Titan Concerns - Low boost / throttle?

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 12:15

I am pasting this nvidia forum, so apologies if things in here were repeated in other threads.

Hi folks,

I installed my Titan on Friday, never really considered this throttling issue because I honestly didn't do enough research beforehand. I was just excited to get this thing installed. I previously used a Gainward Phantom 680 GTX.

I was scoring 10300 in 3D Mark 11 before (this use to be higher, newer drivers and Win 8 have dropped it 200 pts or so)

With the Gainward Titan installed I get 12800 which seemed a little low to me, so I did some digging.

Using Precision, it seems my clocks are pretty stable but the max stock boost was 1006 which seems low compared to others.

I did a small OC, set power to 106% and target temp 90C.

This card never goes over 80C regardless of what I set. It's like it's locked to a maximum of 80C.

When it hits 80C, checking the power in the monitor log it reads 100.000 and then spikes down to 70 odd. There is like random spikes to around this 70 figure, but the clocks don't seem to be effected.

I am just really confused about this temp target. It just doesn't work whatsoever after lots of testing over this weekend. Whether its set to stock, overclocked etc it will never go above 80C

Would someone like to have a look at my monitoring file during a Unigine Valley run and tell me what might be going on? (You can ignore the 836 clocks, I was in Windows with the browser open and typing this at the end.)

http://www.filedropper.com/titanstuff

Just the monitoring file, screenshot of Precision settings and bench result in Valley.

Help?

Gregster · 7 Apr 2013 at 12:27

Lots and lots of people have their cards down clocking (I am one of them). It is an issue that Nvidia are aware of and will be addressing in future driver releases. I got round my issue by flashing a different BIOS on my card (a guy called Naennon linked it on OCN.net) and no more throttling.

I did advise on 3DMark11 before and I feel you are disappointed with the results. If you bought it over the internet, you can DSR it and this way you will not lose out (only postage costs). At least you tried out a Titan

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 12:58

Gregster said:
Lots and lots of people have their cards down clocking (I am one of them). It is an issue that Nvidia are aware of and will be addressing in future driver releases. I got round my issue by flashing a different BIOS on my card (a guy called Naennon linked it on OCN.net) and no more throttling.

I did advise on 3DMark11 before and I feel you are disappointed with the results. If you bought it over the internet, you can DSR it and this way you will not lose out (only postage costs). At least you tried out a Titan

Nah, if I did that I would only want to get another one. I know it.

Games run superbly, just want to make sure I get best value from it.

Do you think this issue is likely to be fixable with drivers? Gainward never seem to release bios updates for cards usually. (Although they usually get it right first time unlike some other manufacturers)

Just ran it on stock in Unigine Valley Extreme HD preset and got a score of 2688 and overall fps 64.2.

In the OC3D review of the same card, at stock clocks, they scored 63 but their system is a 3960X @ 4.6Ghz.

The card must be doing something right, just that the clocks and throttles dont make any sense whatsoever.

Kaapstad · 7 Apr 2013 at 13:06

Have a go in the Heaven 4 bench, you should get higher temps there. Valley does not push some of my cards and they can go round only reaching the mid 50s to low 60s. This changes though at high resolution (1600p) where valley makes better use of the cards.

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 13:08

In default settings in Heaven I get
FPS:
120.4
Score:
3034

Kaapstad · 7 Apr 2013 at 13:16

Arthur Hucksake said:
In default settings in Heaven I get
FPS:
120.4
Score:
3034

What Temps and score do you get using the settings here

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18487976

illuz · 7 Apr 2013 at 14:06

Arthur Hucksake said:
In default settings in Heaven I get
FPS:
120.4
Score:
3034

I notice you have a 120hz monitor and your FPS is 120.4

Do you have Vsync etc disabled?

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 14:30

illuz said:
I notice you have a 120hz monitor and your FPS is 120.4

Do you have Vsync etc disabled?

Yeah, it's disabled in Unigine. I will force it off in the nvcpl in case it is some sort of bug.

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 15:04

Kaapstad said:
What Temps and score do you get using the settings here

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18487976

Set power to 106% , temp target 90C. Rest stock.

Got 1401 in Unigine with those settings.

Temps never went above 79C again. Its bloody capped somehow, boost was pretty much locked to 1006mhz the whole while it seems though.

FPS:
55.6

Score:
1401

Min FPS:
8.4

Max FPS:
114.6

And under GPU model it says "GPU model:
Microsoft Basic Render Driver 9.18.13.1422/NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN (4095MB) x1"

WTF is that all about?

Kaapstad · 7 Apr 2013 at 17:12

Arthur Hucksake said:
Set power to 106% , temp target 90C. Rest stock.

Got 1401 in Unigine with those settings.

Temps never went above 79C again. Its bloody capped somehow, boost was pretty much locked to 1006mhz the whole while it seems though.

FPS:
55.6

Score:
1401

Min FPS:
8.4

Max FPS:
114.6

And under GPU model it says "GPU model:
Microsoft Basic Render Driver 9.18.13.1422/NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN (4095MB) x1"

WTF is that all about?

Just went round on one card using

Set power to 106% , temp target 90C. Rest stock.

I also overclocked my CPU to 4.5ghz the same as yours

I scored 1409

I will rerun to get a screenshot as I forgot to load FRAPS.

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 17:13

Kaapstad said:
Just went round on one card using

Set power to 106% , temp target 90C. Rest stock.

I also overclocked my CPU to 4.5ghz the same as yours

I scored 1409

I will rerun to get a screenshot as I forgot to load FRAPS.

Thanks for doing that. Your card prob just boosts slightly more, mine isnt a good stock booster at all.

What is alarming, the target temp thing doesn't work at all. 80C is like a cap.

I'm probably misunderstanding how it works, but I expected the card to boost up automatically (power permitting) until the temps actually hit 90C.

andybird123 · 7 Apr 2013 at 17:17

try actually overclocking your titan Huck, you will get the better results you are looking for, just setting power target and temp won't do a great deal, you need to play with those other 2 sliders... for 3DMark you will also need a higher overclock on your CPU

having said that, every Gainward card I've ever had has been a poor clocker... I think they deliberately go through nvidia's skips looking for broken chips to slap on cards to release them as product

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 17:23

andybird123 said:
try actually overclocking your titan Huck, you will get the better results you are looking for, just setting power target and temp won't do a great deal, you need to play with those other 2 sliders... for 3DMark you will also need a higher overclock on your CPU

I did run a mild +100 GPU offset earlier, but the boost clocks were all over the shop.

Kaapstad · 7 Apr 2013 at 17:25

Arthur Hucksake said:
Thanks for doing that. Your card prob just boosts slightly more, mine isnt a good stock booster at all.

What is alarming, the target temp thing doesn't work at all. 80C is like a cap.

I'm probably misunderstanding how it works, but I expected the card to boost up automatically (power permitting) until the temps actually hit 90C.

Here is my screenshot, I have my fans tweaked a bit so the max temp I got was 75c

As Andybird123 says try overclocking your card a bit.

andybird123 · 7 Apr 2013 at 17:26

as a test, try putting the fan on maximum, up the voltage and turn on k-boost
then see what happens on a benchmark run, if it still downclocks with all of this then I would consider returning it and getting a different card/brand

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 17:28

andybird123 said:
as a test, try putting the fan on maximum, up the voltage and turn on k-boost
then see what happens on a benchmark run, if it still downclocks with all of this then I would consider returning it and getting a different card/brand

Changing brand is going to awkward now everywhere are putting their prices up. Strange how fast these have shot up isnt it.

andybird123 · 7 Apr 2013 at 18:24

not everywhere

Arthur Hucksake · 7 Apr 2013 at 20:54

andybird123 said:
not everywhere

They will be, wait and see.

sin · 7 Apr 2013 at 22:02

I seen

EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Superclocked 6GB GDDR5 Graphics Card (PCI Express 3.0, HDMI, Display Port, DVI-I, DVI-D, 384-Bit, NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready, NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0)
for £869.38

and

Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan 6GB GDDR5 Graphics Card (PCI Express 3.0, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D, Display Port, 384 Bit)
for £825.85

free delivery

subbytna · 8 Apr 2013 at 08:17

If you can afford to buy a titan then you can afford a 690, just buy a 690 instead.