Asus GeForce GTX 960 Strix OC Edition
Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:11 pm
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https://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=68234
Thank you Lawrence, your reviews are always unvaluable!Lawrence Lee wrote:http://www.silentpcreview.com/Asus_Strix_GTX_960/
You mean invaluable, right? Or was that a joke?quest_for_silence wrote:Thank you Lawrence, your reviews are always unvaluable!
Well, Mike, I think Shakespeare said that the humour have to be accidental (or something similar) That was a typo, probably due to hurry: the "i" and the "u" are side-by-side on the keyboard, and I accidentally pick the wrong side... sorry Lawrence, invaluable, invaluable!MikeC wrote:You mean invaluable, right? Or was that a joke?quest_for_silence wrote:Thank you Lawrence, your reviews are always unvaluable!
I have no practical experience doing this, but I did find a tidbit suggesting the GPU Boost feature does have something to do with voltage:BSim500 wrote:Also, I haven't had an nvidia card in years, so does lowering the GPU Boost Clock reduce the voltage or just frequency?
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/gpu-boost-2/technology wrote:With a watercooling setup temperatures become irrelevant, allowing GPU Boost to maximize voltage and power usage, in turn cranking the Boost Clock way beyond the norm, wringing every last drop of performance from GTX 700 Series GPUs and the GTX TITAN.
Undervolting may be something that depends on the vendor or specific model, but my guess is that you cannot directly reduce the voltage using the Boost Clock setting. That's based on my experience with the Gigabyte GTX 970. For that card, any voltage setting below zero is ignored, and underclocking does not lower the voltage. Take a look at the voltage/frequency chart in the post I linked: whether I overclock or underclock, the Y-axis never changes, only the X-axis. You can think of the Boost Bins as absolute voltage bins, separated by 12.5MHz relative clock speed per bin.BSim500 wrote: I'm wondering if you can get your 75c down to nearer 65-70c with fixed 1120rpm fan with a little undervolting?
Also, I haven't had an nvidia card in years, so does lowering the GPU Boost Clock reduce the voltage or just frequency?
Ah, very useful SometimesWarrior, thanks very much! It was precisely that Boost 2.0 TDP / temp target thing's effect on voltage I'm wondering about, but (as usual) most reviews are only interested in overclocking, not tweaking it to reduce power. Presumably you can also set the Boost temp target thing to say 65c, lower the fan speed, and force it to not Boost above the stock frequency (not so much underclocking, but rather "not Boost overclocking")? I'm really looking to knock 20-30w or so off TDP target and run nearer max 65c with low rpm fans (at same "near silent" speeds that resulted in 75c in review). The 750 Ti falls well within that but is not much faster than current 7790. GTX 960 is literally twice the speed but draws about 30-40w more. If I can shave 5-10c off temps by nerfing the Boost and forcing it on the lower voltage clock stepping, I'll be happy even if I lose about 10-15% perf as it'll still be over +85% faster than current 7790 whilst potentially drawing very little extra power. (If all that makes sense! )SometimesWarrior wrote:However, you can effectively undervolt, in a roundabout way, if you overclock the card (remember, the voltages don't change when you do this) and then use miserly settings in your OC software for either the temperature or power target. For example, in the article, the card runs at 1367MHz with the 1120RPM fan and FurMark. Based on my and TechPowerUp's measurements, the card is probably at 1.13V at that speed.
Let's say we set the temperature target to 71C for that test. The card would scale down to a slightly lower boost bin. My estimate (remembering that power approximately scales linearly with frequency and quadradically with voltage) is that the card would scale down two bins, to 1342MHz and 1.08V. By further overclocking the card +37MHz while maintaining the temperature target, the card would most likely drop one more boost bin, but since the card's frequency is increased, the card would settle at 1367MHz and 1.07V (1342 * 1.08^2 is about the same as 1367 * 1.07^2). So the +37MHz overclock is effectively a -0.06V undervolt.
Yes, I believe the GTX 960 is like the GTX 970, in that it will let you set a temperature limit as low as 60 C or power limit down to 40% TDP. You can lower the fan speed to your desired noise level, set the temperature limit to anything you like, and let the card scale to whatever speed it can manage. It makes silent operation a breeze ( ) as long as you don't mind some performance loss.BSim500 wrote:Presumably you can also set the Boost temp target thing to say 65c, lower the fan speed, and force it to not Boost above the stock frequency (not so much underclocking, but rather "not Boost overclocking")?
<shrugs> The 950 is a nerfed 960 and while it's gen 2 of Maxwell vs Gen 1 for the 750 Ti, it's still Maxwell. The big power savings happened going from Kepler to Maxwell. I suspect it'll slot in fairly linearly. Ask me again tomorrowDas_Saunamies wrote:PS. Thanks for the rumour mill link, good read. I hope the 950 gains more performance than it loses in thermal output.
Nice! Thanks for verifying with real-world results.Smanci wrote:It's funny that you mentioned the 660 and 750Ti there. I did a sidegrade from 660 to a 750Ti last year, and while my framerates remained the same, I noticed a lot smoother gameplay. Couldn't explain it back then. This is the first time anyone has factually proven that.
Smanci wrote:Not sure about it being a 60-80-watt card.