Overclocking permanently disabled on Nvidia mobile GPUs

[Cammac]

I recently started a thread over on the Geforce forums asking to get an official position from Nvidia about overclocking on a mobile GPUs. This was due to the fact the last 3 driver release had disabled overclocking, with no warning and no notes in the drivers indicate why. 

 

Many of us hoped this was just a bug, turns out it was completely intentionally for the following reason posted by ManuelG

 

Now I know quite a few people on this forum will say that all us Laptop overclockers are stupid for even trying, in some respects you're right. But over the last few years things have been getting better and better and with the release of the 9XXM GPUs. I myself saw loads of no more than 72c (GTX 980M G751) with a +135 core overclock and 300 on the memory completely 100% stable. One of the main reasons I got the G751 was down the fact it can keep all the hardware cool and gave a bit of overclocking headroom and the sacrifice for this was size and portability but now I've lost that overclocking headroom and even Asus themselves released the laptop with a overclocking function built into the laptop out of the box! 

 

Another big issue I have with this whole situation was when I purchased the system overclocking worked and was fully enabled as it has been for the last decade with Nvidia laptops, according to Nvidia this was a "Bug" humm yeah right. So you're telling me for 4 months after all the major sales of the 9XXM laptops had died down they just noticed that overclocking was accidentally enabled somehow. I just don't see this.

 

Personally I think this is allot more than just Nvidia deciding of the blue to disable a feature with no real solid reasoning. I think manufactures have strong armed Nvidia into doing this as products such as the new AW17 and 15 have come onto the market with 180W power bricks (Normal is 230W) which physically allows no overclocking headroom. And of course what Nvidia said is true, overclocking will reduce the life of the system and with all the new thin powerful thin gaming notebooks hitting the market it may just be one headache less for them to deal with. But even taking all that into account this was not the right way to tackle this issue, disabled it from the get go so we all knew what we paid for or leave it enabled don't just flippantly switch. 

[Raudi_]

This genuinely pisses me off, as a GPU overclocker I want to get all the performance I can out of a video card whether it be mobile or desktop. 

[Dabombinable]

If people kill their laptop by overclocking it, it just means more money for companies. This is a boneheaded move from Nvidia.

[AMICLG]

Just like they locked the Vcore a few years back.

[Lays]

If people kill their laptop by overclocking it, it just means more money for companies. This is a boneheaded move from Nvidia.

 

It can also give them more flack, from people getting upset their laptop died and blaming them.

 

There's a LOT of stupid people in the world.

[Imabigmac]

It can also give them more flack, from people getting upset their laptop died and blaming them.

 

There's a LOT of stupid people in the world.

I was going to quote that and say the exact same thing. 

[DeViLzzz]

Nvidia just keeps on digging lately.  Seriously with any new laptop coming out in the future with an Nvidia based mobile gpu they should have had this policy and not just said hey we are now taking away what people have had for some time now.  Nvidia I love PhysX but I don't like what you are doing in recent times.  Are you friends with Ubisoft? 

[Cammac]

This genuinely pisses me off, as a GPU overclocker I want to get all the performance I can out of a video card whether it be mobile or desktop. 

 

I will give you a real world example of just how much performance I'm going to loose, for no gain whatsoever. In Unigine heaven 4.0 at the extreme preset and 1080P at stock I get 48fps with the overclock enabled I get 54 that's a relatively large performance boost when you consider the temperatures jump from just 69c to 72c and the system is 100% stable.

[Raudi_]

I will give you a real world example of just how much performance I'm going to loose, for no gain whatsoever. In Unigine heaven 4.0 at the extreme preset and 1080P at stock I get 48fps with the overclock enabled I get 54 that's a relatively large performance boost when you consider the temperatures jump from just 69c to 72c and the system is 100% stable.

Trust me I know I still have a laptop with a GTX 280m and its been overclocked since I bought it, Never had thermal issues the CPU is overclocked too, just sad that Nvidia got their head in the ass at this point.

[Imabigmac]

But do we get mad at Intel for not letting us overclock laptop cpu's? 

[Cammac]

It can also give them more flack, from people getting upset their laptop died and blaming them.

 

There's a LOT of stupid people in the world.

 

What you say is true, but is it fair to buy a product as I've done with the extra capabilities for overclocking sold with overclocking tools pre installed out of the box, and then take them away only a few months after the product has been released and not even tell anyone about it? 

 

Nothing has changed in the last few years when it comes to overclocking a laptop, so for them to use this as an excuse right now is pitiful. Overclocking has been purposefully crippled on laptops for years, and we all accepted that  (Max +135 core and no voltage control). While I would still liked to have had access to those features, I understood why this was the case and learnt to deal with as part of laptop ownership. But for them to turn around and just disabled it entirely out of the blue is just completely unacceptable and frankly bemusing which is why I think more factors are at play here than just Nvidia.  

[Godlygamer23]

But do we get mad at Intel for not letting us overclock laptop cpu's? 

Intel never allowed mobile CPUs to be overclocked. NVIDIA has allowed overclocking on mobile GPUs for a while.

[Cammac]

But do we get mad at Intel for not letting us overclock laptop cpu's? 

 

No not really, as when I purchased the system it was clearly stated that this would never be a possibility. It's like someone purchasing a non K variant of a desktop CPU then being angry that he can't overclock when that was never going to happen.

[Raudi_]

Intel never allowed mobile CPUs to be overclocked. NVIDIA has allowed overclocking on mobile GPUs for a while.

Alienware allowed the early Core 2 versions of their M17 laptops to overclock the CPU's could get a hefty overclock on them too if you got lucky. So there has been a time for short bit, and then there is the i7 Extreme laptop CPU which is unlocked.

[clementk]

this is really horrible news just look in my sign  how much i could over-volt + overclock my 675MX it was insane how much headroom there was lets hope that the Bios hacks will still work.

[clementk]

What you say is true, but is it fair to buy a product as I've done with the extra capabilities for overclocking sold with overclocking tools pre installed out of the box, and then take them away only a few months after the product has been released and not even tell anyone about it? 

 

Nothing has changed in the last few years when it comes to overclocking a laptop, so for them to use this as an excuse right now is pitiful. Overclocking has been purposefully crippled on laptops for years, and we all accepted that  (Max +135 core and no voltage control). While I would still liked to have had access to those features, I understood why this was the case and learnt to deal with as part of laptop ownership. But for them to turn around and just disabled it entirely out of the blue is just completely unacceptable and frankly bemusing which is why I think more factors are at play here than just Nvidia.  

that 135+ limit can very easily be removed with a Vbios flash i got around 600 core to 1000 MHz and was  still running around 80C on the GPU under full load.

[Ostwind]

This is stupid, when I was running my laptop my GPU ran at 80c stock and overclocked and OC'd from 590mhz to 770Mhz so it created no extra heat and gave me a big boost in performance.

[xentric]

I can understand why they locked it in terms of the customer. But can't they allow it for the OEM notebook/laptop manufactures if they choose? Don't they know the limits of their product more then Nvidia? 

[Raudi_]

this is really horrible news just look in my sign  how much i could over-volt + overclock my 675MX it was insane how much headroom there was lets hope that the Bios hacks will still work.

Should still work since you are doing a rewrite to the GPU's BIOS.

[clementk]

Should still work since you are doing a rewrite to the GPU's BIOS.

yes but some of the stuff even bios cant fix like on my 780 i cant over-volt more then 1.25V without doing a hardware tweek on the GPU PCB

[Raudi_]

yes but some of the stuff even bios cant fix like on my 780 i cant over-volt more then 1.25V without doing a hardware tweek on the GPU PCB

Well that's cause Asus is an ass with their Voltage controller being 100% custom.

[clementk]

Well that's cause Asus is an ass with their Voltage controller being 100% custom.

yeah but o well i'm still happy with my overclock. but hope its not something simmiler with the mobile GPU's it was fun overclocking my 675Mx to almost double the stock clock.

[Raudi_]

yeah but o well i'm still happy with my overclock. but hope its not something simmiler with the mobile GPU's it was fun overclocking my 675Mx to almost double the stock clock.

Asus makes nice looking hardware but locks it down so freaking much.

http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2662&highlight=Asus

Just to give you an idea of what you need to do to actually get more voltage on that card. 

[Godlygamer23]

Alienware allowed the early Core 2 versions of their M17 laptops to overclock the CPU's could get a hefty overclock on them too if you got lucky. So there has been a time for short bit, and then there is the i7 Extreme laptop CPU which is unlocked.

Alienware allowed. That's the key point. It wasn't officially supported by Intel.

[clementk]

Asus makes nice looking hardware but locks it down so freaking much.

http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2662&highlight=Asus

Just to give you an idea of what you need to do to actually get more voltage on that card. 

 

yeah i saw just how insane it can be pushed but since i game at 2560x1080 its not really pushing the card and i'd rather like to keep my card in a working condition.