*GTX 260/280 Unofficial TPU! Thread*

[Cold Storm]

Oh, I know you weren't saying their bad... Your right on the whole thing. Future on everything isn't even shown yet...

 

[Kursah]

Yeah...it's definately tough to gauge, but hopefully games are a little more optimised. There's enough GPU power imo, it's just not utilized properly for either side atm imo.

All we can do is watch and wait, and in the interim...I just want my GTX260 216 to show up like...NOW! lol!

 

[Cold Storm]

Yeah, we have enough power if they know how to work it right... Still don't have but maybe a few games to use somewhat of the power of a quad core chip... The Crysis thing with the 280 Tri-sli just kills the thing... then kills one of it's own... lmao...
What I am waiting on is the "Big Bang II" stuff.... Then that will tell me what I want to toy with... the Quad sli thing is coming to mind since not a lot of people have it... But, drivers are bad, so hoping for that...

 

[Kursah]

Yeah no joke, I hope for SLI guys, the 180 drivers are as close to the holy-grail for SLI as we've seen yet...I hope that they bring a lot to the table for single and multi gpu setups, w/ and w/o PhysX, etc.

Only a handfull of days left this month...wonder if they'll release them before October...I read somewhere possibly Monday...but we'll have to see it to believe it!

 

[Cold Storm]

Yeah no joke, I hope for SLI guys, the 180 drivers are as close to the holy-grail for SLI as we've seen yet...I hope that they bring a lot to the table for single and multi gpu setups, w/ and w/o PhysX, etc.

Only a handfull of days left this month...wonder if they'll release them before October...I read somewhere possibly Monday...but we'll have to see it to believe it!

I heard that it was suppose to be between the 18th and the 24... But, that was before I lost my mobo for that month... so don't know quite where that I saw it.
But, you are right. these latest drivers are something else... I beat myself my kendo sticks because of giving up the Gx2 and having drivers come out while I was waiting... I'm like a little kid in a candy store because of drivers..
I just hope they are as good as we're hoping!

 

[johnspack]

Sure hope the new drivers bring some more to the table.. I"m stuck at 713/1480/2500, very stable but don't think it'll ever go faster with games like crysis or grid stable. So hope they got some new features that'll help my poor athlon ridden system out!

 

[Kursah]

I thought you were gonna go intel? You gonna wait for Nehalem? I'd wait for it to be released so 775 stuff drops in prices even more...get more bang for your buck ya know?

Even at that, your card is a beast, and that's still a decent overclock!

 

[Cold Storm]

I think Nehalem is going to be big, but I'm going to wait around 6 months till I even upgrade to it... Price drops and what not...
The pricing on the old stuff will be going down greatly come november... Want the Q9650 to be 300! That's what I'm waiting for!

 

[johnspack]

Yeah, still want to go intel, but might take a bit longer to scrape up the funds. I had a bit of money, and I spent it heheh! I want an e8500, but not sure about the p35 chipsets now, want to spend another 100 for like a p45 or x38....

 

[Kursah]

I'd go P45, Gigabyte has an EP45-DS3L for about $100 shipped on Newegg which doesn't do you any good yet I'm sure, but eventually they'll get off their asses and get distribution up to you guys!

If it's anything like the P35-DS3L, it'll be a sure winner! My G/F's P35DS3L is a champ OC-er, at least for our needs!

 

[Tatty_Two]

Tatty... the 260 probably gives ya the most you need, but Kursah is right on the thing... You will probably need to upgrade in the next gen, but if you get the x2 then you won't have to...
But, knowing you, you might even change that!
It is a hard thing man... hard one...

Of course there is always the SLi option and keep my 790i when it gets back from RMA, that way, maybe get a second 260 for Christmas, now that would be sweet but would probably need to upgrade my PSU also, if the current 260's are stil available, by Christmas the 260+ or whatever it's called should have pushed prices down quite nicely.

 

[johnspack]

Yep, I validated it because it's gaming stable, sure wish I could of got more. Don't think changing the cooler will help either. Don't have any higher voltage settings in bios. Oh well.
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/86hwv/

 

[dadi_oh]

Yep, I validated it because it's gaming stable, sure wish I could of got more. Don't think changing the cooler will help either. Don't have any higher voltage settings in bios. Oh well.
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/86hwv/

Did you have any voltage protection kick in when you modded your BIOS? I just tied 1.18V and was getting a blackscreen.

 

[Cold Storm]

Of course there is always the SLi option and keep my 790i when it gets back from RMA, that way, maybe get a second 260 for Christmas, now that would be sweet but would probably need to upgrade my PSU also, if the current 260's are stil available, by Christmas the 260+ or whatever it's called should have pushed prices down quite nicely.

That sounds like a good idea.... I think I'm going to go for a new monitor... SLI when I start working with my father... lol

I can't wait for ya to have that board back!!!!
And bench that baby!!!!!

 

[Kursah]

Did you have any voltage protection kick in when you modded your BIOS? I just tied 1.18V and was getting a blackscreen.

Questions for ya...what temps are you getting? What OC's are you pushing? What is your fan speed at? Driver version?

I would get blackscreen if I OC'd too far and the driver would reset or bsod, which the vista driver for some reason would bsod. Adding 1.18v to my old GTX260 would only create more heat, seemed my GPU was hitting an OC wall of sorts that quite a few others have it too. I've seen some attain 800/1600 GPU/Shaders on 260's with the voltage mod in bios, but I dunno if they were water-cooled or what...and that seems more rare than anything.

I can attest that EVGA FTW clocks was just about right for a great mixture of performance, stability, and temps for gaming purposes. Everything ran great on my 22" LCD at 1680x1050.

1.18v for GTX260's has still yet to be proven to help many for higher overclocks, as temp does become a stability issue it seems and shader stability at higher clocks with higher temps seems to be a culprit. I read this in the GTX280 hard v-mod link that I posted in the OP. It could be overcurrent protection, not entirely sure there...but I have yet to see any stock GTX260 bios (not including 216p) that had higher than 1.12v for the GPU Extra setting, no matter the clocks. I'm fairly confident the 216p still uses 1.12v, and will only be able to truly verify that when mine shows up, plus I will of course see how it OC's, and see how it reacts to 1.18v...I'm expecting similar results to what I've already experienced.

I would say in your case, flash back to 1.12v or increase fan speed to 100%.

What kind of clocks are you trying to bench at on 1.18v? Keep the info flowing in, this is a great place to post your results, good, bad, indifferent, stable, unstable, etc!

 

[dadi_oh]

Just wondering if there is a way to change the auto fan setting on my XFX GTX 260 XXX (say that 10 times real fast)

The auto setting is reading as 40% in EVGA Precision and I am currently folding and temp is at 74 but fan speed has only gone to 43%. I would like to have a more aggressive fan control than this. Is the only option to change this in BIOS?

I checked with NiBiTor and under the fan control tab it shows everything as 100% so that can't be right. See attachment.

 

[PaulieG]

Hey Kursah, when you got to the "Next step, return original product to EVGA", did you have to set up a RMA, or did EVGA automatically give you an RMA number?

Edit: Never mind, just received the email to send in my card!

 

[dadi_oh]

Questions for ya...what temps are you getting? What OC's are you pushing? What is your fan speed at? Driver version?

I would get blackscreen if I OC'd too far and the driver would reset or bsod, which the vista driver for some reason would bsod. Adding 1.18v to my old GTX260 would only create more heat, seemed my GPU was hitting an OC wall of sorts that quite a few others have it too. I've seen some attain 800/1600 GPU/Shaders on 260's with the voltage mod in bios, but I dunno if they were water-cooled or what...and that seems more rare than anything.

I can attest that EVGA FTW clocks was just about right for a great mixture of performance, stability, and temps for gaming purposes. Everything ran great on my 22" LCD at 1680x1050.

1.18v for GTX260's has still yet to be proven to help many for higher overclocks, as temp does become a stability issue it seems and shader stability at higher clocks with higher temps seems to be a culprit. I read this in the GTX280 hard v-mod link that I posted in the OP. It could be overcurrent protection, not entirely sure there...but I have yet to see any stock GTX260 bios (not including 216p) that had higher than 1.12v for the GPU Extra setting, no matter the clocks. I'm fairly confident the 216p still uses 1.12v, and will only be able to truly verify that when mine shows up, plus I will of course see how it OC's, and see how it reacts to 1.18v...I'm expecting similar results to what I've already experienced.

I would say in your case, flash back to 1.12v or increase fan speed to 100%.

What kind of clocks are you trying to bench at on 1.18v? Keep the info flowing in, this is a great place to post your results, good, bad, indifferent, stable, unstable, etc!

Well here is a screenshot with a bunch of info that might answer many questions. I am currently running 680 on the core and folding so you can see what the temp is getting to. I reset the BIOS back to original voltages and fan control is on auto.

Longer term I may watercool this card. I already have a Danger Den Maze4 GPU block in my loop and trying to do some research to see if it will fit the GTX 260.

 

[Kursah]

Hey Kursah, when you got to the "Next step, return original product to EVGA", did you have to set up a RMA, or did EVGA automatically give you an RMA number?

Edit: Never mind, just received the email to send in my card!

Yep they send ya the PDF with address and RMA #. Suprised at how easy the process was...just wish I had my new card already lol! Mine won't even show up to them till Wed, then they have up to 3 days of inspection, then I paid for 2 day shipping...so hopefully mid-next week I'm back up to par!

 

[dadi_oh]

Just wondering if there is a way to change the auto fan setting on my XFX GTX 260 XXX (say that 10 times real fast)

The auto setting is reading as 40% in EVGA Precision and I am currently folding and temp is at 74 but fan speed has only gone to 43%. I would like to have a more aggressive fan control than this. Is the only option to change this in BIOS?

I checked with NiBiTor and under the fan control tab it shows everything as 100% so that can't be right. See attachment.

I manually set the fan speed to 60%. Noise is very tolerable and temps dropped from 74 to 60 That 40% fan setting seems like a rather poor choice...

 

[Kursah]

Well here is a screenshot with a bunch of info that might answer many questions. I am currently running 680 on the core and folding so you can see what the temp is getting to. I reset the BIOS back to original voltages and fan control is on auto.

Longer term I may watercool this card. I already have a Danger Den Maze4 GPU block in my loop and trying to do some research to see if it will fit the GTX 260.

I'd say crank the fan speed up...40% does okay, but 70-80% does quite a bit better, a lot more air flow. That'll get your temps down, mine only saw that kind of temp with 1.18v, usually it floated around 62C folding/benching/gaming at 756/1546 (iirc) and 1280, that was with 80% fan speed, at 100% which is very noisy, more air than fan tho, the temps would peak around 58C.

That OC you currently have though should be very sufficient for folding and gaming performance, I was getting around 7.2k ppd average at FTW clocks, some WU's would drop to 5.5k, some would peak at 7.8k...but 7.2k in FAH Mon seemed to be the norm before I sent mine in for step-up.

If you WC that card, I'm very interested to see what results you accomplish for overclocking and stability, maybe then the extra voltage will become very useful!



EDIT: Didn't see your post above this one lol..yeah 40% fan speed is ok for stock, but oc-ing it should really be increased, the temp difference is worth it!

 

[johnspack]

My factory extra was already set at 1.18, so I can't do anything there. I leave my fan on at 100% so temps don't go over 70c, but no matter what artifacts at even as low as 1490 shader. If I leave it at 1480 I can game all day... Wonder if I should change the video intake fan on my antec.

 

[dadi_oh]

My factory extra was already set at 1.18, so I can't do anything there. I leave my fan on at 100% so temps don't go over 70c, but no matter what artifacts at even as low as 1490 shader. If I leave it at 1480 I can game all day... Wonder if I should change the video intake fan on my antec.

Interesting... So Palit set it to 1.18V at the factory. What were the factory clocks on your card?

My XFX XXX edition was factory 640 on the core and 2300 on memory but the factory extra was only 1.06V.

Sounds like it would not be worth me setting the voltage higher until I get this under water. Extra heat and from what I have been reading not a lot of return on extra shader clocking.

 

[dadi_oh]

I manually set the fan speed to 60%. Noise is very tolerable and temps dropped from 74 to 60 That 40% fan setting seems like a rather poor choice...

I folded overnight with the card at 60% fan speed and 680MHz on the core and when I got up in the morning the core was at only 59C (although the house cooled down overnight to less than 20C... fall is in the air here in Canada).

I tried 80% fan speed but I found the noise too prominent. I can't really hear the 60% over the 5 X 120mm fans on my case but I can certainly hear the 80% setting. I am still undecided on whether to put this card under water. Heard some horror stories of guys frying their GTX 280's due to poor contact to the IHS but that was all with full cover blocks flexing. My Maze4 wouldn't flex like that so it shouldn't be an issue. My main motivator would be acoustic noise reduction rather than crazy OC.

I asked XFX if replacing the heatsink with a WC setup would void the lidetime warranty and they didn't answer the question.

 

[Kursah]

Interesting... So Palit set it to 1.18V at the factory. What were the factory clocks on your card?

My XFX XXX edition was factory 640 on the core and 2300 on memory but the factory extra was only 1.06V.

Sounds like it would not be worth me setting the voltage higher until I get this under water. Extra heat and from what I have been reading not a lot of return on extra shader clocking.

What you gotta remember dadi_oh is John has a GTX280, they run with a stock extra of 1.18v due to the extra cores, speed, etc. They need that extra juice in comparison to the 260, thus why the 260's run at 1.12v. Can't compare voltages between 280's and 260's...this is noted in the OP.