*GTX 260/280 Unofficial TPU! Thread*

[dadi_oh]

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.

My bad

I was so focused on GTX 260 I didn't notice he had a 280.

Once I get a chance to play with the combinations and find the max stable OC on my card I may try bumping to 1.12V to see what happens (my XFX card seems to be at only 1.06V in the BIOS). The black screen I was getting at 1.18V was immediate so I am pretty sure it was not thermally related.

 

[Kursah]

Good stuff to know...1.06 stock eh? Interesting..maybe people can attain decent OC's with lower than stock voltage if their cards are in-fact 1.12v. Run the GPU cooler, could be something there.

It's be nice to run FTW clocks on .06v less than stock for sure.

 

[dadi_oh]

Good stuff to know...1.06 stock eh? Interesting..maybe people can attain decent OC's with lower than stock voltage if their cards are in-fact 1.12v. Run the GPU cooler, could be something there.

It's be nice to run FTW clocks on .06v less than stock for sure.

Unless nibitor isn't reading it right. The downside of this card design is the cover prevents easy access with a voltmeter to check the actual vcore.

 

[Kursah]

What version of Nibitor are you using? I was using the most recent release when I created the OP to this thread, which was 4.5 iirc. Your card could very well be using 1.06v.

Care to upload your stock, unmodified bios?

 

[btarunr]

Very soon, I'd be joining this thread/club.

Very soon.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Very soon, I'd be joining this thread/club.

Very soon.

Awwwww just as I am leaving.

 

[btarunr]

Awwwww just as I am leaving.

"where are you going, soldier? Get back to your post, or you will be shot" - The Commander in Battlefield 2.

 

[Tatty_Two]

"where are you going, soldier? Get back to your post, or you will be shot" - The Commander in Battlefield 2.

Thinking of part exchanging the 260 for a 4870x2 once I get my 790i back from RMA, hopefully new, I will probably then sell it and that should make up the difference along with what I fleabay my old DDR3 memory, so the 260 will still be with me for a little while.

 

[dadi_oh]

What version of Nibitor are you using? I was using the most recent release when I created the OP to this thread, which was 4.5 iirc. Your card could very well be using 1.06v.

Care to upload your stock, unmodified bios?

Version 4.2

I zipped the original BIOS here.

What is really funny is that under the temperature tab the box labeled "Fanspeed IC" is greyed oiut (see attachment). That is where I would set the minimum fan speed and still allow automatic fan control. Right now I have it set to 80% constant speed. Any idea why this would be unavailable? I saw in the OP that this box was available on another card.

 

[dadi_oh]

Version 4.2

I zipped the original BIOS here.

What is really funny is that under the temperature tab the box labeled "Fanspeed IC" is greyed oiut (see attachment). That is where I would set the minimum fan speed and still allow automatic fan control. Right now I have it set to 80% constant speed. Any idea why this would be unavailable? I saw in the OP that this box was available on another card.

Found NiBiTor version 4.5 and that has the fan speed control enabled. Woot. Still shows my extra voltage as 1.06 so I guess that is what it is.

I just ran Furmark for 20 minutes at 756 core 1512 shader and 2500 memory. Did a 3DMark run and broke 18K! See screenshot. Next sstwepup on shaders is 1566 and I get artifacts a couple of minutes into furmark. Maybe the extra voltage would help.

 

[dadi_oh]

I think I have found the sweetspot for now on my GTX260. I have not played with the voltage yet and my XFX XXX card is defaulted to 1.06V so these OC's are at lower voltage than most.

756 Core
1512 Shaders
1242 memory (Have not played too much with trying higher)

Fan Speed on auto with 60% minimum. It never seems to go above 60% however. I let it fold overnight and temp was 61C when I got up. Not bad and the noise is not noticeable. The folding was 100% stable which was good news. I have got what I thought was stable OC in the past on other cards only to have folding stability issues.

 

[johnspack]

Just for laughs I decided to add in my old 9800gtx, and set it as the phsyx gpu, same as my old score, no help at all with the 280gtx. Oh well, now I've got 2 more video ports!

 

[Kursah]

Good info to know! I've heard the GTX2xx series don't really benefit from an extra card for PhysX, but haven't gone too far with investigation! Thanks for posting that! Care to post screenies?

 

[johnspack]

Didn't bother grabbing screenies, with my cpu my scores are so low it's embarrasing. Basically, I got the exact same score I posted with my 9800gtx alone when I used it as the physx proc. With the 9800 still in, I switched to the 280 and it pulled the same score as with the 280 alone. I also found out I can't get either of the 2 video ports to work on the 9800 so it's completely pointless and I pulled it out. Oh well. Also, the 178.13 whql seems to slow things down a bit....

 

[johnspack]

Here, decided to do some testing. Results the same everytime, I tried many times.
9800gtx as physx gpu:

When I switch to the 280gtx as physx gpu:

There's always at least that 1000 point spread.....

 

[Kursah]

Wow I wouldn't have figured that it'd be this way...hopefully the 180 series of drivers are released before months' end...I'd like to see you try that again and see if there is any benefit at all of an extra card doing physX with a GTX2xx series.

Very interesting results...if anyone else can do this too, please do post info here about it! Thanks john!

 

[johnspack]

Just an fyi, the 178.13 driver blew up on me, and I went back to 177.92 for now. I'd avoid the new driver until that 180 driver comes out.. whenever the heck that is!

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

MSI GTX 280 OC, Just shipped from newegg. Will be here in 3 days. Will run temps/benchs on stock cooler, then will hook it up to my waterloop and do the same.

 

[dadi_oh]

MSI GTX 280 OC, Just shipped from newegg. Will be here in 3 days. Will run temps/benchs on stock cooler, then will hook it up to my waterloop and do the same.

Will be watching for the results. I'm still on the fence on whether to WC my GTX 260 or not. Looking for a really good reason to do it... e.g. much better overclock. But I thought I heard that the shader clocks are the limiting factor and are not helped too much by lower temps. Would love to have that proved wrong

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

I think the shader clocks are limited by heat and lack of voltage more then anything. Plus you can always unlock the shaders.

If you have the ability to wc your card there is no good reason not to...Get the heat and noise outa your case. I have read that wc gtx280 can have temps up to 52c lower then the stock air cooler. The bad thing there is your adding all that heat to your loop, so you better have a nice radiator..at least a double pass 2x120mm or a single pass 3x120.

That is one of my concerns right now. If I add all that extra heat to my loop I may not be able to keep my q6600 at 4.0Ghz....we will see.

 

[dadi_oh]

So here is something interesting. As stated in earlier posts my XFX GTX260 XXX is defaulted to 1.06V on extra. I had tried 1.18V as one of my first experiments when I got the card and I would get a black screen immediately upon entering a 3D app (like Furmark for example). This was very reminiscent of power issues I found on my 9600GT when I volt modded it.

So on a whim I decided to try the next voltage up. Set 1.12V in extra, booted into Windows, started up Furmark in stability test mode and walked away after I confirmed the furball was spinning away. I came back 10 minutes later and it was black screened. Not responding to alt-ctl-del and hitting num lock would not turn off the led on the keyboard (my way of testing that a machine is completely hung up).

So my theory is that this is indeed some sort of graphics card shutdown. Either over voltage protection (OVP) or over current protection (OCP).

Now I wonder if this is a reference design card? Are there even any non reference GTX260's out there?

Curious....

 

[Tatty_Two]

MSI GTX 280 OC, Just shipped from newegg. Will be here in 3 days. Will run temps/benchs on stock cooler, then will hook it up to my waterloop and do the same.

Fancy seeing you again! welcome to the world of the 200 series

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

Fancy seeing you again! welcome to the world of the 200 series

Tick Tock Tick...x1900xtx, 8800gts g92, gtx 280.

Thanks! Im stoked. Can't wait for it to get in.

 

[TonyStark]

Hey guys.

Just installed my shiny new GTX 260, upgrading from the ATI HD3870. Framerates have doubled in Crysis, and all my games are just smooth as silk. Playing TF2 with 8xAA/16xAF and the frames are in the 90-180 range!

Any tips on overclocking this thing? The thread is 21 pages long so don't yell at me for being too lazy to read it all

 

[Kursah]

Just get EVGA Precision (link in OP), and go for it! I use FurMark as a stress-test, I also recommend increasing the fan to the 60-80% range...60-70% isn't very noticable it seems, 80% becomes noticable, 100% is noisy, but more air-noise than motor noise.

Personally I find the EVGA FTW clocks to do quite well in everything on my 22" widescreen, though that was with the 192SP version, my 216SP version shipped from EVGA today, so hopefully by Mon/Tues I'll have a new GTX to play with again! This x1950xtx just doesn't cut it!

EVGA FTW clocks are around 666/1404 1201 iirc. There's some OC info in the OP that may help you understand things about the GPU/Shader max ratio (1:2), etc. EVGA Precision is made by the same creator of Rivatuner, and it seems to work on many different NV cards from many different vendors w/o issue...plus it has just what you need...I find it to be about perfect...if it only had a mini fur-mark like ATI Tool's fuzzy cube lol! As I said before I preferred FurMark though...a heavier stress test.

Keep us posted on your results!