GTX 970 Owners Club

[Vellinious]

Most cards won't utilize the full 1.3v....the 970 cores seem to scale really well with voltage up to about 1.282, sometimes less.  I've put together bios files for a LOT of people, and never really saw any difference between 1.282v and 1.3v except temps.  Just a thought.....  I ran mine at 1.275v, and have some of the highest single card 970 runs out there for Firestrike, Valley, Heaven and just about every other benchmark I could find.  

[Bhav]

Yea Im toying around with maxwell II bios tweaker and was going for 1.281.3v up from 1.262 stock, but Im not sure what to under power table yet. Still goggling for guides.

 

Right, Im all done. both cards flashed to 1.281v, higher power limit and boost removed. Bye bye energy efficiency.

 

My samsung memory runs at 8200 Mhz, reinstalling drivers atm then pushing the CPU.

 

Hmm, from quick testing they're now seemingly stable at 1578 Mhz! (crashed at 1605).

 

But afterburner is showing 1.275v, and in the bios tweaker I could only set 1.281 or 1.3 as the next one up, so how do I get 1.282v?

[tomaatvk]

I ran mine at 1.275v, and have some of the highest single card 970 runs out there for Firestrike, Valley, Heaven and just about every other benchmark I could find.  

May I ask for the score? I got this after some heavy modding with only 1.212v http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10366576 (nr 170 on a 3770k and single 970)

[Bhav]

Well ok, so my top card would run without any problems at 1578 Mhz, but I forgot to enable SLI. After enabling SLI I can only get both cards to run at 1527 Mhz together, but before I was limited to around 1450, and 1500 wouldnt get stable in anything but Valley.

 

Comparison:

 

 

Not sure why its apparantly underclocking my CPU? Bios and CPU-Z both say 4380 Mhz, but firestrike says 4212 and the physx scores are much lower. I got an odd CPU that maxes out at 4380, but will not get stable without BSODs at 4400 mhz. Also I discovered I need to reseat my cooler, but its fine for now as 24/7 I only run 4 Ghz at much lower voltage.

 

Or actually it might have been because of the ram and QPI frequencies, I had them lower.

[Bhav]

10535 get:

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7314378

 

1533 / 8262 on the GPUs, and bumped up my magical elipda ram to 1900 Mhz 7-9-7 for higher physx scores.

[Vellinious]

May I ask for the score? I got this after some heavy modding with only 1.212v http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10366576 (nr 170 on a 3770k and single 970)

Single card run.  Run at 1633 on the core and 2176 on the memory

Overall:13033

Graphics Score: 14760

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6557355

2 x SLI run, run at 1617 on the core and 2105 on the memory.

Overall: 21559

Graphics Score: 28332

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6368664

[Vellinious]

Yea Im toying around with maxwell II bios tweaker and was going for 1.281.3v up from 1.262 stock, but Im not sure what to under power table yet. Still goggling for guides.

 

Right, Im all done. both cards flashed to 1.281v, higher power limit and boost removed. Bye bye energy efficiency.

 

My samsung memory runs at 8200 Mhz, reinstalling drivers atm then pushing the CPU.

 

Hmm, from quick testing they're now seemingly stable at 1578 Mhz! (crashed at 1605).

 

But afterburner is showing 1.275v, and in the bios tweaker I could only set 1.281 or 1.3 as the next one up, so how do I get 1.282v?

They'll only read up to 1.275v.

You need to be using GPUz with the sensors tab running during your overclocking test runs, so you can see the "PerfCap Reason" line.  It will tell you exactly what is capping your card's performance during the last run, so you can make changes to circumvent it.  The big ones to watch for are "VOP" and "PWR".  

[Bhav]

I got single card 12033 at 1578 / 8262:

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7314559

 

Getting all the highest results for an I7 980 + GTX 970s atm

 

Any higher on either the GPU or Vram = driver crash.

 

And SLI 970 normal fire strike for an I7 980 demolished:

 

[Vellinious]

The physics test in Firestrike is all CPU, not GPU physx...completely different.  The GPU doesn't really play a role in that test at all.  If you want a higher physics score, you have to overclock the CPU higher.

[Bhav]

Thats what I did ... plus system ram / QPI speeds.

[Purplehazeffc]

@Vellinious has slightly higher graphic score than mine. Thanks to his higher memory oc I think

And a higher score due to his mega power CPU over my measly i5 lol

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6695868

 

Thou I do have the highest i5 4690k - GTX 970 score.    Edit to show the latest scores. I have just checked. Getting closer

 

[Bhav]

But you got 4.8 GHz on your I5. I didn't want to change my mobo and upgraded from a crappy I7 920 that needed 1.4v for 4 GHz after the 980 price tumbled to £300, and that does 4.38 GHz at 1.35v.

New mobo and I5 would have cost me more.

[Vellinious]

@Vellinious has slightly higher graphic score than mine. Thanks to his higher memory oc I think

And a higher score due to his mega power CPU over my measly i5 lol

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6695868

 

Thou I do have the highest i5 4690k - GTX 970 score.    Edit to show the latest scores. I have just checked. Getting closer

 

That's a good graphics score.  Try as I might, I could never break 15k graphics score......I hit 14880 once, but was never able to duplicate it.  Chilled water may have done it....hard to tell.

[Bhav]

Now I'm wondering if I should try more vots because my asics are 67% and 70%.

[Vellinious]

Now I'm wondering if I should try more vots because my asics are 67% and 70%.

If you're already running 1.282v, you likely won't see anything worthwhile by going to 1.3v, except more heat.  If you have full coverage blocks, go for it....if not, I wouldn't bother.

[Bhav]

Temps are still in the low 70s at 1.28v thanks to the windforce coolers.

[Purplehazeffc]

Iv'e got no chance of doing anything with it atm.
Being summer here, temps have been around 30c/86f plus during the day.

So I don't think my temps would do that well.  Thou playing games my CPU sits at 55c/131f & GPU at 50c/122f max.

I'm also running a 1.275v. As I wasn't getting any improvement using the 1.3v bios

 

But you got 4.8 GHz on your I5. I didn't want to change my mobo and upgraded from a crappy I7 920 that needed 1.4v for 4 GHz after the 980 price tumbled to £300, and that does 4.38 GHz at 1.35v.

New mobo and I5 would have cost me more.

It's not the total score you should be looking at. As that does take into account of both CPU & GPU.

You need to look at the Graphics score.  That is just the GPU performance.

[Bhav]

True, so CPU doesnt really matter in that comparison. Im keeping my I7 980 till it dies.

[Bhav]

I just tried swapping my GPUs around while cleaning / reseating my CPU cooler.

 

The second one which had 67% asic simply wont go past 1530 Mhz, while my 70% asic one can do 1578. Both have the same ram speed cap at 8262 Mhz, just one setting higher and artefacts appear. But they both run together at 1525 / 8262 24/7 without any problems.

[Purplehazeffc]

I just tried swapping my GPUs around while cleaning / reseating my CPU cooler.

 

The second one which had 67% asic simply wont go past 1530 Mhz, while my 70% asic one can do 1578. Both have the same ram speed cap at 8262 Mhz, just one setting higher and artefacts appear. But they both run together at 1525 / 8262 24/7 without any problems.

My card is an 67% asic.  I can get 1648 Mhz core & 8212 Mhz Samsung Memory.   Though I am under water not air.

 

I run my card 1605 Mhz core & 8000 Mhz memory 24/7

[Bhav]

The 67% asic would need a lot more voltage, and on air I don't think I could put in enough.

[Purplehazeffc]

The 67% asic would need a lot more voltage, and on air I don't think I could put in enough.

I don't think so with needing more voltage.

I can get the 1648 Mhz with both the 1.275v & 1.3v bios. Both are stable for runs like Firestrike & Valley.

If I go to the 1.262v bios I can get 1632 Mhz. So it's only a small increase with the extra volts.

 

Though every card is different of course.   But running on air. Unless its really cold where you are, I don't think either with extra voltage

[Bhav]

Just that every card is different. My 67% asic one isnt a strong GPU overclocker, but fortunately both got the same batch of golden ram.

 

Currently at 1.28v and 1525 Mhz, with 100% fan speed (not really too noisy, cant hear it with headphones on), temps stay around 75 deg on both cards. With default fan profile, low 80s, so I wont be putting through any more voltage.

 

The Windforce OC coolers are decent, but just only 2 heatpipes vs the G1's 4 heatpipes, still direct contact though:

 

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5212#ov

 

I actually emailed them when I bought mine to ask for pictures of the full and bottom of the coolers so I could see the differences without having to remove them, as stock performance was too good, if not perfect that I didnt want to ruin them, and eventually they did:

 

 

From comparisons to other peoples temps, this cooler is between 5-10 degrees worse than the G1, but still perfectly adequate for 1500 Mhz with 1.27-1.28 voltage.

 

On release, I got these ones for £269, while the G1s were out of stock and in over demand everywhere so were going for £300-£320. Currently though the G1s are £287, so I'd recommend those if buying atm.

[Bhav]

OMG seriously fuck these gigabyte cards ....

I was just having a whole load of nightmare problems after swapping them back around, even 1450 over clock was failing, and destroying my drivers every time I launched a game.

So I tried reflashing them. Bios mismatch wth? Try the stock bios, still mismatched, try extract BIOS from GPU Z - reading error, cannot extract ... DID I JUST BRICK MY CARD? .... download the bios from gigabytes website ... Wait why are there two in the folder? Open readme ...

Gigabyte 970s have dual bios! The bios selected is based on which DVI port is used, one has a D, the other a P in the name.

My BIOS mismatch was because of a P and D .... I had plugged my secondary monitor into the other DVI port defaulting it to the secondary stock BIOS lolololol how would anyone even know that?

Swap DVI plug, now it works QQ. Frigging gigabyte's dual BIOS shenanigans.

So basically if you have a fail BIOS from one of the DVI ports, if can't be flashed onto the other, some kind of extra safety measure with different BIOS per DVI port.

[Vellinious]

The cooler they run, the better and more stable they run.  If you can keep the core under 30c under load, as opposed to 70c on air, you'd gain at least 50mhz peak core clock.  The highest graphics score I was able to get was 14880 with the core at 1633 and memory at 2180.  That was with the ambient temp in the room at 15c, and the GPU temp peaking around 29c during the run.  Keeping the memory really cool helps a lot too.  That card had Elpida memory.