Pascal overclocking

[humbug]

I'm testing a Zotac 1060 Mini

Lovely little card, runs 1911Mhz out of the box cold, soon drops to about 1860 once at its running temp of about 75c.

Its only got a dinky little single fan cooler on it so i'm not expecting a lot from it, its also perhaps not the best Pascal card to test.

I turned the Memory up to 4200Mhz (+200), it only made a marginal difference so i left it at that.

I don't want to push the core too high as its already pretty high out of the box, i hear they run about 2050 to 2100 reliably.
I'm testing it in 50Mhz increments, i have only taken it to +100Mhz as; and this is the question- thats not what i got out of the card, from 1911 with +100Mhz what it actually started out at was 2000Mhz dead on, so actually +89Mhz, close enough, however as soon as it warmed up it fell back to 1940, so in the end actually only +80Mhz.

I have a feeling that the card is thermally constrained, its actually going to be quite difficult to get it to run at 2050Mhz or 2100Mhz, normally with less beefy cooling you should still get good clocks all be it with higher temps, maybe just over 80c instead of just over 70c.
But it seems this one doesn't want to go there, not that i have pushed it more and the reason for that is if 350Mhz actually translates into 200Mhz i don't trust it not to spike or something like that.

Comments please

 

[darket]

Pascal clocking is just a pig , My titan X watercooled never sees over 38 degrees and boosts to 2100mhz but will settle as low as 2013 with dips into the high 1900's depending on the load/game/benchmark.

Its the card thermal/power managing so without a bios editor and way of certificating that bios pascal overclocking is well.. pants.

 

[humbug]

Pascal clocking is just a pig , My titan X watercooled never sees over 38 degrees and boosts to 2100mhz but will settle as low as 2013 with dips into the high 1900's depending on the load/game/benchmark.

Its the card thermal/power managing so without a bios editor and way of certificating that bios pascal overclocking is well.. pants.

Well alright thats fair enough i guess.

Those of us who had Maxwell are probably a little spoilt, my 970 Overclocks 30% from reference and shrugs its shoulders no matter what you throw at it... i have pushed it past 1600Mhz and still it just went... yeah, and?

Pascal seems to get about 10% in reality, which is not actually unusual in hysterical terms.

 

[darket]

Basically Nvidia Encrypted the Bios on pascal cards , but saying that Maxwell was encrypted as well but no one has managed to hack the Pascal one.

In theory these cards are very conservatively power limited, i dont know why Nvidia chose to do this but i have a feeling it's because these chips are now Mgpus as well.

In all honest i'm sick of all the power efficiency, if i want a laptop gpu/cpu i'll buy a laptop, what i don't want is a pseudo mobile part (pascal kaby/skylake) being sold as a supposedly enthusiast desktop part. I get the feeling that X99 represents probably one of the last enthusiast platforms

 

[humbug]

Will not do +250 Mhz, Crashes right away.

+225 and +400 Mem was fine, turned power as high as it would go, 116% and managed to keep it above 2100 Mhz, 2101 Mhz

It scored 13,659 Graphics, its the 3GB one so has 10% less cores than the 6GB,

Compared to my Gigabyte WF 970 which scores 13,906.

Its as i suspected, good little card but this one with 3GB of V-Ram is already feeling a little gimped at 1080P, it has as much grunt as the 970 which is more than enough for 1080P but IMO 4GB is the minimum to get any sort of longevity from it.

I also think this massive gap between the GTX 1060 and the near twice as fast 1070 is a bit cynical, if you already have a 2/390/X - 970/80 that cost you £270 to £330 you have no option but to stump up £100 more than your usual budget to get an upgrade, yes i know Brexit and all but that's not where the £100 is from, it was about that before Brexit.

Still, with AMD possibly another 6 months away having tested Pascal that 1070 calling me is not getting any quieter......

 

[Drollic]

Sounds like you ordered the wrong card

 

[Davedree]

3gb memory aside, that 13,659 is only 7fps behind in graphics test 1/2
To my 1060 amp 6gb at 2130 4400.

For the money that's a good card humbug.
I nearly caved in getting the zotac 1070 mini last month.

 

[Panos]

ALL Pascal cards require to use the Boost 3 curve for overclock, and not linear overclock from the sliders. (eg MSI AB sliders).

Boost 3 requires few hours of trial and error to find the increments of speed and power the card can hold, but it works.

Using the Boost 3 curve, had my GTX1080 @ 2190 core constantly, while it was watercooled and temps never passed 35C even if I was benching for hours.
If I was trying the sliders, the speed never passed 2100, and was throttling for no reason.

 

[Rroff]

In theory these cards are very conservatively power limited, i dont know why Nvidia chose to do this but i have a feeling it's because these chips are now Mgpus as well.

I suspect it is because they are pushing the clock speed and voltage limits of a fairly new finfet process - might see a bit more out of it once they see how it pans out long term in terms of electromigration, etc.

 

[Davedree]

ALL Pascal cards require to use the Boost 3 curve for overclock, and not linear overclock from the sliders. (eg MSI AB sliders).

Boost 3 requires few hours of trial and error to find the increments of speed and power the card can hold, but it works.

Using the Boost 3 curve, had my GTX1080 @ 2190 core constantly, while it was watercooled and temps never passed 35C even if I was benching for hours.
If I was trying the sliders, the speed never passed 2100, and was throttling for no reason.

+1 pressing ctrl f in afterburner gets you in curve mode.

 

[queamin]

I suspect it is because they are pushing the clock speed and voltage limits of a fairly new finfet process - might see a bit more out of it once they see how it pans out long term in terms of electromigration, etc.

I agree with this and to be honest i think Nvidia has done well out of it, as it more likely took Amd by surprise at how high they clock and made them push polaris a lot higher then they wanted to and designed to go as Polaris seams to start using a lot more power over a certain speed.

 

[humbug]

ALL Pascal cards require to use the Boost 3 curve for overclock, and not linear overclock from the sliders. (eg MSI AB sliders).

Boost 3 requires few hours of trial and error to find the increments of speed and power the card can hold, but it works.

Using the Boost 3 curve, had my GTX1080 @ 2190 core constantly, while it was watercooled and temps never passed 35C even if I was benching for hours.
If I was trying the sliders, the speed never passed 2100, and was throttling for no reason.

Like this?

haven't actually messed with that but it seems to be holding around the 2100Mhz mark, 'ish

 

[Davedree]

Yep that's the one
/\

Also a good way to undervolt too.

 

[humbug]

K thx

 

[humbug]

Well i just found something interesting, some of the throttling looked a bit odd, it seems random, nothing to do with thermals.... i turned on the power target monitor and its high, i have it maxed at 116% and its already reaching 110%, ED is not a demanding game, at all.

Highlighted in Blue.

 

[Finners]

I found on my GTX, 1070 that the memory overclock increased power usage. Try memory at stock for comparison then find a balance your happy with.

 

[humbug]

I found on my GTX, 1070 that the memory overclock increased power usage. Try memory at stock for comparison then find a balance your happy with.

Thats a good point, no doubt it will, i'll have another stab at it tomorrow with stock memory.

Never had this with the 970, @ 1500/1950 and higher the power target never went over 80something%.

PS: i still have it.....

 

[Davedree]

Pascal has voltage points, which reduce the voltage and 13mhz at each throttle bin.

As you are in the 70's what is the vddc showing in gpu-z for your card?

 

[humbug]

Pascal has voltage points, which reduce the voltage and 13mhz at each throttle bin.

As you are in the 70's what is the vddc showing in gpu-z for your card?

Below 70c it was at 1.0460v to 1.0500v, over 70c it dropped to 1.0310

 

[Davedree]

Thanks yeah, mine is 1.06 to 59c, and 1.05v to 63c, 1.03v @ 71c
With the curve setting i can run 2130@ 1.00v and this uses less tdp and runs cooler.
Wondering if you tested it in elite if you'd see less power usage for your card too.