*GTX 260/280 Unofficial TPU! Thread*

[ste2425]

i no this is for nvidia cards but is the gtx200 series in line with ati's hd400 or 500? i am an ati user but i still like to understand how nvidia name there cards and try to see how well nvidia cards perform so ill have a broader knowlege on the subject next time i upgrade cheers

 

[athenaesword]

i no this is for nvidia cards but is the gtx200 series in line with ati's hd400 or 500? i am an ati user but i still like to understand how nvidia name there cards and try to see how well nvidia cards perform so ill have a broader knowlege on the subject next time i upgrade cheers

the gtx 260 is comparable to ati's 4870 1gb mate

 

[ste2425]

the gtx 260 is comparable to ati's 4870 1gb mate

cheers thanks

 

[RadeonX2]

haha well that's quite some time ago then.. prior to this i was using an 8800gt, and while this's a significant upgrade, i can't play everything maxed without msaa on a 1920 monitor in dragon age, which makes me feel average ;/ haha.

i've heard that cpu makes a difference, and my e6750 has returned to stock 2.6ghz clocks after my crucial ballistix died from 2 years of 24/7 OC at 3.7ghz. that might be why i'm getting sub optimal performance on dragon age.

have you been following the 5 series cards? how much more performance is the 5850 likely to give me?

should be around or more than a GTX 285

check the 5970 review there are a lot of benchmarks on different card

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/EAH5970/

yep the 4800 series is comparable to GTX 200 series

 

[athenaesword]

should be around or more than a GTX 285

check the 5970 review there are a lot of benchmarks on different card

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/EAH5970/

yep the 4800 series is comparable to GTX 200 series

yeah i read that review. wow i was expecting the 5850 to come in alot stronger than the gtx 260. 10 fps isn't all that much, although considering it's in the 10-20 region it's quite alot

any plans for upgrade for yourself?

 

[RadeonX2]

yeah i read that review. wow i was expecting the 5850 to come in alot stronger than the gtx 260. 10 fps isn't all that much, although considering it's in the 10-20 region it's quite alot

any plans for upgrade for yourself?

how about a crossfire 5770's? they do scale pretty good on most games.

I don't wanna bother upgrading my current setup even with a mobo that has pci-e 2.0. I might be heading straight on upgrading to i5 or i7 as I said on my previous post. im thinking my mobo's pci-e 1.1 is bottlenecking my 260 now. a 5870 will choke

 

[athenaesword]

how about a crossfire 5770's? they do scale pretty good on most games.

I don't wanna bother upgrading my current setup even with a mobo that has pci-e 2.0. I might be heading straight on upgrading to i5 or i7 as I said on my previous post. im thinking my mobo's pci-e 1.1 is bottlenecking my 260 now. a 5870 will choke

i don't have a CF board, and won't have until i upgrade to i5 next year.

haha wow that's some serious bottle neck. the i5/i7 would be a welcome change i would think. not just in gaming but from an everyday use perspective.
i'm running a e6750 and i'm worried about bottleneck issues as well.. which is the only reason i'm hesitating btw, otherwise i'd jump on 5850 in a heartbeat.

you think the 5850's value for money now though?

 

[RadeonX2]

i don't have a CF board, and won't have until i upgrade to i5 next year.

haha wow that's some serious bottle neck. the i5/i7 would be a welcome change i would think. not just in gaming but from an everyday use perspective.
i'm running a e6750 and i'm worried about bottleneck issues as well.. which is the only reason i'm hesitating btw, otherwise i'd jump on 5850 in a heartbeat.

you think the 5850's value for money now though?

yep its a good step-up on a 260. but a GTX 260 can still ramp up today's demanding games with playable framerates. if you can sell your current 260 and grab a 5850 for cheap then i'd say go for it. or just upgrade to an i5/i7 first and keep the 260 until it struggle in later new games.

 

[athenaesword]

yep its a good step-up on a 260. but a GTX 260 can still ramp up today's demanding games with playable framerates. if you can sell your current 260 and grab a 5850 for cheap then i'd say go for it. or just upgrade to an i5/i7 first and keep the 260 until it struggle in later new games.

unfortunately i'm already quite dissatisfied with the 260. i was expecting it to be able to play max on dragon age origins at least, where the graphics aren't that fantastic in the first place, and it's not doing so well. on max (no msaa), there are areas where fps drops to 20 and stutters.

dya think an e6750 would significantly cripple a 5 series card? here's what i'm talking about: http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6...ores/Practice/
it's either i hold off on both, or i just get the new card. i won't be upgrading a processor now since that would entail a new motherboard and rams as well and that's more money than i'm willing to spend right now.

dya happen to know of any programs that display cpu load while gaming?

 

[RadeonX2]

unfortunately i'm already quite dissatisfied with the 260. i was expecting it to be able to play max on dragon age origins at least, where the graphics aren't that fantastic in the first place, and it's not doing so well. on max (no msaa), there are areas where fps drops to 20 and stutters.

dya think an e6750 would significantly cripple a 5 series card? here's what i'm talking about: http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6...ores/Practice/
it's either i hold off on both, or i just get the new card. i won't be upgrading a processor now since that would entail a new motherboard and rams as well and that's more money than i'm willing to spend right now.

dya happen to know of any programs that display cpu load while gaming?

have you overclock your e6750? atleast 3ghz to lessen the bottleneck.

I believe an e6750 will bottleneck the 5000 series card especially at stock clock. I also believe your e6750 is bottlenecking your current 260. Even my Q6600 @ 3.6 bottlenecks my 260.

task manager displays cpu load. click performance tab, to slow the update of CPU usage history click view, update speed to low.

 

[athenaesword]

have you overclock your e6750? atleast 3ghz to lessen the bottleneck.

I believe an e6750 will bottleneck the 5000 series card especially at stock clock. I also believe your e6750 is bottlenecking your current 260. Even my Q6600 @ 3.6 bottlenecks my 260.

task manager displays cpu load. click performance tab, to slow the update of CPU usage history click view, update speed to low.

i used at have it at 3.7ghz, but it's recently back to 2.66ghz due to my rams going back for rma.

how do you tell it's bottlenecking your card?

hmm change it to low and alt tab out to check? anything that can place a number at the corner at the top of the screen like with the gpu?

 

[johnspack]

Get a gtx275, best bang for the buck today! I'm only going for a 285 because, well, I'm nuts!!

 

[athenaesword]

Get a gtx275, best bang for the buck today! I'm only going for a 285 because, well, I'm nuts!!

well i'm already on a 260 so well.. no offense but i doubt going for 275 will be a smart move.

 

[RadeonX2]

i used at have it at 3.7ghz, but it's recently back to 2.66ghz due to my rams going back for rma.

how do you tell it's bottlenecking your card?

hmm change it to low and alt tab out to check? anything that can place a number at the corner at the top of the screen like with the gpu?

just OC your card to 3ghz. if you can OC past 3ghz stable the better it will be.

I think rivatuner has the feature. not sure tho.

an overclocked 260 keeps up with a stock 275. a 285 would be a good step-up. but a 275, doubt it.

read the whole article: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3656

 

[athenaesword]

just OC your card to 3ghz. if you can OC past 3ghz stable the better it will be.

I think rivatuner has the feature. not sure tho.

an overclocked 260 keeps up with a stock 275. a 285 would be a good step-up. but a 275, doubt it.

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/gtx260so_101109154548/20386.png

read the whole article: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3656

it was stable at 3.7ghz for 2 years.. but my rams always had trouble powering up.. but once powered up, they'd run fine.. so i had my cpu on 24/7 for months on end. and then recently the problem just got more severe.. i'll probably clock it at 3.5 when my rams return, so i don't have to go so aggro on the ram voltage.

any luck with the cpu load program? doesn't matter if u don't know one i'll go look elsewhere

oh and just an observation. most reviews i read say that the 5850 isn't far off from the 5870, and that it's plain not justified for the extra price. but from most of the benchmarks i see in games, it has a substantial lead over the 5850.. so i don't know what to make of that

 

[RadeonX2]

it was stable at 3.7ghz for 2 years.. but my rams always had trouble powering up.. but once powered up, they'd run fine.. so i had my cpu on 24/7 for months on end. and then recently the problem just got more severe.. i'll probably clock it at 3.5 when my rams return, so i don't have to go so aggro on the ram voltage.

any luck with the cpu load program? doesn't matter if u don't know one i'll go look elsewhere

oh and just an observation. most reviews i read say that the 5850 isn't far off from the 5870, and that it's plain not justified for the extra price. but from most of the benchmarks i see in games, it has a substantial lead over the 5850.. so i don't know what to make of that

don't know other programs that logs cpu usage. sorry. I know there's plenty in the internet just needs a little searching

well you can always OC the 5850 that should catch up with 5870. if you have the $ for a 5870, go for it. how bout 5970?

 

[athenaesword]

don't know other programs that logs cpu usage. sorry. I know there's plenty in the internet just needs a little searching

well you can always OC the 5850 that should catch up with 5870. if you have the $ for a 5870, go for it. how bout 5970?

haha i'll look for it.

5870 is kind of out of my budget already. if i intend to get it i'm going to have to wait.
found this analysis for cpu bottlenecking. i'm assuming the gtx 280 sli runs fairly close to the 5850. judging by the looks of it. i'd be very severely bottlenecked.
http://www.benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/CPU Bottleneck Analysis/P1.html

 

[RadeonX2]

haha i'll look for it.

5870 is kind of out of my budget already. if i intend to get it i'm going to have to wait.
found this analysis for cpu bottlenecking. i'm assuming the gtx 280 sli runs fairly close to the 5850. judging by the looks of it. i'd be very severely bottlenecked.
http://www.benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/CPU Bottleneck Analysis/P1.html

not only your processor bottlenecking the card, if you have pci-e 1.1 thats some serious bottleneck. here's a good TPU review about 5870 pci-e scaling: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/. on the other hand, a GTX 280 in a pci-e 1.1 also bottlenecks. forgot the site tho.

 

[athenaesword]

not only your processor bottlenecking the card, if you have pci-e 1.1 thats some serious bottleneck. here's a good TPU review about 5870 pci-e scaling: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/. on the other hand, a GTX 280 in a pci-e 1.1 also bottlenecks. forgot the site tho.

i have pcie 2.0.. my cpu/mb is about 2 years old. on another forum people are asking me to upgrade to a new cpu first before a new gpu. think that's a better option? i'm actually seriously considering a new i5 now. would help for the times i don't game anyway, and i wouldn't have to bother with OCing on my aging thermalright heatsink.

 

[johnspack]

I have a little e8400 at 3.92Ghz, when my gtx280 was working I got stupid framerates in everything at max settings and 1920x1200 res, and maybe 30% cpu usage, with my 9800gtx, much more stuttering and almost 100% cpu usage at same settings. So really, you need fast cpu and powerful gpu if you want to play crysis and many other games at high res and max settings. 3Ghz doesn't cut it anymore. And a lower end gaming card doesn't cut it. Just wish I could afford a 4ghz+ capable i7...... I found maybe a 5% performance increase going to pci-e 2.0, and that was only on my 280gtx, perhaps a 5870 would benefit as well.

 

[athenaesword]

I have a little e8400 at 3.92Ghz, when my gtx280 was working I got stupid framerates in everything at max settings and 1920x1200 res, and maybe 30% cpu usage, with my 9800gtx, much more stuttering and almost 100% cpu usage at same settings. So really, you need fast cpu and powerful gpu if you want to play crysis and many other games at high res and max settings. 3Ghz doesn't cut it anymore. And a lower end gaming card doesn't cut it. Just wish I could afford a 4ghz+ capable i7...... I found maybe a 5% performance increase going to pci-e 2.0, and that was only on my 280gtx, perhaps a 5870 would benefit as well.

i don't quite understand your example.. u're saying you got a 3.92 dualcore and a gtx280 but got low framerates, but when you shifted to a poorer card, you got even poorer rates?

i assume the same cpu was used and you're trying to say that when the card's poorer more of the load is dumped onto the cpu, hence the 100% load on cpu with the 9800gtx?

 

[Triton.se]

I have only ONE worry(ies!) lol

I will be sick of my cards soon, had them since august last year !!! I've opened one and replaced goo, cleaned dust off air-ways etc. They DO WELL IN GAMES etc, but especially well in SLI Hack rigs: 4.2GHz/1120MHz mem/729/1512/1260 gpu. downsize: I have to be observant to new games..SLI wont work on new titles. nHancer is that tweak.

But...almost 22K (Hold a minute son ! You are referring to 3DMark Vantage!) GPU points with my rig...thats what 5970 xfire gets? havent seen 30K yet..tri sli gtx260=27K...

I'm hoping nvidia has same plan as me...new stuff in spring 2010!

 

[Binge]

Finally uploaded the pdfs to soft volt-mod the GT200 series without flashing bios-

http://home.comcast.net/~RPaist/GT200VoltagePt1.pdf
http://home.comcast.net/~RPaist/GT200VoltageMultiGPU.pdf

 

[morty343]

I'm new to TPU and I should first say thanks much to the people who have done all the research in this thread!

I built my SLI system in January (2x 65nm 192sp GTX 260 cards) and have been running everything stock but I always wanted to safely OC for higher game settings so I recently modded it to water cooling. Something went wrong when disassembling one of my MSI GTX 260's heatsinks, because when I reassembled it with the waterblock it wouldn't do any 3D rendering anymore, just 2D. So I found an almost exact match to the other MSI on eBay (except it's EVGA, with a bit slower settings in its BIOS, 576-999-1242 vs. 620-1080-1296 on the MSI) and finally got everything working. But I'm disappointed with my OC results. I thought voltage is what was holding it back. I've been using MSI's Afterburner, and have tried overvolting the cards via Afterburner and then RivaTuner (per the instructions Binge posted above, thanks!) but this doesn't make any difference in my shader overclocks. The max stable OC I've gotten is 742-1190-1484 at stock voltages (1.125V load) and higher voltages make no difference. Upping the voltage to only 1.4 via RivaTuner makes the system immediately crash when I start ATITool artifact scan, even at 620-1080-1296. 1.35V won't crash at higher clocks, but I still get artifacts if the shader is above the 1484 strap. (btw I didn't forget to sync the settings for both cards.) And I don't think heat is the problem. They have full-card waterblocks, and at the stable settings I mentioned, I can run FurMark for 30min and the GPUs don't get over 55C.

Am I overlooking something or am I just unlucky? Or is OCing SLI just that much harder to get good results? I have read how some people are setting their load voltages a lot higher than mine and getting way better overclocks. Is this mainly for non-SLI 260 setups?

 

[fury88]

a quick guide to show how to use NiBiToR to adjust voltages using the voltage register function...

Requirements: GT200 with Voltera voltage regulators (all 65nm).

Disclaimer: DO NOT GO TOO HIGH ON STOCK COOLING This is VERY risky... not only are you flashing, which is risky in itself, but you are also running a ton of additional current through the VRM's. So that's double trouble. Watch those VRM and GPU temps! This will simultaneously pop your VRM's and void your warranty .

Get NiBiTor (5.2 or later)

http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step1.png

1. Export your bios using GPUtool (best tool ever).
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step2.png

2. Save the bios...
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step3.png

3. Go into the Voltage IC setting
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step4.png

4. Modify the highest register to whatever setting you want (i would stay below 1.36, unless you have LN2, in which case you don't need this guide in the first place)

http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step5.png
5. REMEMBER THE SETTING.
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step6.png
6. Go into the Voltage table editor...
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step7.png

7. Modify Entry #4 to the previously set register voltage.
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step8.png

8. Click off the Voltage tab... just to allow the window to refresh
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step9.png

9. Click back on the voltage tab... you should see a blank "extra" setting.
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step10.png

10. Select the set Voltage.
http://img.techpowerup.org/091119/Step11.png

Voila... flash the new bios and your GT200 will run at the set voltage. This let me hit a 24/7 solid overclock of 810Mhz Core and 1620 Shaders... 839Mhz and 1678 for benching

Happy overclocking.

hi, my nibitor has the "voltage ic" greyed out...i have the zotac synergy core 192 edition...65nm