Advantages in V modding?

[IronWarrior]

So every so often, I check out some topics here and some of the mods that people do here seem pretty cool, but what are the advantages and dangers in modding your hardware?

Also, is there any professional retaillers who can do this?

[vinister]

I volt-modded my 3 3870's when I got them. I had them all cranking at 1Ghz with 1.45 volts. It works great to increase overclocking stability. The downside? I folded with the gpus for about 6 months before they kicked the bucked, one at a time.

I undid the voltmods and RMA'd all the cards. Visiontek sent me brand new ones ;)

It was fun but probably not worth the downtime for the RMAs. I didn't mod the new ones, and I won't be doing it again. That's not to say you shouldn't try it though, I would just start on some old gear so that its no loss when it fries.

[Tommie_lj]

Advantage : more volts to the GPU, means there is more room for overclocking. for example: standard voltage 1.345V, standard GPU speed 750mhz, maximum clock 770mhz.. there wasnt very much room for any overclocking here as you can see.. but after i made the mod i am running stable and 24/7 at 1.535V / 955mhz, and even made a 3Dmark 06 run at 1.635V and 1ghz! voltmodding is seriously a very big deal! basicly free performance. most people even vmod the memory voltage..

DANGER! : the solderingspots is VERY small, you are voiding your warranty, it increases heat ALOT wich makes a better cooling solution a must in some cases.. and of course you may fry the gpu if youre putting to much current through it..

[ownage]

low-end, midrange cards have lots of margin, and fun and 'safer' to voltmod.
High-end cards, especially reference design can die 'quicker', like Vinister experienced, within months.
If you want to voltmod on a 24/7 piece of hardware, you need to buy a non-reference design with an extra phase, just for extra stability. I don't know if you find any high-end nVidia's with a custom pcb and beefy powersupply but there are enough ATi based cards that are beefed-up at the moment.

Only real downside is warranty.

[IronWarrior]

Interesting, so I take it there are some real life results out of this, like better FPS and preformance?

[Tommie_lj]

low-end, midrange cards have lots of margin, and fun and 'safer' to voltmod.
High-end cards, especially reference design can die 'quicker', like Vinister experienced, within months.
If you want to voltmod on a 24/7 piece of hardware, you need to buy a non-reference design with an extra phase, just for extra stability. I don't know if you find any high-end nVidia's with a custom pcb and beefy powersupply but there are enough ATi based cards that are beefed-up at the moment.

Only real downside is warranty.

i see in your signature youre running 1.66V to your GPU.. how much is it standard and what nm is the core ?? do you think the RV730, 55nm can deal with it aswell? its 1.345V standard...

[Tommie_lj]

Interesting, so I take it there are some real life results out of this, like better FPS and preformance?


3Dmark 06, Standard : 7660P , Vmod and overclocked : 8624P.

in games i have like 10% better framerates.. it seems crysis warhead is much more playable now at same settings..

[ownage]

Depends on the card.
Overclocking with nVidia might be more rewarding because you can raise the shaderclocks, but the shaders have to stay below a certain temperature (60c for gt200?), otherwise it won't be stable. You can gain lots of FPS with these cards, when you voltmod and watercool the card.
Hard to say about ATI's.
I have a HD3850 256mb i bought for cheap when my 2900pro died. I pump 1.7v thought that thing just to bump the clock from 668 to 1000mhz. Hardly rewarding. The core runs more than 50% higher, but my memory is holding me back. This is because the amount of memory is to low, but it also could be because it would be to slow.
I gained 5 fps (15% boost) in Farcry 2, hardly rewarding, especially because of the required voltage.

Tommie_lj: I'm running 1.7v for about 2 months now. :D

Those low-end hd4670 cards probably can take lots of voltage. It's almost never the core that cant handle the voltage, almost always the power phase's on the card. Hell, I even pumped 2.35v throught a 8400gs, but the phases died. So I soldered an external power supply to the card, pumped 3v throught the core. It worked, but the PCB traced couldn't handle it. One copper trace just went up in smoke. So I had to replace that trace by soldering a wire between two points, and benched around 2v for a while.
Conclusion, you need a good powersupply on the card.

[Tommie_lj]

Depends on the card.
Overclocking with nVidia might be more rewarding because you can raise the shaderclocks, but the shaders have to stay below a certain temperature (60c for gt200?), otherwise it won't be stable. You can gain lots of FPS with these cards, when you voltmod and watercool the card.
Hard to say about ATI's.
I have a HD3850 256mb i bought for cheap when my 2900pro died. I pump 1.7v thought that thing just to bump the clock from 668 to 1000mhz. Hardly rewarding. The core runs more than 50% higher, but my memory is holding me back. This is because the amount of memory is to low, but it also could be because it would be to slow.
I gained 5 fps (15% boost) in Farcry 2, hardly rewarding, especially because of the required voltage.

Tommie_lj: I'm running 1.7v for about 2 months now. :D

Those low-end hd4670 cards probably can take lots of voltage. It's almost never the core that cant handle the voltage, almost always the power phase's on the card. Hell, I even pumped 2.35v throught a 8400gs, but the phases died. So I soldered an external power supply to the card, pumped 3v throught the core. It worked, but the PCB traced couldn't handle it. One copper trace just went up in smoke. So I had to replace that trace by soldering a wire between two points, and benched around 2v for a while.
Conclusion, you need a good powersupply on the card.

:banana::banana::banana::banana:!! Are you on water?

how many degrees C is your core? my is under 60 when gaming.. wich must be fairly good i think ?

i think the bottleneck is the limited powersupply of the card.. only 75W from the PCI-E slot.. :(

i think i shall try out the stable V needed for a 24/7 setup on 1ghz now :D

[ownage]

:banana::banana::banana::banana:!! Are you on water?

how many degrees C is your core? my is under 60 when gaming.. wich must be fairly good i think ?

i think the bottleneck is the limited powersupply of the card.. only 75W from the PCI-E slot.. :(

i think i shall try out the stable V needed for a 24/7 setup on 1ghz now :D

When I'm talking about powersupply I dont mean the max wattage, but clean stable voltage. After the power is delivered into your card by the power cable, it has to be devided to all parts of the card, and to the phases meant for the GPU. 2 Phase's from a certain quality means a ? limit. A 3 phase's means cleaner stable powersignal to the GPU.
If you want to put for example 1.7v thought your card your demanding a certain wattage from the phase's meant for the GPU. When the wattage your demanding from the phase's exceeds the limits the phase's are build for, the phase's will go kaboom. 3 Phases is stronger than 2. More parts to split the load. A friend of mine bought a HD4850 non-reference design, with 4 phase's for the GPU. That's some heavy stuff you can count on.

And yes I'm on water, temps never hit above 45c.

[Tommie_lj]

When I'm talking about powersupply I dont mean the max wattage, but clean stable voltage. After the power is delivered into your card by the power cable, it has to be devided to all parts of the card, and to the phases meant for the GPU. 2 Phase's from a certain quality means a ? limit. A 3 phase's means cleaner stable powersignal to the GPU.
If you want to put for example 1.7v thought your card your demanding a certain wattage from the phase's meant for the GPU. When the wattage your demanding from the phase's exceeds the limits the phase's are build for, the phase's will go kaboom. 3 Phases is stronger than 2. More parts to split the load. A friend of mine bought a HD4850 non-reference design, with 4 phase's for the GPU. That's some heavy stuff you can count on.

And yes I'm on water, temps never hit above 45c.

what do you think about 60C temps? how high can i go for daily do you think ??

[ownage]

what do you think about 60C temps? how high can i go for daily do you think ??

60c is max for my likings.

[Tommie_lj]

just tested out the 1ghz @ 1.635 setting a little bit, and its getting way to hot for my likings now.. 75c! and the memorychips is to hot to touch ^^ they are nearly stock speed, 1150 @ 2.15V but hot as hel l .. must have better cooling to achieve a higher clock now :(

[IronWarrior]

So is there any professional stores/retailers who can do this?

[NapalmV5]

theres more to vmodding than meets the eye "higher clocks"

reason #1 i vmod is performance --> loads --> clocks

ex: a vmodded 4870 offers more performance per clock than a nonmodded 4870 ;)

[Tommie_lj]

So is there any professional stores/retailers who can do this?


you are voiding the warranty anyway, so why dont you do it yourself? its not that hard att all.. basic solderingskills and a good iron is all you need.

[IronWarrior]

you are voiding the warranty anyway, so why dont you do it yourself? its not that hard att all.. basic solderingskills and a good iron is all you need.

Nah, I would frag it up.

[vinister]

If you feel like you would mess it up, you likely will. It's not that easy, on some cards the soldering points are incredibly tiny. It really helps to have proper equipment, at the very least a high power magnifying glass and a good soldering iron with a very fine tip, and adjustable temperature.

You can probably get it done at a cell phone repair place, or maybe a console-modding place. Someone in a college program offering high-reliability soldering could do it for you as well. Its pretty easy to mess up, and if you do, you could end up with a brick.

[IronWarrior]

If you feel like you would mess it up, you likely will. It's not that easy, on some cards the soldering points are incredibly tiny. It really helps to have proper equipment, at the very least a high power magnifying glass and a good soldering iron with a very fine tip, and adjustable temperature.

You can probably get it done at a cell phone repair place, or maybe a console-modding place. Someone in a college program offering high-reliability soldering could do it for you as well. Its pretty easy to mess up, and if you do, you could end up with a brick.

I totally agree, will have a look around now that I know what to look for, maybe get lucky, thank you. :p:

[ownage]

Just grab an old 56k modem, or any other old pci card you don't use anymore, and just start soldering on random transistors.
You will see it ain't that hard with some basic training.

[Tommie_lj]

soldering is easy :) just take it slow and be very careful, so you dont solder away any tiny resistor from the board, they can be a pain to get soldered back.. i know, ive been there..

[tool_462]

theres more to vmodding than meets the eye "higher clocks"

reason #1 i vmod is performance --> loads --> clocks

ex: a vmodded 4870 offers more performance per clock than a nonmodded 4870 ;)

:confused:

[Tommie_lj]

:confused:

:rofl: