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GTX 1080, Locked-Voltage, High-end cards & beginning of the end for GPU overclocking

Besty

Besty

Besty

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
4,537
So, all the 1080 custom cards seem to be locked at the same voltage limit as the references cards - 1.09v.

1 8-pin, 2 8-pin, 10+2 PCB's it does not matter, you hit the same limit at roughly the same clock speed - 2.1Ghz.

The Galax HOF 2.2Ghz demonstration at Computex was done using much higher voltages (they went right up to 1.38v on LN2).

This is a card you can't buy.

Classified, Xtreme waterforce, all locked at 1.09v. No custom BIOS available or special sauce to unlock more.

What's the point in buying a high-end card now? You might as well buy one of Gibbo's bargain basement 1080's and whack a block onto it.

I wonder now, was the Nvidia 1080 demonstration at 2.1Ghz really done at 1.09v ?

I wonder if this is the start of the end of the GPU overclocker. bah.
 
There isn't any point in it, aside from the cooling aspect. The real scam is the custom cards offering extra power plugs and tricking us into thinking they will overclock higher just like the previous gen, when they must've realised in advance that it would make no difference.

Luckily I noticed in the first batch of reviews of the custom cards where it was headed. AMD need to hurry up with the competition.
 
Yep, all the massively-overbuilt cards are pointless for Pascal in general. At best you might get something a little quieter, but even that's not a certain thing. I'm currently using EVGA's tiny little single fan 1060 SC and, after flashing the new BIOS from their forum which adds a 0dB mode, it's every bit as quiet as the 1070 FTW that I had. It runs a little hotter in the mid-70s, but that's still perfectly fine. It also overclocks better than the 1070 FTW did, managing over 2.1GHz stable, despite its tiny reference PCB with a 3+1 power phase setup and single 6-pin power connector. And it's not like the 1060 uses dramatically less power either, there's only 25W or so in it.

Equally, the 1070 and 1080 FEs overclock every bit as well as any of the fancy models as long as you can keep them cool. Maybe better even. All the best overclocking results I've seen have been FEs, which has lead to speculation about Nvidia keeping the best chips for themselves. Of course, it could also just be that people are much more likely to water cool the reference PCB.
 
So you are complaining that a card rated at 1733mhz wont do more than 2100mhz. A 367mhz overclock. Sheesh I can remember when we were happy a card did 100mhz!

Never happy some people. ;)
 
Back to proper overclocking then where the first thing you had to do is get the soldering iron out. :)
 
IF you got anywhere near 1.38v on anything other than exotic cooling your 16nm card wouldn't last long (that said it probably won't exactly on LN2 either).
 
Seanspeed said:
Hawaii were poor overclockers. Fiji were poor overclockers. Polaris seems to be poor at overclocking.

But sure, Vega will save the day from these measly 300Mhz gains Nvidia are torturing consumers with...
Click to expand...

I'm not hopeful of good overclocking results on Vega, but at least the BIOS hopefully won't be locked, and it might go some way to pushing down the prices of nVidia's cards. The biggest peeve I have is that we're paying extortionate prices for locked down mid-range cards.
 
The Asus OC STric isnt locked to 1.09v and there is another card which I cant remember which isnt locked as well.

There has been a modded oc strix bios out since first week offering up to 1.25v if you have sufficient cooling to handle it. This gives you 2.1 to 2.2 on air coolers and 2.3 to 2.4 on water.

Not much of a gain in real world, about 1 fps per game but if you want the best of out your card feel free to flash it (best if you have a card with dual bios in case it goes wrong)
 
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Seanspeed said:
Hawaii were poor overclockers. Fiji were poor overclockers. Polaris seems to be poor at overclocking.

But sure, Vega will save the day from these measly 300Mhz gains Nvidia are torturing consumers with...
Click to expand...

We were spoilt be the generations before hawaii where AMD gave us 50% overlcoking cards. Hawaii maxxed out at around 14% for free.

1080s are better than that anyway.
 
Aretak said:
Yep, all the massively-overbuilt cards are pointless for Pascal in general. At best you might get something a little quieter, but even that's not a certain thing. I'm currently using EVGA's tiny little single fan 1060 SC and, after flashing the new BIOS from their forum which adds a 0dB mode, it's every bit as quiet as the 1070 FTW that I had. It runs a little hotter in the mid-70s, but that's still perfectly fine. It also overclocks better than the 1070 FTW did, managing over 2.1GHz stable, despite its tiny reference PCB with a 3+1 power phase setup and single 6-pin power connector. And it's not like the 1060 uses dramatically less power either, there's only 25W or so in it.

Equally, the 1070 and 1080 FEs overclock every bit as well as any of the fancy models as long as you can keep them cool. Maybe better even. All the best overclocking results I've seen have been FEs, which has lead to speculation about Nvidia keeping the best chips for themselves. Of course, it could also just be that people are much more likely to water cool the reference PCB.
Click to expand...

I have seen it said by more than one person its a better bios on FE. Eg at the same speed a FE will be faster than any AIB in games and benchmarks.

aND THEY SEEM TO CLOCK HIGHER AS WELL (IF YOU KEEP THEM COOL BY RAMPING UP YOUR FANS) so it might just be Nvidia has written a much better bios than any AIB partner.
 
Greebo said:
We were spoilt be the generations before hawaii where AMD gave us 50% overlcoking cards. Hawaii maxxed out at around 14% for free.

1080s are better than that anyway.
Click to expand...
With the advantage Nvidia have right now, they could easily just dock stock clocks lower to make the cards look like better overclockers.
 
If you look at the Titan X-P you can see that better cooling is very important so it doesn't throttle. The cards can do very well and maintain high clocks if you can cool them. And I mean in itself cooler cards are valuable, as well as quieter, which is valuable as well. It just means now that you should invest in watercooling as well if you're gonna pay so much for a GPU.
 
Seanspeed said:
What does an uncapped voltage matter if it doesn't overclock well in the first place? :/
Click to expand...

Because the cards are marketed and priced in such a way that it implies improved performance.

Whether the card gives a big boost in actual FPS perf is not really up for debate, the point is a £800+ card should give you a boost in capabilities over a bargain bin £560 card without having to hard-mod or invalidate warranty. That's what you pay the extra £££ for.

Galax demonstrated the HOF at 2.2GHZ air cooled at Computex but you cant actually buy the card they demoed.

What I am calling out here is that manufacturers keep posting up numbers that you can't actually obtain in the real-world because the cards are nerfed by Nvidia.
 
Poneros said:
If you look at the Titan X-P you can see that better cooling is very important so it doesn't throttle. The cards can do very well and maintain high clocks if you can cool them. And I mean in itself cooler cards are valuable, as well as quieter, which is valuable as well. It just means now that you should invest in watercooling as well if you're gonna pay so much for a GPU.
Click to expand...

True.
My watercooled GTX1080 Armor OC, works happily all the time at 2164 core speed. However cannot overclock it more. On air 2100 was lucky to hit...

But still experimenting with the card and found

a) At 48C is a limit where the BIOS starts fiddling with power and throttling.

b) At 60C this throttling becomes more obvious. The more power to push to the card, worst the performance because, even if the boost spikes are higher than before.

c) My 1080 at stock settings, under air hits 1911 max boost constant at around 60C (at 58C the fan starts spinning until then is not working at all) . Watercooled at 35C goes 1956. Before apply any overclock.

d) There are people who managed 2190 constant, but they fiddle with the curve, and already asked couple of them on another forum to provide me with that curve.

e) Using different BIOS doesn't help. The Gaming X or Z bios tried on the Armor have worst performance and overclocks than the Armor original BIOS.
And they were supposed to be the premium products while I bought the Armor for £599!!!!! as cheapest of the pack. I bet the OCUK one is as good as any other.
Unfortunately I do not want to try the Strixx BIOS because I might brick the card, since it has only single BIOS :(

f) PL or TL are not the issues with the GTX1080. I never hit them even while benching. VL (Voltage Limit) is, capped at 1.093 and looks is capped at BIOS because extra power doesn't assist the cards.

Why someone would ask. Nvidia has the pot and the spoon, and blindly over the years gave them money, even when clearly they were cheating of had more expensive inferior products than AMD.

Do I expect anything from Vega? Actually not. It could be faster, but terrible overclocker. 14nm and lower we going to have issues with overclocking. The space between the transistors is not big enough to transfer heat, even with watercooling.
See the Broadwel-E compared to previous generations. Burns a lot of electricity, and cannot overclock.

I say they should all go back to the board, produce huge 22nm GPUs, even if we have to plug 1000W Platinum PSU to power them. :) As long as we can overclock them, I will be happy :D
 
Whether or not my EVGA FTW 1080 gives more fps than the reference version, or not, the fact is the EVGA is so quiet. My previous MSI 980ti was distinctly noisy under load, although not quite noisy enough to impact on me while gaming. I literally have not heard my EVGA.
The quiet has been worth the extra £'s over the reference alone.
 
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