Reference PCB GTX 1080 Overclocking - Power limit issue?

[Senzelian]

Recently I got my brand new EVGA GTX 1080 ACX 3.0, which uses a reference PCB with a singe 8-pin power connector. 

I need the reference PCB for watercooling later on. 

 

So I was trying to overclock that beast yesterday, which worked well until I entered a +270Mhz overclock to the core frequency.  Weird artefacts appeared on my monitor in some programs without even starting a benchmark.

 

Obviously FireStrike didn't want to work at that point either. 

 

So next step was to increase the voltage. 

I don't really understand the new voltage slider with Pascal cards, would be nice if someone could give me some info on that. 

JayzTwoCents simply recommended to push the thing to the max. I tried that. I also tried other values such as 10, 20 and 50%.

 

The card kept crashing tho in Firestrike and the artifacts were still present. 

 

I later found out that I was hitting the power limit in FireStrike at the last stable overclock, which was at 250Mhz.

 

Now I'm wondering if this happened simply because of the powerlimit of the reference PCB or if I could actually achieve higher overclocks with a waterblock slapped onto it. 

 

 

[Nacho Marco Segui]

If you are hitting a power wall, lower temps will not help.

You can do this if you have the enough cojones

 

[Senzelian]

8 minutes ago, Nacho Marco Segui said:

If you are hitting a power wall, lower temps will not help.

You can do this if you have the enough cojones

 

Thanks. That might be something I try out as soon as the card is under water. Then I might be able to get it to 2.1 or 2.2 Ghz which would be nice

 

[done12many2]

4 hours ago, Senzelian said:

So I was trying to overclock that beast yesterday, which worked well until I entered a +270Mhz overclock to the core frequency.  Weird artefacts appeared on my monitor in some programs without even starting a benchmark.

 

4 hours ago, Senzelian said:

I later found out that I was hitting the power limit in FireStrike at the last stable overclock, which was at 250Mhz.

 

When you are trying to get help with GPU overclocks, it's best to use actual GPU frequency instead of the amount you added in boost.  Each GPU starts at a different base frequency and nobody really knows what operating or boost frequency you are talking about without looking up the base frequency of your card first.

 

Your EVGA GTX 1080 ACX 3.0 is very similar the EVGA GTX 1080 FE cards that I have.  Both of mine will run at 2200 MHz with EK waterblocks installed.  They will still drop to high 2100's during certain load situations in benchmarks like Time Spy, but for the most part hold 2200 MHz well.

 

Cooling Pascal cards with water will help them clock higher.  I have found that mine overclock and perform the best when they remain below 40c.  Good luck.

[Senzelian]

41 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

 

When you are trying to get help with GPU overclocks, it's best to use actual GPU frequency instead of the amount you added in boost.  Each GPU starts at a different base frequency and nobody really knows what operating or boost frequency you are talking about without looking up the base frequency of your card first.

 

Your EVGA GTX 1080 ACX 3.0 is very similar the EVGA GTX 1080 FE cards that I have.  Both of mine will run at 2200 MHz with EK waterblocks installed.  They will still drop to high 2100's during certain load situations in benchmarks like Time Spy, but for the most part hold 2200 MHz well.

 

Cooling Pascal cards with water will help them clock higher.  I have found that mine overclock and perform the best when they remain below 40c.  Good luck.

Oh I'm sorry.
I assumed people knew that I was talking about the standard GTX 1080 clockspeeds, because I mentioned it has a reference PCB.

1607mhz is the base clock.
It boosts to roughly 1800mhz without overclocking and with overclocking I was able to achieve 2050mhz.

It is interesting that you're able to achieve 2200Mhz with a reference PCB. So I might be able to do that aswell on water, depending on the chip oviously.

 

Did you run into the power limit when overclocking?

Thanks!
 

[done12many2]

1 minute ago, Senzelian said:

Oh I'm sorry.
I assumed people knew that I was talking about the standard GTX 1080 clockspeeds, because I mentioned it has a reference PCB.

1607mhz is the base clock.
It boosts to roughly 1800mhz without overclocking and with overclocking I was able to achieve 2050mhz.

It is interesting that you're able to achieve 2200Mhz with a reference PCB. So I might be able to do that aswell on water, depending on the chip oviously.

 

Did you run into the power limit when overclocking?

Thanks!
 

 

Believe it or not, reference PCD FE cards are one of the top overclockers when adequately cooled by water.  With Pascal, it's literally about the quality of the chip.  Power delivery means very little as the reference PCB power delivery  is already more than enough.

 

Yes, power delivery is still an issue, but not until higher clock rates of say 2150+ depending on your GPU and cooling.

 

The bottom line is, cool Pascal cards and they will boost/clock higher.  It was basically the same with Maxwell, but even more so with Pascal.

[DildorTheDecent]

5 hours ago, Nacho Marco Segui said:

If you are hitting a power wall, lower temps will not help.

You can do this if you have the enough cojones

 

That mod isn't really that stressful to perform especially with Liquid metal. 

 

Far more effective with solder though. percentage drop is insane with solder. 

[Nacho Marco Segui]

1 minute ago, DildorTheDecent said:

That mod isn't really that stressful to perform especially with Liquid metal. 

 

Far more effective with solder though. percentage drop is insane with solder. 

 

I would do it myself, if I had a 1080. But not everyone is willing to do so.

[Senzelian]

2 hours ago, done12many2 said:

 

Believe it or not, reference PCD FE cards are one of the top overclockers when adequately cooled by water.  With Pascal, it's literally about the quality of the chip.  Power delivery means very little as the reference PCB power delivery  is already more than enough.

 

Yes, power delivery is still an issue, but not until higher clock rates of say 2150+ depending on your GPU and cooling.

 

The bottom line is, cool Pascal cards and they will boost/clock higher.  It was basically the same with Maxwell, but even more so with Pascal.

But I'm literally hitting the power target which I set of course to 120% at 2050Mhz