Aftermarket 1080 and 1070's Poor Overclockers?

[DrJones]

So I've been looking at reviews and scavenging through articles and forums stating that despite the upgraded VRM's and additional 6 or 8-pin power connectors, the cards from the board partners overclock just about the same as a reference PCB. Therefore, it would be more cost effective to get a cheap board partner card with good cooling capacity (EVGA ACX 3.0) and overclock it to the max than to get one with additional power phases and connectors. Basically, I'm asking has anyone personally had or seen results that show a substantial increase in overclocking headroom with additional power phases and connectors vs the reference PCB on the 10 series cards?

Also, please keep in mind I'm disregarding the FE because of thermal limits, I'm just talking about a board partner cooler on the reference card vs an upgraded PCB.

[SSL]

Pascal is terrible for overclocking.

[AresKrieger]

Well it seems the cards top out in 2100s on the high end, I haven't see any reach 2200, so I'd say that percentage wise they aren't great overclockers and that expensive aftermarket versions are pointless as a result since the limit is in the chip itself. I'm not surprised by this though due to the node change and high initial clocks.

[abhigyan001]

3 minutes ago, SSL said:

Pascal is terrible for overclocking.

And So is Polaris atleast with the reference coolers.

[SSL]

1 minute ago, abhigyan001 said:

And So is Polaris atleast with the reference coolers.

 

Irrelevant comparison. Polaris is limited by the reference design, but unless I'm mistaken the architecture itself scales better. Pascal is limited no matter what efforts are made with custom PCB, cooling, BIOS, power delivery.

[xAcid9]

Chip limitation not board.

[Energycore]

Pascal can't overclock past 10-12% (actually it caps out at around 2100MHz regardless of its stock clocks), Polaris was shown to go up to 1500 using water, that's about an 18% overclock.

 

If all it takes is a better cooler for 1500MHz it might be an OK overclocker, although still not as good as Maxwell especially Titan "50% overclock on water" Edition.

[Briggsy]

20 minutes ago, SSL said:

Pascal is terrible for overclocking.

GPU Boost 3 does most of the work. Out of the box my own 1070 does 1911Mhz and holds in the 1850 range. It overclocks to 2126Mhz and holds in the 2050-2070 range. So basically a 15% overclock from boost clocks, or a 41% overclock from base clock.

 

That's about in line with Maxwell overclocking if you are going from base clocks. In fact, before Pascal, Maxwell, Tahiti and Kepler, neither Nvidia nor AMD cards were that amazing for overclocking to my recollection, at least not comparatively. Since Tahiti, AMD haven't released an amazing overclocker at all.

 

So if Pascal is Terrible for overclocking, that pretty much makes every other architecture out there, past and present, terrible.

[DrJones]

2 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

GPU Boost 3 does most of the work. Out of the box my own 1070 does 1911Mhz and holds in the 1850 range. It overclocks to 2126Mhz and holds in the 2050-2070 range. So basically a 15% overclock from boost clocks, or a 41% overclock from base clock.

 

That's about in line with Maxwell overclocking if you are going from base clocks. In fact, before Pascal, Maxwell, Tahiti and Kepler, neither Nvidia nor AMD cards were that amazing for overclocking to my recollection, at least not comparatively. Since Tahiti, AMD haven't released an amazing overclocker at all.

is that a reference PCB?

[SSL]

1 minute ago, Briggsy said:

GPU Boost 3 does most of the work. Out of the box my own 1070 does 1911Mhz and holds in the 1850 range. It overclocks to 2126Mhz and holds in the 2050-2070 range. So basically a 15% overclock from boost clocks, or a 41% overclock from base clock.

 

That's about in line with Maxwell overclocking if you are going from base clocks. In fact, before Pascal, Maxwell Tahiti and Kepler, neither Nvidia nor AMD cards were that amazing for overclocking to my recollection, at least not comparatively. Since Tahiti, AMD haven't released an amazing overclocker.

 

You have to look at the actual performance numbers. Pascal scales poorly compared to Maxwell. Raw clockspeed is never used as a metric for OC'ing, and ESPECIALLY not the difference in base and boost.

[Briggsy]

2 minutes ago, SSL said:

You have to look at the actual performance numbers.

I'm still waiting for someone with a 980ti to beat me in the Unigine Valley thread, since Pascal apparently scales so horribly with higher clocks.

[ivan134]

4 minutes ago, SSL said:

 

You have to look at the actual performance numbers. Pascal scales poorly compared to Maxwell. Raw clockspeed is never used as a metric for OC'ing, and ESPECIALLY not the difference in base and boost.

Wut? Giant numbers don't mean giant performance? I already enlisted the jigga Hertz war and you're telling me I'm wasting my time?

[SSL]

2 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

I'm still waiting for someone with a 980ti to beat me in the Unigine Valley thread, since Pascal apparently scales so horribly with higher clocks.

 

Synthetic benchie; means fuck-all to real performance.

 

No question, the 1080 is faster than 980ti. But is the OC'd 1080 much faster than stock? Nope!!!

[Megazero]

Well... The ref 970 Firestrike point is 9568, the OCed MSI 970 is 11309, a 1741 points increase, or around 18% increase over the stock 970
           The ref 1070 Firestrike point is 16229, Oced MSI 1070 is 18384, a 2155 points increase, or around 13.2% increase over the stock 1070
(Result taken from guru3d, cant compare real game since the game they use is different)
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-geforce-gtx-1070-gaming-x-review,30.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_970_gaming_review,26.html

So yes, the yield from OCing pascal is lower than Maxwell. that however doesnt change the fact that Pascal is still really powerful.

[Briggsy]

8 minutes ago, SSL said:

 

Synthetic benchie; means fuck-all to real performance.

 

No question, the 1080 is faster than 980ti. But is the OC'd 1080 much faster than stock? Nope!!!

From Techpowerup

 

1080 review: "Actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 12.8%. "

980 Ti review: "Actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 9.4%"

 

Maybe another architecture would make for a better comparison to prove your point.

[Briggsy]

7 minutes ago, Megazero said:

Well... The ref 970 Firestrike point is 9568, the OCed MSI 970 is 11309, a 1741 points increase, or around 18% increase over the stock 970
           The ref 1070 Firestrike point is 16229, Oced MSI 1070 is 18384, a 2155 points increase, or around 13.2% increase over the stock 1070
(Result taken from guru3d, cant compare real game since the game they use is different)
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-geforce-gtx-1070-gaming-x-review,30.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_970_gaming_review,26.html

So yes, the yield from OCing pascal is lower than Maxwell. that however doesnt change the fact that Pascal is still really powerful.

Very true, although GPU boost on Pascal is far more aggressive. Most of the gains are already there out of the box.

[Megazero]

4 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

Very true, although GPU boost on Pascal is far more aggressive. Most of the gains are already there out of the box.

Aggressive in term of clock speed, yes. Though that do make me kinda said that in the end the OCed number that I can apply to my 1070 is only +150Mhz max. Now dont get me wrong, that number is really good, BUT I would have more fun/satisfactory if I can apply +300-+400Mhz instead of +150Mhz  Which I guess I can technically do by somehow disable GPU Boost 3 (IDK how), but GPU Boost also come with the benefit of auto scale so... I guess that's good.

[SSL]

15 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

From Techpowerup

 

1080 review: "Actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 12.8%. "

980 Ti review: "Actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 9.4%"

 

Maybe another architecture would make for a better comparison to prove your point.

 

Nice cherry-picking, dude. Classy.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

59 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

I'm still waiting for someone with a 980ti to beat me in the Unigine Valley thread, since Pascal apparently scales so horribly with higher clocks.

 

Well... You are currently below 11 980 Tis in the single GPU scores. 

[Briggsy]

7 minutes ago, Pohernori said:

 

Well... You are currently below 11 980 Tis in the single GPU scores. 

Ahh, true that. I should have said the average FPS leaderboard.

 

I am ahead of them all at 1440p, which I guess is something lol (there's only like 4 so no surprise)

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

4 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

Ahh, true that. I should have said the average FPS leaderboard.

 

I am ahead of them all at 1440p, which I guess is something lol (there's only like 4 so no surprise)

 

Heheheh. GIve me a better CPU and mobo. And I'll fuck up yer scores 

[alphaproject]

Since Pascal is right on the heels of HMB2 it pushed the RAM pretty much to it's limits out of the box. Back in the day you were lucky to OC a card 50mhz.

 

People need to chillaxe on the OCing already. Imagine this scenario.

 

Pascal comes out clocked at 1800 but reaches 2000 - forget all the boost technology for 1 sec as well. So everyone gets around +200 OC results.  Ok, not bad right?

 

Or.... Boost the card out of the box using the GPU boost 3.0 to boost from 1700 to 1950 and people complain it doesn't OC as well.... see where I am going? Even though you can OC it yourself an extra 50, which is not much people seem like they'd prefer the card to just be clocked lower... and fool yourself into thinking it clocks awesome by doing it yourself.

 

Pascal could have come out and clocked around 1500 boosted. It would have still been impressive, most likely.  Then on top of that imagine overclocking it 500 on the core yourself. Would people be more impressed? Nothing is really stopping Nvidia from trying to underclock just to make people think it's a good overclocker.

[App4that]

This turned into a topic filled with AND fans and people insecure with their Maxwell cards? Noooo. I'm shocked.

 

To answer the OPs question. If you look to the cards with more than RGB lights, there are minimal gains in clock speeds, but substantial improvements in temperatures. Wait for the AIO cards to hit and heavily weights like the Lightning and Classified. You will see your increase in overclocking 

[alphaproject]

Even if they don't OC much more the improvement in cooling and stability is also welcomed.

 

AMD and Nvidia both should benefit from the better coolers even if they don't OC like beasts.

[Outs1d3r81]

1 hour ago, App4that said:

This turned into a topic filled with AND fans and people insecure with their Maxwell cards? Noooo. I'm shocked.

 

To answer the OPs question. If you look to the cards with more than RGB lights, there are minimal gains in clock speeds, but substantial improvements in temperatures. Wait for the AIO cards to hit and heavily weights like the Lightning and Classified. You will see your increase in overclocking 

I agree with the second statement below. These card boost up substantially out of the box without the need to overclock it and with the improved coolers we have much better temperatures.

 

I replaced an 770 that was overclocked to the teeth from the factory with my 1080. The hold card was extremely hot even with good cooling. Now I am getting great performance out of box with less power usage and about 15 - 20C less heat which is a win in my book.

 

You will always get the "enthusiasts" that always want more even thou you do not need it and I am sure that you that as the pascal architecture matures better over clocks will start appearing the question should be why ? Is it worth the hassle are you really going to see such a massive gain in performance.

 

Regardless to each his own if you want to overclock and push it to the limits great enjoy it if you want to run Crossfire RX480's as it is cheaper (Good luck gaming with the limited support for dual GPU setups) go for it. In the end its about what are you looking for. Me personally I want longevity and decent performance with as little hassle as possible and with GPUBoost 3  and my 1080 I am getting that in spades out of the box.