASUS bios works great, did a quick reflash to get the 2D and 3D voltage right way around. That time it was quick and easy as card make didn't change, so there was no need to re-install drivers (twice as Vista wants always to install the newest found on computer and you have to install those you want on top).

I did save my stock bios just in case. Also wondered if some never bios would bring any improvements, but didn't want something that has different memory settings, that could be trouble.

The Vantage score is with PhysX enabled, so look mainly on the GPU score. I have no chance on good scores with my Dual Core, 3DMark06 scores are pathetic with my 24/7 OC

 

[Retro*]

Ah you read this here, replied on the Accelero thread a bit about the voltage. Yes the EVGASUS bios works great, did a quick reflash to get the 2D and 3D voltage right way around. That time it was quick and easy as card make didn't change, so there was no need to re-install drivers (twice as Vista wants always to install the newest found on computer and you have to install those you want on top).

I did save my stock bios just in case. Also wondered if some never bios would bring any improvements, but didn't want something that has different memory settings, that could be trouble.

The Vantage score is with PhysX enabled, so look mainly on the GPU score. I have no chance on good scores with my Dual Core, 3DMark06 scores are pathetic with my 24/7 OC

Very interesting concept, using less voltage. I may have to give that a try, haven't dared to flash this card yet, but I had no problem flashing a 6800 Ultra and a 7900 GTX a few years ago!
Ya, being forced to install what Vista decides first is a pain. I am still clinging to XP as my primary os until the release of Windows 7 which should be out this year. Although I have experienced that double-install problem with Vista when I was evaluating it, I also did with the W7 Beta when installing Nvidia's latest W7 driver
Well, if you can get that good Vantage score, then 3D06 shouldn't be too bad. I just started trying Vantage on the W7 Beta (free copy from EVGA) and I have enjoyed benching with all of the 3DMark series for many years, I still run 3D06 for fun. I guess there will always be those who say that real gaming results are what really matters though (just a wee bit over 20 grand on 06 for me with the new cooler)

 

[Kursah]

Hey folks, there's a World in Conflict bench thread over here ( http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=92387 ), you guys should at least get the demo (see post 4 or 5 for link), it has MP and bench support built in. Good game, solid bench that is even though much better on newer hardware still somewhat of a challenge imo. Most shouldn't expect 100FPS average with maxed out settings, 4x aa, 16x af, dx10 (in game) at 16x10+ resoltuions. I get about 50FPS at that level...I used FRAPS for my screenshots as print screen was acting odd and only getting desktop, but I'd like to see some more GTX2xx results over there!

 

[Kursah]

Hey folks the new 185.68 beta's and EVGA GPU Voltage Tuner work together just fine! Which is nice because 182.50's didn't work with it. I just hope it'll be integrated with Precision eventually, 1.7.1 is out and still no integration... At least 1.0 works ok again!

 

[Kursah]

Alright I gotta post this here, a slight issue causing me to revert back to 182.08 drivers. 182.50 whql and 185.81 beta's both show a similar issue, I leave my rig folding most of the time while I'm not gaming and always overnight. Well I've noticed that I'll hear my GTX's fan at full boar 100% out of nowhere, I can't control it via Precision, the slider moves, hitting apply says it works, but the rpms stay locked at full speed...generally requiring a restart. Now I've reflashed to a stock bios, I've done a driver clean and fresh driver install...but I'm just wondering wtf is going on and if any of you have noticed your fan ramping up to full speed out of nowhere for no reason. I've been sitting here browsing while folding to hear the fan ramp up, there have been times when I could in fact turn it back down w/precision, and then setting back at 61% where I usually keep it.

So at this point I'm reverted back to the 182.08 drivers, which are solid, they just don't drop clocks after a 3D app has been loaded. The 185.81 beta's seemed to work well and also let me use EVGA's GVT again, which is nice...but the fan issue is driving me nuts to say the least...especially when the temps show no reason for the ramp up...at the hottest my card's been at 70C, generally closer to 62-65C.

Any thoughts?