NVIDIA's shady trick to boost the GeForce 9600 GT

[Schnippzle]

PCI-E trick aside it's quite amazing that these little chips can do around 800Mhz core! Probably because of less transistors.

So I think even if they implement the same technique for 9800GT/GTX/GX2 they won't be able to clock anywhere near as high.

Dont see how that is that amazing tbh. I run my 2900XT at 855 on the core 24/7 and its stable 24/7.

 

[steve258]

I meant in the history of Nvidia cards it's the highest core speed ever. You can't compare different brands with different core architectures. It's like saying a P4 can do 4.5Ghz 24/7 stable while an AMD A64 can only do 3Ghz max.

 

[Richdog]

If the cards are capable of running this fast then why not just sell them all running faster? If its for noobs, they wont even know it exists. If its for the more hardcore gamers they can overclock themselves. Sure i can see theyre trying to get people to buy Nvidia motherboards as well, but those that dont have Nvidia motherboards may well go for a 3850 / 3870 instead, as they wont get the performacne boost and may feel ripped of somewhat, so its a stalemate. But if they released a faster performing card for everyone, then it looks good all round.

Have i missed the point of this? I dont get what they were hoping for really.

Name me a single GPU that is sold as mainstream (~£120) and clocked to it's full potential without commanding a price premium for being an "overclocked" version. Seriously, think.

What you don't seem to be getting, for reasons I don't understand, is that it's just a feature created by Nvidia to boost the cards... you're reading far too much into it...

 

[willhub]

I meant in the history of Nvidia cards it's the highest core speed ever. You can't compare different brands with different core architectures. It's like saying a P4 can do 4.5Ghz 24/7 stable while an AMD A64 can only do 3Ghz max.

The 8800GTS can do 800+ core, some hit 850+...

 

[steve258]

Oh..

Was under the impression that G92s do around 700Mhz average.

 

[muon]

Name me a single GPU that is sold as mainstream (~£120) and clocked to it's full potential without commanding a price premium for being an "overclocked" version. Seriously, think.

What you don't seem to be getting, for reasons I don't understand, is that it's just a feature created by Nvidia to boost the cards... you're reading far too much into it...

But the people on amd/intel boards deserve to know that the benchmarks done by some reviews (apparently at stock) do not apply to them unless they overclock the card.

The crux of the matter is, they should have told reviewers.

 

[willhub]

Oh..

Was under the impression that G92s do around 700Mhz average.

Thats 8800GT, the GTS stock clock is 650 and it does near enough 800+, some dont manage 800 though.

 

[queamin]

But the people on amd/intel boards deserve to know that the benchmarks done by some reviews (apparently at stock) do not apply to them unless they overclock the card.

The crux of the matter is, they should have told reviewers.

I agree with this

 

[ACESHIGH]

Name me a single GPU that is sold as mainstream (~£120) and clocked to it's full potential without commanding a price premium for being an "overclocked" version. Seriously, think.

What you don't seem to be getting, for reasons I don't understand, is that it's just a feature created by Nvidia to boost the cards... you're reading far too much into it...

My question still stands though. Why not simply do this for all cards as a stock solution (if all cards are capable of it anyway)?

Infact the way i see it, these arent overclocked cards at all (im sure Nvidia tested these setting to ensure they work well). The cards running on AMD and Intel boards are under clocked and underperforming the way i see it.

If its to selll more motherboards, then thats an interesting choice, as you then alienate those using non-Nvidia boards of which there are a lot, who get underperforming cards.

 

[Richdog]

My question still stands though. Why not simply do this for all cards as a stock solution (if all cards are capable of it anyway)? .

ALL cards come with varying overclocking headroom, it should be blindingly obvious why ALL cards do not come clocked to their maximum potential.... to decrease risk of failure, returns, and ensure that overclocked editions can be sold for premiums. Have you not seen the GPU market for the last 5 years? Why are you struggling to grasp this concept?

 

[ACESHIGH]

ALL cards come with varying overclocking headroom, it should be blindingly obvious why ALL cards do not come clocked to their maximum potential.... to decrease risk of failure, returns, and ensure that overclocked editions can be sold for premiums. Have you not seen the GPU market for the last 5 years? Why are you struggling to grasp this concept?

Edit: Having reread about Linkboost.

Well Linkboost doesnt work out the max overclock for indiviudal cards. It actually relies on a preset overclock percentage which is 25%. So any 9600GT card no matter which manufacturer it was made by, when placed in a Linkboost enabled motherboard will overclock by 25%.
See here and original article ...
http://www.nvidia.com/content/nforce5/TB-02423-001_v01_LinkBoost.pdf

Therefore if Nvidia allows this, they must know that all cards will be able to clock this high (as they dont know who has which card and which mobo).

Thus if every card can run 25% overclocked, they are not really overclocked, but running at what Nvidia knows they are capable of.

So in essence the cards are underclocked out of the box and only gain their full speed on select Nvida motherboards according to Nvidia design. So they actually penalise other motherboard users the way i see it.

 

[Richdog]

Here's the technical PDF http://www.nvidia.com/content/nforce5/TB-02423-001_v01_LinkBoost.pdf

 

[steve258]

Since the core does not have a clock generator on its own does it mean it can only be overclocked by raising the PCI-E bus? or can you still overclock it with rivatuner?

 

[Lanz]

I got a Nforce 650i and 9600GT, I dont recall seeing anything about Linkboost, but I have some other option about enhanced nvidia external card thingy. I enabled that already and I saw no performance increase.

I'll have another look tonight.

 

[fornowagain]

Follow-up to NVIDIA’s shady trick on 9600GT

So, other cards’ performance did not affect by PCIe. For now only 9600GT have this issue. But will it be the only one? no. We ran a test with a 9500GT ES, the issue is the same, the card gain performance when we increase the PCIe clock.Maybe it is a new feature NVIDIA just did not want us know about it.

Will nForce mobo automatically starts LinkBoost?

No, because nFoce board did not have this feature any more.

9600GT runs better when using it with nForce?

No. It is only a 0.3% increase in Multi-texture test, which can be omitted. If compare it with 3Dmark06 total score that Intel P35 won’t have any difference with 780i.

9600 GT GPU clock increase 1:1 when we increase PCIe clock?

No.PCIe clock change not only affects GPU clocks. First they are not 1:1, second the scale pattern are not the same.

Other cards also have this issue?

For now, no. But in the future we will encounter more 9 series card which have this kind of issue.

Now here is a new question which we can not answer: What PCIe clock affects?

It is clear that the GPU clock and PCIe clock patterns are not the same, so PCIe clock not only affect the GPU clock. But we can not sure which part is the key. Maybe only NVIDIA can answer this question.

 

[MeatLoaf]

Well i decided to set my PCI-E bus to 110Mhz and sure enough i did get a small increase in 3dm06 score.

10188 up from 9916, although ntune and gpu-z still reports the core clock as 650Mhz