NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 - Post your default and manual overclocks

[Darren Hodgson]

Originally Posted by WhiteLightning

how does it run with 16xQ AA ? (or is that only available for crysis1 ? )

No, both games support up to 16xQ AA but the visual improvement over 4xMSAA becomes significantly less noticeable above that so I've never played it on that setting. If I remember though I'll benchmark it on that AA setting just out of curiosity.

[Lakigucci]

I tried the following settings for a stable overclock using EVGA Precision X:
(MSI Afterburner won't remember my PowerTarget).

Stock GPU settings:
CPU Boost: 1084Mhz

FanSpeed Auto (Curve Preset 75%@65c)
PowerTarget 132% (Max)
CPU +66Mhz (1150Mhz total)
Mem +0Mhz

[Darren Hodgson]

I managed to successfully run games and benchmarks with a core offset of +150 and a memory offset of +350 yesterday and saw speeds of up to 1,287 MHz on the core while running the memory at 6.7 GHz. I didn't see a single glitch, freeze or error to suggest that the card was being stressed beyond its means. Temps remained under 73 degrees C using a custom fan profile (i.e at 72 degrees C the fan speed would be at 72%). I was actually amazed at that as none of my previous attempts at overclocking on previous graphics cards, bearing in mind I'm loathe to tamper with voltages, have amounted to much more than a mild overclock for a couple of extra frames per second.

As I mentioned in another thread though, I did spot that the core clock was stuck at 705 MHz during a game and exiting and trying another showed the same clock speed. I double-checked that maximum performance was set (it was) and that it wasn't a bug with Afterburner's OSD (it wasn't as GPU-Z reported the same values too). The card still dropped to 324 MHz on the core on the desktop though. The only way I was able to reset the core back to its default of 1,006 MHz during games was by restarting my PC. I've no idea whether that 'hiccup' occurred because the overclock was too much for my card (in which case why didn't I see artifacts, freezing or an error message of some kind?) or whether it was a driver/hardware bug.

[WhiteLightning]

darren , are you increasing the gpu clocks or the gpu booster thingy ?

[Darren Hodgson]

Originally Posted by WhiteLightning

darren , are you increasing the gpu clocks or the gpu booster thingy ?

Both.

I've maxed out the Power Limiter at 132%, which is supposed to allowed for 132% x 195 W = 257 W (250 W is actually the limit I believe for PCI-E 2.0 with 2 x 6-pin connectors), and also raised the Core Clock and Memory Clock Offsets too. If you don't increase the Power Limiter then the card will be held back by its default 195 W TDP.

[Fur4x]

Originally Posted by Darren Hodgson

I managed to successfully run games and benchmarks with a core offset of +150 and a memory offset of +350 yesterday and saw speeds of up to 1,287 MHz

wow you got a nice card or is it a different bios ? on mine with +150 i go up to 1234mhz (or is it 1243mhz?) i think but its always stable it never move.

and when i increas more each +2 or +3 point add + 1 real clock speed and it never move. Like at +160 im 1250mhz stable somthing like that.

[Darren Hodgson]

Originally Posted by Fur4x

wow you got a nice card or is it a different bios ? on mine with +150 i go up to 1234mhz (or is it 1243mhz?) i think but its always stable it never move.

By default and out of the box so to speak (i.e without altering any settings at all) my GTX 680 will overclock itself to 1,137 MHz on the core in many games but it never goes higher than that (likely because of the 195 W TDP).

With a core clock offset of +150 MHz that means the baseline is 1,156 MHz (1,006 MHz + 150 MHz) but it will still clock up to 1,262-1287 MHz because I raised the power from 100% to 132%. I suspect that the +150 MHz core and +350 MHz memory clock offsets are the limit of my card though, especially if those values have led to the 'stuck 705 MHz core' issue I mentioned earlier.

[Darren Hodgson]

P.S. Someone on the AVForums suggested the 'stuck' 705 MHz core issue may be due to the GTX 680 throttling itself when the GPU temperature exceeds 70ºC but that seems a bit over-zealous for a card with a stated thermal shutdown temperature of 98ºC. It also doesn't quite fit in with my experiences because when the core was stuck at 705 MHz, the GPU temperatures were below 70ºC anyway (around 63-65ºC actually).

I've asked for clarification on this over on the NVIDIA.com forum: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=226073 so hopefully ManuelG will respond to it.

[swecarl]

I use these settings, 100% stable:

Power Target: 132%
Gpu Clock Offset: +175mhz
Mem Clock Offset: +495mhz

Card idle at around 34-36 Celsius and full load its about 70+ Celsius.

[Shadowsong316]

The downclocking seems to be a result of the Dynamic Boost feature going a bit crazy and causing protection to kick in.

The guys at Guru3D even had this once when doing the overclocking review for the 680GTX. I have quoted them below -

"There is a downside though, sometimes the Dynamic boost feature went nuts on us and as protection clocked down the core frequency towards the 736 MHz range. Definitely a protection as only restarting the system would get the normal clocks back on their feet again. This happened to us only once though."

[Darren Hodgson]

Thanks and very well spotted, Shadowsong316. So it's an intermittent bug then?

[Fur4x]

Originally Posted by swecarl

I use these settings, 100% stable:

Power Target: 132%
Gpu Clock Offset: +175mhz
Mem Clock Offset: +495mhz

Card idle at around 34-36 Celsius and full load its about 70+ Celsius.

whats ur MHZ at +175 ?

[Cyberdyne]

Lol @ post 22, Crysis WH still hitting mid 30's on a card that came out 4 years later. For $500.

[Darren Hodgson]

Originally Posted by Cyberdyne

Lol @ post 22, Crysis WH still hitting mid 30's on a card that came out 4 years later. For $500.

That's the minimum framerate though but my averages are overall higher than they were for my GTX 580 and the game as a result feels noticeably smoother to play. You never get consistent performance improvements across all games anyway when you buy a new card, it can vary depending on whether the game is CPU- or GPU-limited. Crysis Warhead is very much the later and not terribly well optimised at that even under DX10 but I still think it and the original Crysis are good games (better IMO than the sequel) so any improvement in the framerate is most welcome.

P.S. My PC's CPU, motherboard and memory are almost as old as Crysis Warhead anyway!

[Fur4x]

Originally Posted by Darren Hodgson

P.S. My PC's CPU, motherboard and memory are almost as old as Crysis Warhead anyway!

It is still pretty good i have the same exact harwdare than you or almost

Core I7 920 D0 @ 4ghz
Asus p6t deluxe v2
6gb OCZ platinum 1600 mhz
and xfi titanum fatality pro

i still kick the butt of core i7 2600k systems !! ahha old hardware FTW !!

[Shadowsong316]

The downclocking only seems to happen when the card is manually overclocked very high, the turbo boost then seems to cause the protection to kick in. So yea it will apppear to be intermitant but i think it can be avoided.

[Lakigucci]

Originally Posted by Lakigucci

I tried the following settings for a stable overclock using EVGA Precision X:
(MSI Afterburner won't remember my PowerTarget).

Stock GPU settings:
Stock GPU Boost: 1084Mhz

FanSpeed Auto (Curve Preset 75%@65c)
PowerTarget 132% (Max)
GPU +66Mhz (1150Mhz total)
Mem +0Mhz

Running stable now using MSI Afterburner at following settings:

Stock GPU settings:
Stock GPU Boost: 1084Mhz

FanSpeed Auto (Fixed 75% while running 3D)
PowerTarget 132% (Max)
CPU +166Mhz (1250Mhz total)

My FPS while playing multiplayer BF3 on the Metro map using ULTRA settings with AA off was:

Min:41
Max:201
Average:111
Temp: 66/68c

Edit: Do you guys see any increase in FPS while overclocking the memory, and if yes bij how much?

[Fur4x]

I think my gpu boost is broken, wich might be a good thing, i look at some video on the web and see gpu boost is always changing the clock while runing a test. But on my card example on CPU + 160 the gpu clock goes to 1245. When i load a test or game the gpu clock goes to 1245 and stay there untill i close the test or game, making a straight line. Example on uniengine, between each scene the power usage will change but the clock will remain at 1245 making a straight line. Il try to make a video on this and post on youtube tonight. But i also notice when playing game that are not hard on the gpug like Dota 2 the gpu clock itself lower.

[Darren Hodgson]

@Fur4x - The boost depends on how much power you're giving the card and how demanding the game is. If you give it plenty of overhead and the game isn't really demanding (e.g. not 99% GPU usage) then you might well see the core clock running a constant rate. I've seen the same in my games when the boost clocked the core at 1,137 MHz for the duration of play but also I've seen it fluctuate as well, going as high as 1,287 MHz with the +150 MHz core offset, and as low as 1,058 MHz. All the time though the game was running at or as near to 60 fps as possible with v-sync. I think what you're seeing is normal.

[Darren Hodgson]

Originally Posted by Lakigucci

Edit: Do you guys see any increase in FPS while overclocking the memory, and if yes by how much?

Yes but it depends on the game as some benefit more than others.

Increasing the memory clock obviously has the effect of increasing the memory bandwidth available so you can push higher resolutions and/or levels of AA. I don't think the framerate increase is as noticeable from just increasing the memory clock as the core clock on its own from personal experience but together overclocking the core and memory can significantly boost the framerate as seen in Guru3D's GTX 680 overclocking feature here: http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...erclock-guide/

[Lakigucci]

The powerlimit is not the only thing that determines the max gpu boost.
Also the cooling play a role. I tested this using stock settings with powerlimit on max and auto cooling. My GPU boosted to max 1084Mhz.

When i turned up the cooling fan to 100% it reached 1091Mhz when boosted .

[Fur4x]

P9914 3DMarks 11

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3062057;jses...t6v5xp5y1unvs3

CPU + 165 stable
mem+ 400 stable

[wasteomind]

I've been taking mine slow. Right now I'm at:
Power Target: 132%
Gpu Clock Offset: +125mhz
Mem Clock Offset: +100mhz

Played about 5 hours of ME2 @ 1920x1080 2xSGSSAA and FXAA with no issues. I'm sure the game doesn't push the card too hard even at these settings but it looks nice and plays smooth with no problems so can't complain.

[zpaf]

Originally Posted by Darren Hodgson

Crysis Warhead results of the three maps using japamd's Benchmarking Tool:

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz @ 3600 Mhz
CPU ID: Intel64 Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 4
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
Physical memory: 5.99 GB
Display adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2048 MB
Video Processor: GeForce GTX 680
Driver version: 8.17.13.110 (20120317000000.000000-000)
Motherboard: ASUS P6T DELUXE Rev 1.xx



//////////// Summary \\\\\\\\\\\\\

03 27 2012 08:30:12 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1

DirectX 10 ENTHUSIAST 3X @ Map: ambush @ 0 1920 x 1200 AA 4x
==> Framerate [ Min: 45.62 Max: 72.19 Avg: 59.00 ]

DirectX 10 ENTHUSIAST 3X @ Map: avalanche @ 0 1920 x 1200 AA 4x
==> Framerate [ Min: 46.21 Max: 90.18 Avg: 64.34 ]

DirectX 10 ENTHUSIAST 3X @ Map: frost @ 0 1920 x 1200 AA 4x
==> Framerate [ Min: 36.95 Max: 64.43 Avg: 53.24 ]

Can my PC run Crysis? Hell, damn, yeah!!!

Thanks for results.
Just for compare although you are on 1920x1200.

[Sneakers]

Gonna be interesting to see what this card can do under highend water and with voltage unlocked.

My DCII 580 GTX clocks from 782 core to 1 ghz stable with 1.215 volts ( bios modded).

~27% OC wich is quite decent.

680 gtx

With a standard clock of 1006 would result in around ~1280 mhz if we assume they generally OC atleast 27%.

Question is if they will be able to go beyond that, since they don't seem to be limited by heat even on air from what I heard when people reporting temps.

Good thing is though that a 10% OC on the new 680 seem to translate in around 10% increase in fps so thats nice scaling.