GTX 970 Owners Club

[Jaqen]

You can always do this ( http://overclocking.guide/increase-the-nvidia-power-limit-all-cards/ ) and forget about TDP problem.

Problem with that is you have no safety against bricking the card. . Most 970's with a few exceptions like the G1 have poor VRM's which will fail if there's to much power going through. Seriously though who is going to hard mod before fully testing their cards capability at different voltages? Sometimes adding more power and more voltage ends up giving the opposite results. My card can do 150mhz more than standard with 40mV less than standard. Without testing that I would be adding voltage and power without realising it was unnecessary. TDP is king with these cards and TDP increases along side voltage.

[RyGuy99]

Hey have any of you guys had problems with DSR? It was working fine for me when I was using a Samsung TV I was able to upscale to 1440p and 4K for games but since I switched to my LG tv and using an AV receiver I am getting a whole bunch of non 16:9 options for DSR. Here are a few of them 2720 X 1536, 2356 X 1330, 2040 X 1152, 1923 X 1086 etc. Both the TVs are 1080p. I'm just confused as to why the sudden change. I'm not sure if it's a driver or hardware issue.

[Vellinious]

Got my 970s up and running on my new rig.  I was pretty disillusioned with the TDP limitations on the 970FTW so I went ahead and flashed to a modded bios.  I'm getting some pretty decent overclocks out of them now, but it's still hitting up against the TDP limits and bouncing the core clocks under heavy stress during benchmark runs.  I can get them to hold 1586mhz without dropping core clock, anything above that though, and the core clock bounces around like a super ball.  The memory stays solid all the way from 3800 to 4005...  The core clock issue is pretty annoying though.  I'm seriously considering crossing over one or two of the shunts, to get some better power delivery.

Anyway...was able to get some really solid benchmark scores with them.  3900+ in Valley (haven't broke 4k yet, still working on that), 20904 in Firestrike and 11209 in Firestrike Extreme.

My cards are water cooled....max temps reached 39c during these runs with an ambient room temp of 25c.  My rig.  Still a work in progress, but it's getting closer to being finished.

Firestrike high score:
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5860365

Firestrike Extreme high score:
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5864927

[Samsterstorm]

Hi guys!

 

So I got my 970 and its amazing and I cant wait to OC but can u guys take a look at my thread and try to helps!!!

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/441479-issue-with-nvflash-while-flashing-970-bios/

 

Thanks Guys!!

[Jaqen]

Got my 970s up and running on my new rig. I was pretty disillusioned with the TDP limitations on the 970FTW so I went ahead and flashed to a modded bios. I'm getting some pretty decent overclocks out of them now, but it's still hitting up against the TDP limits and bouncing the core clocks under heavy stress during benchmark runs. I can get them to hold 1586mhz without dropping core clock, anything above that though, and the core clock bounces around like a super ball. The memory stays solid all the way from 3800 to 4005... The core clock issue is pretty annoying though. I'm seriously considering crossing over one or two of the shunts, to get some better power delivery.

Anyway...was able to get some really solid benchmark scores with them. 3900+ in Valley (haven't broke 4k yet, still working on that), 20904 in Firestrike and 11209 in Firestrike Extreme.

My cards are water cooled....max temps reached 39c during these runs with an ambient room temp of 25c. My rig. Still a work in progress, but it's getting closer to being finished.

Firestrike high score:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5860365

Firestrike Extreme high score:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5864927

1586mhz is a good overclock if it is totally stable. If you haven't already I strongly recommend that you run 3dmark ultra to really stress your cards on a loop for at least an hour. Ultra is best because you can get to 95% usage on both cards constantly and If there is 0 throttling then happy days.

Usually if voltage is too high then your cards will continue to use more power till there is nothing left, incrementally increasing TDP usage by 1-2% every 5-10mins is the sign you are looking for

[Jaqen]

Also you shouldn't need to shunt the resistors to hit 1583mhz or even 1600mhz. If your voltage is over 1.275V then you need to reduce it as far as possible while maintaining stability

[Jaqen]

If you have more voltage than is necessary (likely on most 970's) then you are wasting TDP that could be used to achieve a higher clock.

[Vellinious]

I can run them at 1583 with no problems.  Anything above that though, and the clocks start to bounce around during testing.  When it drops clock, I'm getting perf cap reason "pwr".  The card can't draw any more.  Now, whether that's power supply limited or hardware limited by the card itself, I haven't figured out.  It MIGHT be the PSU....maybe.  I'm going to order a larger PSU in the next few weeks and see if that doesn't help. but I'm pretty certain it's the cards limitations.

It's stable...I chained together several hours of firestrike ultra runs and another several hours of firestrike runs trying to crack 21k in firestrike....  Couldn't get it done, but....I came REALLY close.  I did finally break the 11k barrier in ultra...which was the goal.

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5860365

[Jaqen]

It's not the psu. What does your power table look like? And what power connectors does your card have? If you want I could have a look at your bios

[Vellinious]

I'm using the 970 FTW bios from Zoson's thread on overclockers.net.  I'm at work or I'd post some screen shots of it.  I'd really like to break the 21k barrier, but....I have the top score for my processor and 2 x 970s in Firestrike (#6 overall for 2 x 970s), and the #2 score for my processor and 2 x 970s in Ultra.  

The FTW only has a 4+1 power phase and 2 x 6pin connectors plus the pci e lane.  The PSU is really close, with the processor and gpus overclocked to pushing out max power with everything I have in the system.  I dunno....I need to get a bigger one anyway.  I hate running my PSUs that close to their peak power like that.

[Jaqen]

I'm using the 970 FTW bios from Zoson's thread on overclockers.net. I'm at work or I'd post some screen shots of it. I'd really like to break the 21k barrier, but....I have the top score for my processor and 2 x 970s in Firestrike (#6 overall for 2 x 970s), and the #2 score for my processor and 2 x 970s in Ultra.

The FTW only has a 4+1 power phase and 2 x 6pin connectors plus the pci e lane. The PSU is really close, with the processor and gpus overclocked to pushing out max power with everything I have in the system. I dunno....I need to get a bigger one anyway. I hate running my PSUs that close to their peak power like that.

Fair play. I can however tell you from experience that with two 6-pins and the cheap VRM's you won't want to go past 225W on these cards. They can do more but you will likely hit a VRM's over current shut off that just shuts your cards down after a while. First happened to me after 6-hour long elite dangerous session at 4k. If you shunt the resistors you are in danger of bricking the cards. You could however reduce voltage incrementally until unstable, you will see about a 5% reduction in power draw per 10mV. That might get you to 1600mhz

[Jaqen]

it would be easier if you linked me to it so I can open the bios up myself and have a look. I'm curious to see how it is set up

[Vellinious]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/extract-and-flash-gtx-970-and-980-firmware-zosons-h2o-and-air-custom-bios

[Vellinious]

Fair play. I can however tell you from experience that with two 6-pins and the cheap VRM's you won't want to go past 225W on these cards. They can do more but you will likely hit a VRM's over current shut off that just shuts your cards down after a while. First happened to me after 6-hour long elite dangerous session at 4k. If you shunt the resistors you are in danger of bricking the cards. You could however reduce voltage incrementally until unstable, you will see about a 5% reduction in power draw per 10mV. That might get you to 1600mhz

I get crashes when I try to run them at 1600 mhz with the voltages set in the bios to....1.285 I believe.  

[Jaqen]

I get crashes when I try to run them at 1600 mhz with the voltages set in the bios to....1.285 I believe.

My 970's are under water as well and I cannot get 1600mhz either. It is crashing due to over current would be my guess rather than stability. For example I was running at 1583mhz and 8ghz on the memory for a while until I crashed in 3d mark so I increased the voltage which only made the problem worse as what I thought was instability was actually over current protection shutting the card down. I now run 1543mhz at 1.243V which is 20mV below the stock voltage for my cards (stock clock was 1354mhz) and I never ever hit the power limit and it's totally stable

[Gofspar]

My 970's are under water as well and I cannot get 1600mhz either. It is crashing due to over current would be my guess rather than stability. For example I was running at 1583mhz and 8ghz on the memory for a while until I crashed in 3d mark so I increased the voltage which only made the problem worse as what I thought was instability was actually over current protection shutting the card down. I now run 1543mhz at 1.243V which is 20mV below the stock voltage for my cards (stock clock was 1354mhz) and I never ever hit the power limit and it's totally stable

water cards ideal voltage is 1.262v on the G1 Gaming cards, but if you have reference power delivery I'd just run 1.212v imo.

[Vellinious]

The bios has the core clock at 1531 and the memory at 1900.  They run there perfectly well, so I use those settings for my daily clock.  I could probably lower the voltages down a bit, but....at those settings, even during long benchmark runs, they only reach 36c and never throttle.  So, I'm not too worried about it.  

I do wonder if it's crashing because it just doesn't get enough volts, or, as you stated, maybe the card is shutting it down because it's getting too much.  Doesn't matter...can't really run them that high anyway, without the clocks bouncing around, so..../shrug

I should have bought the FTW+....the only blocks available for them though are the Alphacool GPX blocks.  I didn't like that idea at all.

[Gofspar]

The bios has the core clock at 1531 and the memory at 1900.  They run there perfectly well, so I use those settings for my daily clock.  I could probably lower the voltages down a bit, but....at those settings, even during long benchmark runs, they only reach 36c and never throttle.  So, I'm not too worried about it.  

I do wonder if it's crashing because it just doesn't get enough volts, or, as you stated, maybe the card is shutting it down because it's getting too much.  Doesn't matter...can't really run them that high anyway, without the clocks bouncing around, so..../shrug

I should have bought the FTW+....the only blocks available for them though are the Alphacool GPX blocks.  I didn't like that idea at all.

The bouncing issue I can fix with a bios mod.

 

How much voltage do you want through the card? Maxwell stops scaling around 1.26v on ambient cooling.

[Vellinious]

I'm already running a modded bios.  I put the link to Zoson's thread above.

[Gofspar]

I'm already running a modded bios.  I put the link to Zoson's thread above.

Alright sweet, make sure to use the quote button when posting, It notifies me when you are directing a message to me.

[Vellinious]

Alright sweet, make sure to use the quote button when posting, It notifies me when you are directing a message to me.

If I could somehow manage to get 1598 to not bounce around, I'm almost sure I could break 21k on Fire Strike.  That'd make me smile big.  Maybe I should try lowering the voltage in the bios a bit.....  I'll have to look tonight when I get home, see where it's at for sure.  I'm thinking it's 1.285v....I can't remember right off.

[Gofspar]

I'm already running a modded bios.  I put the link to Zoson's thread above.

Here you go, did some memory tweaks so you should get a bit more on the memory.

 Also fixed the weird memory divider in the bios, so its normal now.

 

1.262v 250w and has no stupid ass clock bouncing.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9bWPCis6PSZbkxJUWtiM1p6cHc/view?usp=sharing

[Vellinious]

Here you go, did some memory tweaks so you should get a bit more on the memory.

 Also fixed the weird memory divider in the bios, so its normal now.

 

1.262v 250w and has no stupid ass clock bouncing.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9bWPCis6PSZbkxJUWtiM1p6cHc/view?usp=sharing

I'll take a look at it tonight when I get home.  I'm at work atm.  = )

Would ASIC score play into things at these clock and voltage levels?  

[Gofspar]

I'll take a look at it tonight when I get home.  I'm at work atm.  = )

Would ASIC score play into things at these clock and voltage levels?  

Yeah, higher asic = less leaky meaning better scaling with voltage.

[Vellinious]

Yeah, higher asic = less leaky meaning better scaling with voltage.

I know the one card is pretty good at 80.8%.  Pretty sure the other card is just average though, at 73.7%.