GPU OCing Help Thread

[Otis11]

Ok, so this is going to be continually under construction, but i decided we needed a GPU OCing help thread (as the title suggests) to compile as much knowledge as we can about how to get the most out of our cards. So here it goes, please feel free to add/make suggestions to this:


Notes Before Starting:

For GPUGrid, shaders have the largest impact on points. Core makes no difference. Dedicated crunchers can actually drop the core freq. to keep temps down. Doing so may impact gaming performance though. Effects of memory speeds have not been determined, but are slight at best.

Although graphics cards (105C) tend to be rated higher than CPUs (with some exceptions - 70C), we recommend bumping up the fan speed also. These chips were designed for high temps, but not to hold those temps 24/7. (IMO - Temps below 80C are acceptable, but opinions vary)

As long as Temps are kept in check, hardware longevity should not be an issue.

GPUGrid Stable OCs:
(please give these a week to let your RAC settle and make sure it is stable. Also, please note 24/7 or not)
I believe all 200 series should work at 685/1477/1160 and most should work at 702/1512/1188

Numbers after card are PPD Stock/Strong Overclock

GT 240:15.7k/20.1k
550/1340/1700- WhiteFireDragon
.......... OS: Win 7.......... Brand: Galaxy.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ 40% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 58C
405/1595/1701- WhiteFireDragon
.......... OS: Win XP.......... Brand: EVGA.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ 85% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 67C

GTS 250:??k/??k

GTX 260(216):??k/34k

626/1350/1053 - Otis11
.......... OS: Win 7.......... Brand: EVGA .......... Cooling: Stock fan@40% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: ???
666/1436/1107 - Otis11
.......... OS: Win 7.......... Brand: EVGA .......... Cooling: Stock fan@40% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: ???
576/1512/999- CaptMorgan
.......... OS: ????.......... Brand: EVGA .......... Cooling: ??? .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: ???
702/1512/1188 - Otis11
.......... OS: Win 7.......... Brand: EVGA .......... Cooling: Stock fan@40% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 62C

GTX 275:34.7k/42.0k
648/1458/1188- WhiteFireDragon
.......... OS: Win 7.......... Brand: EVGA.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ 40% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 71C
705/1566/1220 - HuffPCair
.......... OS: ????.......... Brand: BFG.......... Cooling: Stock fan@75% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 68C
633/1620/1134 - mreuter80
.......... OS: ????.......... Brand: EVGA .......... Cooling: Stock fan@50% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 60-70
468/1620/1134- WhiteFireDragon
.......... OS: Win XP.......... Brand: EVGA.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ 80% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 69C
485/1656/1152 - Kryja
..........OS : Win XP32.......... Brand: BFG.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ 65% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 70
576/1656/1188 - SMTB1963
..........OS : ???.......... Brand: ???.......... Cooling: ??? .......... Voltage: ???.......... Temp: 70

GTX 280:??k/??k

GTX 285:??k/??k
651/1532/1244 - CaptMorgan
.......... Brand: EVGA .......... Cooling: Stock fan@70% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 61

GTX 295:??k/??k
701/1577/1233 - Mabyboi
.......... Brand: EVGA.......... Cooling: Swiftech Epsilon waterblock.......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 42
717/1600/1233 - Mabyboi
.......... Brand: EVGA.......... Cooling: Swiftech Epsilon waterblock.......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: ???
725/1600/1300 - Mabyboi
.......... Brand: EVGA.......... Cooling: Swiftech Epsilon waterblock.......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: ???



Scale for G200b: (to assist in OCing step by step)

1242-1271=1242
1272-1315=1296
1316-1342=1332
1343-1364=1350
1365-1385=1368
1386-1423=1404
1424-1451=1440
1452-1467=1458
1468-1494=1476
1495-1532=1512
1533-1559=1548
1560-1576=1566
1577-1603=1584
1604-1641=1620
1642-1668=1656
1669-1685=1674
1686-1712=1692
1713-1750=1728
1751-1772=1764
1773-1791=1782
1792-1817=1800
1818-1854=1836
1855-1880=1872
1881-1899=1890
1900-1925=1908
1926-????=1944

- Thanks SnowCrash




GTX 460:30k/??k
800/1600/1800 - PoppaGeek.......... 30k
.......... OS: Vista 64.......... Brand: MSI 1gig DDR.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ 59% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 48C (25.5C room)
828/1656/1566 - SMTB1963 .......... 34-36K ppd
.......... OS: ???.......... Brand: ???.......... Cooling: ??? .......... Voltage: ???.......... Temp: 60

GTX 465:??k/??k

GTX 470:??k/??k

GTX 480:??k/??k
???/1712/????- SnowCrash.......... Stable
.......... Brand: ????.......... Cooling: Stock.......... Voltage: 1138mv.......... Temp: ???



GTX 560:??k/??k

GTX 570:??k/??k
842/1684/1652- SMTB1963 .......... Stable
.......... Brand: ???.......... Cooling: ???.......... Voltage: ???.......... Temp: 65

GTX 580:??k/??k



Tools:
Voltage Tuner Thread (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=215521&highlight=SLI+softmod) - Thanks Ikiller123
EVGA Precision (http://www.evga.com/PRecision/)
RivaTuner (http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner)
CUDA mem test (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Memory-Tweak/CUDA-MemTest.shtml) - Thanks PG

[mreuter80]

I only changed the shader clock, but here are my numbers.
GTX 275:
633/1620/1134 - 25470 PPD (24/7)

Otis' oc'ed 260 is not much behind. :shocked:

Should I change anything else? I thought the shader clock have the most impact on this project.

Temps would be also interesting. My card hits temp higher 60s lower 70s depending how warm it is in the room. This may increase when the summer is here.

[Otis11]

Haha, that's why this is interesting... if I can get 275 performance out of a 260.... That's alot of potential when you consider how many 260's we have. And then what could a 275 do?

Yeah, shaders are the only thing that matter here... But I just OC everything and keep the ratios the same right now. When I hit a wall, I'll find what is the limit and OC the rest higher. :up:

The only reason I'm unsure about putting temps is the ambient has a big factor on that... I'm sitting at a constant 62C, but then my room is a 65-67F. Might give people false impressions. Thoughts?

[Mabyboi]

Mabyboi... please fix haha, ill be overclocking it again in a few days... for more points :D.. oh. and 24/7

701/1577/1233 stable.. maxes at 42c

for now... im hoping for:

725/1600/1300

or close to that.

[CaptMorgan]

I believe everyone should set there fan @ least 60-typically mine has not gone above 70 or feel it does not need too. But the fan increase will help with temps, a bit, I got a new rig comin online soon and GFX temps worry me just as much as CPU temps as everything is pretty tight in there

[Otis11]

Sorry Mabyboi - fixed. In my defense... by the time I had added all that, it was 1 in the morning.

Great point Capt'n. I said I felt below 80C was acceptable... comments?

[CaptMorgan]

Ok I was responding to your Post-typed, hit quick reply then kablam forum crash! Anyways since then I have figured out Riva Tuner and upped my fan setting's and also upped my shaders on Gigabyte 260! But 1 of my 260's temp is @ 60c, with most of fans I have set to a minimum of 60% the Gigabyte is reading about 49/50c right now. I hope this helps don't want to go off topic but felt it was semi related

Edit: sorry also also tools to be discussed/recommended could be RivaTuner or something simple like Precision which is compatible with all Nvidia cards

[Snow Crash]

Couple things ...
Please add a link or a reference to EVGA Precision.
In some threads there are discussions about if voltmods (soft or hard) will help shader OC ... on the GTX295 it definately helps.

Core OC does not matter one single bit ... take a look at your monitors in GPUZ and you will see they get 0% load. I actually downcloak 1 step on my core to try and help keep temps down.

Speaking of temps ... If you have a GTX 295 you might think these guys are all crazy talking about 70C and 60% fans ... sheesh ... you can't possible OC a 295 and stay in that range :shocked:
I have a 120mm case fan pointing at an angle from the GPUs power connecters towards the back of the unit, all slot covers have been removed. Now I run it caseless (still using the extra fan) and can just about stay at 80-83C with 64% fan.

Conventional gpu crunching wisdom says only helps a little bit. I am in the process of determining where (on my machines) turning memory freq up or down starts to make a measurable difference.

If you have a dedicated crunchers check out the OS effect on runtimes because it matters more than memory, almost as much as shaders OC.

I'll post some real OC numbers a little bit later.

[OldChap]

On the subject of fans I have been running an evga 9800gtx for getting on 18months 24/7 (since Fah GPU started...when was that?) apart from the odd down time and it is at 100% at all times so if noise is not a factor to you I think you can trust the hardware to hold up

[Otis11]

Thanks for all the replies guys! I think I got everything changed above...

Links added

I know Core makes no difference, and I'll note that. I just clock it up b/c it's my main rig and I happen to game on it occasionally.

OC - I don't think hardware failure is an issue if temps are kept in check... is that what you're getting at or did I miss something?

Also, what do you guys think about mentioning the cooling method and Brand of the cards? First lets people know what they can expect, the second would allow us to see if there is any difference between different brands.

When you post OCs, please mention the details! :up:

When we get enough data, I'll start throwing together some charts and try to figure out the best way to make an impact.

[mreuter80]

Brand: EVGA
Cooling: stock cooler - fan @ 50%
Voltage: stock

[CaptMorgan]

This will be my new setup soon and why I am concerned with cooling

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c335/jpvalley547/newrig002-1.jpg

to me it does not seem like much room to breath- but was thinking of doing something similar to what it sounds like you have SC

[Otis11]

Brand: EVGA
Cooling: stock cooler - fan @ 50%
Voltage: stock ... I will look it up later

and my name is: mreuter80 :rofl: :ROTF: just copy and past it :ROTF:

Sorry about that... :shakes:

And thanks for the stats!

Edit:

hey Otis11 ... you have a serious issue with spelling user names :shakes: :rofl:
I don't mind if you forget the number behind my name, but please put the 1st r between the m and e :rolleyes:
Just saw that... Man I was way to tired last night... Again, sorry, but it's fixed now!

If anyone sees anything else I missed or could improve on currently let me know!

And what do you guys think on temps? Don't want to blow it off... but Idk if it's useful to say as they would vary by ambient and case conditions?

[mreuter80]

Sorry about that... :shakes:

And thanks for the stats!
:up:
thanks for updating and collecting all this :yepp:

[OldChap]

Yep otis when I first started I was concerned about the ability of the fan to run like this....I have to run 100% on gx2's to keep temps in check plus I added extra fans.... My personal view is run as cool as possible....cheaper to change a cooler than a card but this problem never came up....so my point was...... new guys...no need to worry!

[Otis11]

Have we had any Hardware failures to attibute to crunching? And what were their causes? That's a question I get alot when explaining to people... Maybe if we can kill that, we can get more involved...

[INFRNL]

This will be my new setup soon and why I am concerned with cooling

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c335/jpvalley547/newrig002-1.jpg

to me it does not seem like much room to breath- but was thinking of doing something similar to what it sounds like you have SC

That is some mighty fine looking Hardware you have there Capt. looks kind of familiar :rofl:

@ otis; are you sure your nubers are accurate for your 260? I have a 260-216 shaders @ 1550 I think (will have to verify) and my numbers are not near that high

[Mabyboi]

That is some mighty fine looking Hardware you have there Capt. looks kind of familiar :rofl:

@ otis; are you sure your nubers are accurate for your 260? I have a 260-216 shaders @ 1550 I think (will have to verify) and my numbers are not near that high

he secretly is running 4x 295's... just with bad numbers... :D

[CaptMorgan]

That is some mighty fine looking Hardware you have there Capt. looks kind of familiar :rofl:


Why do I feel like I got sloppy seconds:bananal:

[Otis11]

That is some mighty fine looking Hardware you have there Capt. looks kind of familiar :rofl:

@ otis; are you sure your nubers are accurate for your 260? I have a 260-216 shaders @ 1550 I think (will have to verify) and my numbers are not near that high

Oh no you didn't!!!

Haha, just messin with ya. Yeah, I think it might actually be a hair higher... here's why:

http://i49.tinypic.com/zl7l0m.png

2/19 took out 2nd 260
2/22 lost internet, so idled for a bit :shakes:
2/24 messed with my computer, Boinc suspended for a few hours
3/2 (yesterday) was messing with clock speeds a bunch and restarted it

Everything between 2/19 and 3/2 was a single 260 at 1350... If you can find a flaw, please let me know...

Just a note, I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but instead of the default 20% I put CPU usage at 100% as I didn't want my GPU waiting on the CPU at all... Told Mabyboi to do the same cuz I think it helps, but you're free to try it out.



he secretly is running 4x 295's... just with bad numbers... :D

I wish... then I could do something about it and kick some scientific @$$! :up:

[123bob]

Have we had any Hardware failures to attibute to crunching? And what were their causes? That's a question I get alot when explaining to people... Maybe if we can kill that, we can get more involved...

Here is my total hardware failure history through my years crunching WCG, Grid, and folding at F@H....

1. 4 RAM sticks during the time when we were having the Micron D9 issue. I still believe it was the chips, not the load from crunching, but can't be totally positive. All the RAM was lifetime warranty and was easily replaced by all the vendors. No problem or hassle.

2. I recently lost an eVGA 260-216. It went dead short between the 12vdc power lines. Looks like it shorted out the power regulation section. I beat that card pretty hard crunching the Grid, so I think that did it, more than anything else. It was just weaker than the rest. I am currently running 15 260-216s on Grid and F@H. They are still going strong.

3. This has absolutely nothing to do with crunching, but more to do with being careless. I dropped a screw during maintenance on an ABIT IP35 Pro. I didn't notice it until I had already hit the power switch. Zorched that board....:mad: It was a good clocker too....:(

4. Fumble fingered an expensive Super Micro board on my Harper rig and turned it into a single socket board. That one I have to say was me, even though I still don't quite know how. That rig is still running a single chip that was supplied from Charles, via Dave. (Thx again, to both of you...:up:)

So, crunching is pretty safe as long as you are watching your temps, take care of them, and blow out the dust bunnies at least every 6 months. That's been my experience, given the amount of hardware I run.

BTW, good thread!

Regards,
Bob

[mreuter80]

Just a note, I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but instead of the default 20% I put CPU usage at 100% as I didn't want my GPU waiting on the CPU at all... Told Mabyboi to do the same cuz I think it helps, but you're free to try it out.


I think that should be captured in the list as well. My CPU usage is at 28% (as per BOINC manager).

How do you change that by the way. I wouldn't run it for a long time, since the CPU is for WCG, but I would try and see whether it has an impact.

Cheers

[Mabyboi]

I think that should be captured in the list as well. My CPU usage is at 28% (as per BOINC manager).

How do you change that by the way. I wouldn't run it for a long time, since the CPU is for WCG, but I would try and see whether it has an impact.

Cheers

Gpugrid.net -> your account-> gpugrid preferenced -> edit, change 20 to 100

And it wont alter your WCG, im doing both WCG and GPUgrid, and i have my cpu usage set to 100% for both, and it hasnt changed how fast i get my WCG WU's done... only made the GPUgrid ones faster.

[Otis11]

Thanks Bob, I'll go through that in just a bit... maybe make a myths about DC thread or something...

And when you set CPU usage to 100% it doesn't reserve a CPU or even use it much more... All it does is allows the CPU to be used. I'll explain better later, but time for class now!

[mreuter80]

Gpugrid.net -> your account-> gpugrid preferenced -> edit, change 20 to 100

And it wont alter your WCG, im doing both WCG and GPUgrid, and i have my cpu usage set to 100% for both, and it hasnt changed how fast i get my WCG WU's done... only made the GPUgrid ones faster.

Wow this is very surprising, because I thought this setting is for projects that have a screen saver (WCG, Spinhenge, SETI, Einstein, etc.).
The parameter says on those projects how much of the CPU should be dedicated to running the screen saver graphics (and taking resources away from the number crunching).
I thought in GPUGRID, the setting has no effect.

If it has an effect it should be definitely mentioned in the first message.

I will try this one.

Thanks for the info :up:

[Snow Crash]

Otis, are you talking about the GPUGrid Preferences, Maximum CPU % for graphics setting?
If so that is for projects to use in rendering screensavers ... no one here would ever be running anything as a screensaver cause that takes away from crunching doesn't add to it right?

Mabyboi: the only increase I see on your card is that you upped the shaders from stock to 1584 and I don't think you are getting all you can at that speed. Not only is Win7 and HT being on slowing you down a bit but can you tell us what your CPU core speed is?

If everyone can add their OS to the info that would be great. While our CPUs are being used very little I think they are actually a bigger bottle neck than we could have possibly imaged. On one hand it makes no sense that something used so little would have much of an effect but I have seen a difference on gpu usage between HT on and HT off which equates to CPU availablility. I am trying to track down how much clock speeds themselves matter also. Think of it this way ... while the GPU is waiting for the CPU, it is doing exactly that ... waiting. As a reference to the numbers below the Vista64 machine is running at 4.2 GHz and the XPPro @ 4.0 GHz. I also used only TONI_CAPBIND wus in my analysis.

I use Precision and Voltage Tuner (both from EVGA)

GTX 295 (EVGA vanilla)
@1038 mv = 576/1242/999 (stock mv (1038) and stock frequencies)
@1038 mv = 576/1512/1080
@1075 mv = 576/1548/1080
@1088 mv = 576/1566/1080
@1188 mv = 540/1584/1080 (max volts from voltage tuner)
@1188 mv = 540/1656/1080 (max volts from voltage tuner)

My card can run these frequencies on both Vista Ultimate 64/ Win7 Home Premium 64, and XP Pro 32

WinXP gets better runtimes than Vista (and Win7) at SLOWER frequencies
Vista @ 1584 = 18425 seconds runtime (57424 ppd)
XPPro@ 1512 = 17725 seconds runtime (59693 ppd)

gets better as I bump up shaders on XPPro
XPPro@ 1656 = 16850 seconds runtime (62793 ppd)

The thing I can reason as to why they have such different runtimes is that Vista and XP have very different CPU runtimes for the same type WUs.
Vista 64 = 2700 seconds
XPPro32 = 850 seconds.

I now have my 295 runing on XP Pro 32 HT OFF and cpu dropped to 600 seconds, I'll have to wait a bit to see if my overall runtime drops.

Overclocking is nice and can get you better runtimes but I think OS is actually more important.

While you might think I am crazy take a look at the Top Hosts ... the only other two card system that beats me has 275s and I swear I'm gonna catch that one :up:

[Otis11]

Huh... I didn't know that it was only for screen saver... Didn't test anything. Just set it to max.

And SC - I know you're not crazy... (it's called dedication :rofl:)... but I know I for one don't have much choice over which OS I use... I'm just trying to get the most out of what I have...

[mreuter80]

Wow this is very surprising, because I thought this setting is for projects that have a screen saver (WCG, Spinhenge, SETI, Einstein, etc.).
The parameter says on those projects how much of the CPU should be dedicated to running the screen saver graphics (and taking resources away from the number crunching).
I thought in GPUGRID, the setting has no effect.

If it has an effect it should be definitely mentioned in the first message.

I will try this one.

Thanks for the info :up:


Otis, are you talking about the GPUGrid Preferences, Maximum CPU % for graphics setting?
If so that is for projects to use in rendering screensavers ... no one here would ever be running anything as a screensaver cause that takes away from crunching doesn't add to it right?



Yup, confirmed as I thought ... this setting has NO effect on the speed.
The only reason I could see is that the WCG setting to 100% may have a slight impact. But that would also have an impact on the WCG units - that's something I don't want and don't try.

cheers

[Snow Crash]

pwolfe ... we sure could use your Linux numbers! Even if you are runing stock that will tell us quite a bit about the world outside of Windows.

I just read that if you get to the edge of your shader freq, if you up your gpu core a notch or two you can get the last shader bump to be stable.

Does anyone here know a serious GPU bencher they can pm an invite to give us a 201 lesson on OCing GPUs and tweaking OSes, typically on air?

[Otis11]

pwolfe ... we sure could use your Linux numbers! Even if you are runing stock that will tell us quite a bit about the world outside of Windows.

I just read that if you get to the edge of your shader freq, if you up your gpu core a notch or two you can get the last shader bump to be stable.

Does anyone here know a serious GPU bencher they can pm an invite to give us a 201 lesson on OCing GPUs and tweaking OSes, typically on air?

I'll second that! :up:

[Mabyboi]

Mabyboi: the only increase I see on your card is that you upped the shaders from stock to 1584 and I don't think you are getting all you can at that speed. Not only is Win7 and HT being on slowing you down a bit but can you tell us what your CPU core speed is?



Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. HT on, stock for CPU, going to overclock that when i get my new fan controller (this weekend). 701/1577/1233. I get about 40-45K ppd.. wish it was higher..

Im going to try and get my i7 up to about 4 or 4.2ghz this weekend...

Anything else? :D

[Snow Crash]

If you could leave your GPU at the settings you have now we will be able to see if there is any difference once you OC your CPU :up:

[Otis11]

If you could leave your GPU at the settings you have now we will be able to see if there is any difference once you OC your CPU :up:

That's actually a really good idea... Leave it and give it another day or two at current clocks. OC the CPU and let it stablize (both point wise and stability wise) and then push it up some more.

:up:

[CaptMorgan]

Yo guys real quick- when i get home from work tonight i am gonna load Win7 64-bit with my i7 860. I can do it @ stock with the dual GTX 275's @ stock of course- or since I am starting fresh would it be better or preferable I do something else?

[Otis11]

That sounds good to me... Give us a baseline and then OC just the CPU to see if it has an effect. Then after establishing a second base, go for the GPU.

Just what I'm thinking... anyone else got ideas?

[lkiller123]

It will be nice if someone can help me max out my shader clock.

753/1944/1135, running stable and error-free on GPUGrid for a week already. But I got artifacts on Furmark.

Running on 9800GTX+ and 196.75.

[HuffPCair]

Just got a bfg 275

So far I have the clocks to
705/1566/1220

May try to go farther, but who knows. I rather game right now lol

Its a BFG 275 OC and my temps are idle 40C and load 68C with fan at 75% while folding.

[Otis11]

Just got a bfg 275

So far I have the clocks to
705/1566/1220

May try to go farther, but who knows. I rather game right now lol

Its a BFG 275 OC and my temps are idle 40C and load 68C with fan at 75% while folding.

Is that F@H or GPUGrid? their temps are different so I have to ask. :up:

Thanks for the stats!

[Mabyboi]

If you could leave your GPU at the settings you have now we will be able to see if there is any difference once you OC your CPU :up:

will do, im just waiting for my fan controller to come in so that i can push higher and be able to control the temps. ill let you know what i get though! :up:

[CaptMorgan]

will do, im just waiting for my fan controller to come in so that i can push higher and be able to control the temps. ill let you know what i get though! :up:

Which 1 you end up gettin, I saw your thread, and was thinking a fan controller would not be a bad idea:up:

[Mabyboi]

Which 1 you end up gettin, I saw your thread, and was thinking a fan controller would not be a bad idea:up:

Sunbeam Rhobeus Extreme (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sunbeam/RheobusExtreme)

[INFRNL]

@ Mabyboi: Nice controller! I used to have one. I now have a Lamptron FC5 controller. Lamptron makes some good fan controllers too.

@ Otis: I do not recall what all you are running or what all your settings are or what not, but you may be right on your numbers. Since I haven't been around very much lately I missed a setting. I changed a setting on grid preference and I am currently getting almost 30k ppd on my GTX 275's now :up: There is still a performance increase over gtx 260, but not sure if its enough to warrant the additional cost. To me if you had enough cards as I did not long ago, it adds up to quite a bit.

What shaders do you run your gtx 260@? I have mine set to 1599 on precision, but graph shows 1584: this is on my gtx 260-216. I am going to try and get 1620 on it again I think or may just leav it. I think my clocks are great for a 260:shrug:

@ Capt: I was going to say something to you but forgot:ROTF: If you feel comfortable, you will want to overclock the shaders for max production. There is quite a bit of increase going from stock to 1620 shaders on those 275's. some will run stock to cut down on babysitting fees:rofl:

[Otis11]

I'm at 1512 right now and it's lookin like I can pull 27k, but that might be a little optimistic. Only 2 days here, so we'll have to see. Probably won't clock it up any more till after spring break (two weeks).

I'm experimenting on a few hunches here... If I can get my numbers substantially higher than normal then I did something right.

[Mabyboi]

Just a little update on my 295:

Currently running at 727/1623/1308,

Ran furmark stable for 20 mins, waiting on GPUgrid stability.

Max temp during furmark was 38c per core

[CaptMorgan]

:up: Mabyboi- I should try out FurMark. though I go by Otis11's sig- if your GPUGRID stable your stable, though I have had my share of instability:rolleyes:

[Mabyboi]

:up: Mabyboi- I should try out FurMark. though I go by Otis11's sig- if your GPUGRID stable your stable, though I have had my share of instability:rolleyes:

haha, over all my cards ive never had instability, and with temps these low, i dont hope to have it again..

the only issue i see now is that these WU's have been running for 1 hour 30 mins, but have 7 hours 30 mins left... normally my WU's take on average 6 to 6hours and 15 mins...

anyone? :shrug:

[Snow Crash]

If you paused them or left them running while you were running furmark then boinc manager is only giving you it's best guess as to total elapsed time as opposed to actual runtime to complete the WU. I bet if you watch the time to completion it is going down a little faster than 1 to 1 against the elapsed time. All should be fine.

I am tweaked about as far as I can possibly go ... I might have a tiny bit more memory and that's it. Otis ... let us in on those secret tweaks your working on ... I need to shave just 5 more minutes and then I will be processing TONICAP_BIND wus in 4 hours 30 minutes. Drives me nutz that I am at 4:35 :shakes: and can't seem to find the last 5 minutes AND be stable.

[Mabyboi]

If you paused them or left them running while you were running furmark then boinc manager is only giving you it's best guess as to total elapsed time as opposed to actual runtime to complete the WU. I bet if you watch the time to completion it is going down a little faster than 1 to 1 against the elapsed time. All should be fine.


Yeah i paused everything for Furmark. thanks! :up:

2 hours in im only done 11 and 13%?! by this point im usually at like 30%?!

[CaptMorgan]

I am tweaked about as far as I can possibly go ... I might have a tiny bit more memory and that's it. Otis ... let us in on those secret tweaks your working on ... I need to shave just 5 more minutes and then I will be processing TONICAP_BIND wus in 4 hours 30 minutes. Drives me nutz that I am at 4:35 :shakes: and can't seem to find the last 5 minutes AND be stable.

Snow what you talkin about- an actual exact(or about exact) shader OC that will get you ( and all of us:D ) in a better running?

[Snow Crash]

Otis is the one with the secrets ... :sofa:
I blather on endlessly so nothing to hide here ... GTX295 540/1656/1080 set in Precision using @1188 mv set in Voltage Tuner. Windows XP 32 bit with HT off, i7-920 21 * 196. Testing 1101 on the memory ... see if it gets me anything. My shaders are MAXED If I turn them up to the next strap (1674) no matter what I try I can't keep them running for more than a day or so at best.

[INFRNL]

I'm at 1512 right now and it's lookin like I can pull 27k, but that might be a little optimistic. Only 2 days here, so we'll have to see. Probably won't clock it up any more till after spring break (two weeks).

I'm experimenting on a few hunches here... If I can get my numbers substantially higher than normal then I did something right.

So I am not much further than you. I need to remember which card is my GTX 260. But I think your right its not much further off my 275's. I have 4 GTX 275's still and 2 GTX 260; so if I gain 1k ppd more on the 275's thats 4k more a day. When I had 10 275's it was more noticeable. every little bit adds up. main reason why I went with the 275's.

Either way i think now the 260's are probably the best bang for the buck right now:up:.

[Mabyboi]

So I am not much further than you. I need to remember which card is my GTX 260. But I think your right its not much further off my 275's. I have 4 GTX 275's still and 2 GTX 260; so if I gain 1k ppd more on the 275's thats 4k more a day. When I had 10 275's it was more noticeable. every little bit adds up. main reason why I went with the 275's.

Either way i think now the 260's are probably the best bang for the buck right now:up:.

wait... 10x 275's?!

[mreuter80]

Either way i think now the 260's are probably the best bang for the buck right now:up:.

unless you get a used 275 for the same price as a new 260... :yepp: :up:

OK, OK ... one can also get used 260s for less ...

[PoppaGeek]

wait... 10x 275's?!

Yep, he is like that. :D

[Mabyboi]

Okay, i need a bit of help now..

Before i was running at 701/1577/1233, and GPUgrid was stable and completing WU's in about 22-24,000 seconds..

after overclocking to 727/1623/1308 im furmark stable, and my first 2 WU's completed and validated.. but took 50,000 seconds to do so... double the amount of time...

why would this be?!

one WU just error'd at 7 hours :shakes:

[Otis11]

Already said this, but we'll see what others think.

I'm guessing mem OC is too high and failing. Shaders or core fail you get an error... if mem can't tell what value it's supposed to be, it'll make a call back to main memory (ideally, depending on how the drivers are written). That's the only thing I can think of to get it to validate but still be crazy slow...


Hope it works out!

[Mabyboi]

Already said this, but we'll see what others think.

I'm guessing mem OC is too high and failing. Shaders or core fail you get an error... if mem can't tell what value it's supposed to be, it'll make a call back to main memory (ideally, depending on how the drivers are written). That's the only thing I can think of to get it to validate but still be crazy slow...


Hope it works out!

If the clock was too high, wouldnt i have had errors in furmark? like im video gaming stable.. its the GPUgrid that isnt stable... as you said earlier, is my memory clock too high?

dropped memory clock to 1243 lets see if it changes.

[Otis11]

If the clock was too high, wouldnt i have had errors in furmark? like im video gaming stable.. its the GPUgrid that isnt stable... as you said earlier, is my memory clock too high?

dropped memory clock to 1243 lets see if it changes.

wow 1,111 posts at 11:11 (my time anyway)...

I think you should try clocking that card to 902/1940/1526... Just saying, might be lucky... :rofl:

[Snow Crash]

The thing about being stable, especially with 295, is that you can go just far enough that the driver will reset itself without crashing (erroring) the WU. The big problem when that happens is that it resets itself into 2D mode ... very slow. Pop open Precision and see what it says what your shaders are really doing. I change the Precision graphs to show me gpu temps for both cards and shaders for both cards because on a 295 the downcloack can happen on one card but not the other .... you really need to check both. Don't use GPUZ if you suspect you may have downclocked because the way it interogates your GPU forces it to step back up to high performance 3D. While that might seem like it gets you back to where you need to be it is only temporary and your GPU will downclock again shortly. The only way I have found out of the downclock due to a driver reset is to first suspend BOINC, close BOINC, reboot the machine, change my OC (remember, that's how this all started to begin with) and then let BOINC get back to work.

The funny thing abut this post is I have been stepping up my memory freq today and was getting impatient and then I remembered Mabyboi had high clocks there and was claiming stable so I was just stopping by real quick to see what your actual numbers were. Think I might keep stepping up slowly :yepp:

[PoppaGeek]

wow 1,111 posts at 11:11 (my time anyway)...

I think you should try clocking that card to 902/1940/1526... Just saying, might be lucky... :rofl:

He's the...the....the ONE! :eek:
:rofl:

[Mabyboi]

The thing about being stable, especially with 295, is that you can go just far enough that the driver will reset itself without crashing (erroring) the WU. The big problem when that happens is that it resets itself into 2D mode ... very slow. Pop open Precision and see what it says what your shaders are really doing. I change the Precision graphs to show me gpu temps for both cards and shaders for both cards because on a 295 the downcloack can happen on one card but not the other .... you really need to check both. Don't use GPUZ if you suspect you may have downclocked because the way it interogates your GPU forces it to step back up to high performance 3D. While that might seem like it gets you back to where you need to be it is only temporary and your GPU will downclock again shortly. The only way I have found out of the downclock due to a driver reset is to first suspend BOINC, close BOINC, reboot the machine, change my OC (remember, that's how this all started to begin with) and then let BOINC get back to work.

The funny thing abut this post is I have been stepping up my memory freq today and was getting impatient and then I remembered Mabyboi had high clocks there and was claiming stable so I was just stopping by real quick to see what your actual numbers were. Think I might keep stepping up slowly :yepp:

You sir are correct.

GPU1 Core Clock: 400mhz
GPU2 Core Clock: 400mhz
GPU1 Shader Clock: 799mhz
GPU2 Shader Clock: 799mhz
GPU1 Memory Clock: 297mhz
GPU2 Memory Clock: 297mhz

How do i fix it..?

Suspend BOINC -> Restart Computer....?

[Snow Crash]

You sir are correct.

How do i fix it..?

Suspend BOINC -> Restart Computer....?

yuppers ... and then turn down the clock you think is hurting you before restarting BOINC.

I tend to work with one frequency at a time and because I am not gaming I turn core down one notch, up memory 10% and focus on shaders. Once I know where my shaders max out I start working on memory. One at a time, otherwise you just end up guessing.

Have you upped the volts?

[CaptMorgan]

You sir are correct.

How do i fix it..?

Suspend BOINC ->Lower Shaders-> Restart Computer....

:up:

Edit- Sorry Snow Crash is on the case

[Mabyboi]

yuppers ... and then turn down the clock you think is hurting you before restarting BOINC.

I tend to work with one frequency at a time and because I am not gaming I turn core down one notch, up memory 10% and focus on shaders. Once I know where my shaders max out I start working on memory. One at a time, otherwise you just end up guessing.

Have you upped the volts?

I think its memory... personally... but ill bring em back down to my stable frequencies before.. and then up my shaders a little, how much do you bump them up at at a time?

Set it back to 701/1600/1233
but when i look at my evga manager, it says: 702/1584/1242...

but putting it to 701/1611/1233 makes it say: 702/1620/1242...

thanks guys! :up:

[Snow Crash]

Take a look at the first post ... shaders move in "straps".
How sure are you that it is memory? I can't do more than 1512 shaders without bumping volts. Once I do bump to 1188 mv I max out at 1656.
Are you using Voltage Tuner (EVGA) to push it?
If I had to OC another 295 I would start by turning core down to 540, turn shaders to 1512 and leave memory at stock 999.
Then after I was sure I am stable (I let it run for at least one complete WU, preferably a GINANNI_BIND or TONICAP_BIND as they stress the shaders to 93%), then I let it run for the rest of the day until I can be around to keep an eye on things. Next I bump to the next "strap" and let it run some more ... rinse repeat. Slow but steady ... I hate when I lose a whole day of crunching because I was at work ands it hard crashed.

[HuffPCair]

Is that F@H or GPUGrid? their temps are different so I have to ask. :up:

Thanks for the stats!

I do Folding@home

[Mabyboi]

Take a look at the first post ... shaders move in "straps".
How sure are you that it is memory? I can't do more than 1512 shaders without bumping volts. Once I do bump to 1188 mv I max out at 1656.
Are you using Voltage Tuner (EVGA) to push it?
If I had to OC another 295 I would start by turning core down to 540, turn shaders to 1512 and leave memory at stock 999.
Then after I was sure I am stable (I let it run for at least one complete WU, preferably a GINANNI_BIND or TONICAP_BIND as they stress the shaders to 93%), then I let it run for the rest of the day until I can be around to keep an eye on things. Next I bump to the next "strap" and let it run some more ... rinse repeat. Slow but steady ... I hate when I lose a whole day of crunching because I was at work ands it hard crashed.

Well my last stable oc was at 701/1577/1233 and all my WU's were perfectly fine, after 18 of them... so i felt like bumping it up more, and as Otis said, if it was the core or shaders the WU would crash immediately, but if it was the memory it could mess it up and push it farther.. so regardless i've dropped down to 702/1620/1242 and well see if this is stable for a while...

but now it seems that the WU's are taking 8-10 hours, rather than the 6 they used to... but even looking at EVGA precision, it says 702/1620/1242...

the only thing that looks odd is the GPU1/2 memory usage... they're both clocked at 1242 but their usage is at 621...?

[Otis11]

^^ Now on that mem thing I could be completely off base... that was a complete guess just FYI. There is reasoning behind it, but as I don't know how these drivers are programmed, that reasoning could be crap...

And I go by SC process of single bumps (after an initial jump)... but I do shaders, mem, and core, all one bump at the same time. If anything fails you can take it all back one bump and proceed forward on each one individually if you wish...

[Mabyboi]

^^ Now on that mem thing I could be completely off base... that was a complete guess just FYI. There is reasoning behind it, but as I don't know how these drivers are programmed, that reasoning could be crap...

And I go by SC process of single bumps (after an initial jump)... but I do shaders, mem, and core, all one bump at the same time. If anything fails you can take it all back one bump and proceed forward on each one individually if you wish...

im holding you to it otis11!

[Otis11]

If you're willing to stick with it, we'll get your 295 to the highest possible output... but it takes work. :up:

[Mabyboi]

If you're willing to stick with it, we'll get your 295 to the highest possible output... but it takes work. :up:

thats what i want. i will overtake you otis. i promise you i will :up:!

[Snow Crash]

snip
the only thing that looks odd is the GPU1/2 memory usage... they're both clocked at 1242 but their usage is at 621...?
When you look at Memory Usage in Precision it is showing you how much memory is being used not the speed at which it is being used. For freq check the Memory Clock.

If you are not familiar with Precision you can double click the graphs themselves and they will pop out into a box all by themselves which you can change the size of :-)

I just took a look and your times are moving in the right direction again :up:

[Mabyboi]

When you look at Memory Usage in Precision it is showing you how much memory is being used not the speed at which it is being used. For freq check the Memory Clock.

If you are not familiar with Precision you can double click the graphs themselves and they will pop out into a box all by themselves which you can change the size of :-)

I just took a look and your times are moving in the right direction again :up:

theyre coming back down to about 5.5-6 hours.. had 2 errors recently though... well see :up:

[Snow Crash]

The only change I made yesterday was memory and I had some errors also).
I noticed something else ... the WUs both you and I were erroring on were IBUCH ... we both complete the TONIs fine.
Perhaps IBUCH is more demanding than TONI, maybe it is just memory?
My 285 is processing IBUCH just fine so I think we are running a little too high on our 295s.
I turned memory down a hair (1152) and we'll see how today goes ... so far no errors since early this morning.

<edit>I posted over at GPUGrid to see if the failuire rate fro IBUCH Pyxxxx type Wus has been higher recently ... trying to see if it might be them and not our OC.</edit>

[CaptMorgan]

Thank you Snow Crash- and everyone else for risking there stability for the greater good (of a stable OC)

[Mabyboi]

The only change I made yesterday was memory and I had some errors also).
I noticed something else ... the WUs both you and I were erroring on were IBUCH ... we both complete the TONIs fine.
Perhaps IBUCH is more demanding than TONI, maybe it is just memory?
My 285 is processing IBUCH just fine so I think we are running a little too high on our 295s.
I turned memory down a hair (1152) and we'll see how today goes ... so far no errors since early this morning.

<edit>I posted over at GPUGrid to see if the failuire rate fro IBUCH Pyxxxx type Wus has been higher recently ... trying to see if it might be them and not our OC.</edit>

i just noticed that too, i just had another error out, thats 6 in the last 14... and theyre all IBUCH... you lowered your memory? ill follow suit and see what happens..

dropped back to 701/1611/1233, shows on evga precision at 702/1620/1242.. i had stability before at 701 1577/1233 so well see if just having the shaders up is causing the issues...

but is now showing 8-11hours for completion....

[CaptMorgan]

I gots my fingers crossed:up:

[Mabyboi]

Just had my drivers reset, and both error'd out... now down to 400/799/297... i may be at my maximum.... great...

Currently running 701/1600/1233 well see how this goes, at this point it looks like my shaders may be at its maximum. but if/when this is stable, ill start fiddling with the core and the memory and see what i can get! :up:

[Snow Crash]

I managed to finish 1 IBUCH and two TONIs this morning. I am a couple hours into another IBUCH without error but I can't tell from here (work) if I have downclocked or not. In the middle of all this mess I did shave a couple minutes off so now my TONI runtime is almost 4:30 exactly :woot:

Now if I can keep it running at that rate I can cash in some serious points :up: Where's the checkout counter ???


Crunching is about as exciting as watching paint dry (think I am quoting 123bob on that one) so ....

Otis ... any update on those top secret tweaks you have been working on?

Capt ... where's the worklog ??? I know you added a 280 and have a couple of 275 just waiting to bury me but quit the suspense already :rofl:
ps ... that 285 is starting to produce some real numbers now ... what did you do to *fix* it? clap:

[CaptMorgan]

Hmm I will edit this soon- I know my 285 seems to be chugging without me even looking @ it and the 280 is getting used to things. From what I remember I have everything @ stock except the shaders.

[Otis11]

Ok... So I already told Mabyboi my hunch... Might as well say it here now.

We're clocking the shaders up extremely high, and some of us even clock memory up... but realize, these parts have to communicate. If they're clocks don't match on any given cycle they can't pass information... So we need to find out what they correct ratio is to lower any timing bottlenecks. I was working on proving this, but as I only have 1 260 it's taking quite a bit of time to get numbers to support it.

I think the numbers I do have support it a little bit... anyone else hitting 27k ppd from a 260???

The best ratio I have right now is 1/2.1565/1.6821 (core/shader/mem) So I'm trying to stay as close to that as possible in all of my clocks... Now I don't think core much of an effect (as far as my inexact science has been), but I think the mem shader does.

:up:

[Snow Crash]

So I'll add what little I know about gpu *ratios*

Yes, default out of the box core and shaders are linked ... there must be a reason for that!

Posted somewhere here on XS and specific to old style 295s, I read that once you have maxed your shaders, if you bump your core a notch or two above 600 you can get the next shader strap stable. This did not work for me. No matter what I tried I can;t get 1674 shaders stable. YMMV.

As to the ratios you posted ... not sure I follow ....
Are you saying that the optimal settings for 1656 shaders is 768 core and 1292 memory? Now the core is unimportant for crunching so maybe I could get away with it but I would never be remotely close to stable at anything that actually uses the core. As you've been reading, I think I'm maxing out around 1152 on my memory ... 1292 would crash in a heartbeat.

Of course I may have misunderstood your point entirely and what you mean is that the core is the key to it all so if I get my core max stable then apply your ratios to my shaders and memory then everything will be running at their optimal frequencies and get better runtimes than I have been?

Let me know which direction you are thinking in and I will setup and run a couple of WUs to see where it goes.

[CaptMorgan]

i have gotten slightly lost in this thread, which is not a bad thing, though all I need to do is to go back to post 1. But you are saying that has little or nothing to do with an OC? Also you are thinking that the memory and shader setting's are linked so that if you can find the right setting we could get a stable, higher shader OC?

So my GTX 260's stock are- Clock 576-------Memory 999------ Shader 1242------ = and the only thing I have OC'd is shader @ 1496 and Precision is reading it as 1512

But on this particular Rig with these 2 260's the GPU usage has been slightly higher than normal. Also because it has been previously mentioned the thing I am OC'ing at this point is the shader.

[Mabyboi]

just completed a IBUCH stable and succesfull at 701/1600/1233 :up:! gonna push the core up a notch after this next WU finishes

[Snow Crash]

i have gotten slightly lost in this thread, which is not a bad thing, though all I need to do is to go back to post 1. But you are saying that has little or nothing to do with an OC? Also you are thinking that the memory and shader setting's are linked so that if you can find the right setting we could get a stable, higher shader OC?

So my GTX 260's stock are- Clock 576-------Memory 999------ Shader 1242------ = and the only thing I have OC'd is shader @ 1496 and Precision is reading it as 1512

But on this particular Rig with these 2 260's the GPU usage has been slightly higher than normal. Also because it has been previously mentioned the thing I am OC'ing at this point is the shader.

I'm kinda hoping Otis lets us know what he thinks in a little more detail :yepp:
I have only ever seen benefits from OCing shaders and a little bit on memory but I am pretty sure I have reached my limits so if Otis has another approach to getting better runtimes I'm all for it :up:

[Otis11]

What I'm thinking is that you push both mem and shaders to the limit that they can stay in that ratio... Unfortunately your weakest link kills ya and it's probably mem, but if I'm not going crazy I think my run times support that it's better to have them atleast in relation. Idk if that ratio is best, but given that's what NVIDIA sets it at, I think there has to be a reason...

So eg. SC your max mem is 1156? So if it were me i'd put your Shaders at 1467 or as close as they get. But that seems like a large drop for you...

Sure there isn't something else going on? I have my mem stable at 1188 at stock volts no problem and mabyboi is at 1233 without volts... Maybe there is an effect if you keep them in ratio as you start to OC and not just jump one all they way up and then the other?

The reason behind all of this is because the core/shader/mem can only communicate between each other when they're clocks are high, so if you think of sound wave frequencies, think of the beat you hear between different frequencies... every beat you hear between a wave of say 1512 hz and 1188hz is a missed communication. Now of course it's more complicated (and actually not quite the same thing) with clocks and the fact that they only have to be in the same half cycle and all... but that's the thought.

Capt. What's your ppd on that 260 with shaders at 1512? Cuz that's exactly what mines at and that could totally disprove my theory if it's doing roughly the same... Or it could support it. Who knows? :shrug:

[CaptMorgan]

Looking quickly I have an IBUCH thats says it will complete in 4 hours---- a TONI that will complete in 4:30. Also 2 TONI's waiting that are telling me 5 hours. Lolness trying to finish this rig and i dropped the micro card into the computer and had to pull it apart to get it out- now the card reader is not workin. Don't worry I'll still take pics though Snow Crash

[OldChap]

I'm expecting a new 260 tomorrow or Wednesday and will repeat my Folding @ Home trial ...That is a straightforward gig because of fahmon but my question to you guys is...did anyone who made the move here have to change clocks or were you able to run higher here at all?

Also, does voltagetuner help shaders? and improve completion times?

[Snow Crash]

OldChap ... I read that Voltage Tuner does not help shaders but I am pretty sure that if I don't up my volts the best I can do my shaders is 1512. This is on my old style 2 card GTX295, ymmv on a 260 but the stock core/shader mem is the same for both :shrug: (576/1242/999)

[Otis11]

Yeah... My TONI says 5:14, but hasn't started... Any idea of your PPD though Capt?

Runtimes change slightly, but PPD is where it counts.

[CaptMorgan]

From the looks of it i am getting some errors here and there but hopefully will stop- I see 6,123 points for some projects and 5,369 for some others. How can i tell where the completed and validated projects come from? As in what rig/card?

[OldChap]

GPUGrid>your account>tasks,view>click on task i.d.

Then if you need to know which rig.... machine i.d.

[CaptMorgan]

Ok so hopefully this helps (thank you Old Chap) Run time 18833----------- CPU time 925----------- claimed credit? 4535------------- granted credit 6123

This is for the 260 Runnin in the AMD rig with Shaders @ 1512

[Snow Crash]

I think I'll let you guys work it out a bit more before I go changing anything.
Otis ... PPD is what we get *paid for* but it is only a side effect of runtime in conjunction with how often and long we let the cards stay running just GPUGrid without interuption. Your runtimes are good for the TONI wus coming around 19200 GPU runtime.

Captain ... your TONI wus are coming in quicker on average (18500 - 18600) but you need leave that machine alone ... the individual runtimes are all over the place for the TONIs :rofl:

My TONIs are coming in around 16200 - the last one was ~16500 and the two previous were just under 16200.
Granted the 295 has 240 shader units compared to the 216 in the 260s but I am returning faster than that implies and I believe it is because my shaders are at 1656.

Please put up some more numbers to tempt me to test out reducing my shaders to match the magic ratio.
As for my memory issues ... I know there is a CUDA memory tool out there ... I may need to go find it :shakes:

And to compare my memory settings to Mabyboi's ... hope this doesn't get taken the wrong way but with his current error rate and runtime for TONI coming in over 20k ... I think I'll pass on using his settings as a baseline :sofa:

[OldChap]

here you go.... https://simtk.org/project/xml/downloads.xml?group_id=385

Just an observation from folding : My cards would all run 1944 shaders but only if ambient was under 10deg, above that to about 23 deg I could hit 1890 ...in summer local ambients don't usually go above 33deg and for this I can only run 1836. (all from gx2's and 98gtx) although my 260's display the same characteristics but the top speed is 1620 and the thresholds are a degree or two different

[Mabyboi]

I think I'll let you guys work it out a bit more before I go changing anything.
Otis ... PPD is what we get *paid for* but it is only a side effect of runtime in conjunction with how often and long we let the cards stay running just GPUGrid without interuption. Your runtimes are good for the TONI wus coming around 19200 GPU runtime.

Captain ... your TONI wus are coming in quicker on average (18500 - 18600) but you need leave that machine alone ... the individual runtimes are all over the place for the TONIs :rofl:

My TONIs are coming in around 16200 - the last one was ~16500 and the two previous were just under 16200.
Granted the 295 has 240 shader units compared to the 216 in the 260s but I am returning faster than that implies and I believe it is because my shaders are at 1656.

Please put up some more numbers to tempt me to test out reducing my shaders to match the magic ratio.
As for my memory issues ... I know there is a CUDA memory tool out there ... I may need to go find it :shakes:

And to compare my memory settings to Mabyboi's ... hope this doesn't get taken the wrong way but with his current error rate and runtime for TONI coming in over 20k ... I think I'll pass on using his settings as a baseline :sofa:

I dont know whats wrong!! 711/1600/1233 running a core i7 stock, and im getting 6.5-7hours for completion! what the hell is wrong with my 295?! snow crash, are you running a core i7? what ghz?

stable so far at the clocks listed too...

im extremely dissapointed with my current ppd, and completion rate... can anyone help?

can anybody help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Otis11]

@ SC - yeah the reason I give points value is because it's directly correlated to how much work you get through. And in the end that's what matters! :up:

And I think the best way to test this is just see how high I can push my shaders and mem while stable and then drop the mem a notch or two and see how high shaders can go. I'll work on it later, but as this rig has to be stable for the next week as i won't be able to touch it so I'm not going to start messing to much right now.
(plus i should study... yeah... that's why I'm not messing with it :rofl:)

Edit: oh and Mabyboi... I think you just need to chill and let the times settle. If you keep messing with the computer it'll slow them down. Also, are you using that computer? Even for small things like you tube videos I've found a decent impact. Mine isn't touched most of the day cuz I have a laptop for daily driver... But I think that's what's going on.

[Mabyboi]

@ SC - yeah the reason I give points value is because it's directly correlated to how much work you get through. And in the end that's what matters! :up:

And I think the best way to test this is just see how high I can push my shaders and mem while stable and then drop the mem a notch or two and see how high shaders can go. I'll work on it later, but as this rig has to be stable for the next week as i won't be able to touch it so I'm not going to start messing to much right now.
(plus i should study... yeah... that's why I'm not messing with it :rofl:)

Edit: oh and Mabyboi... I think you just need to chill and let the times settle. If you keep messing with the computer it'll slow them down. Also, are you using that computer? Even for small things like you tube videos I've found a decent impact. Mine isn't touched most of the day cuz I have a laptop for daily driver... But I think that's what's going on.

Yeah, its my main rig, i use it alot of the day, watching movies, tv shows.. so i guess it makes sense..

[Otis11]

Yeah, its my main rig, i use it alot of the day, watching movies, tv shows.. so i guess it makes sense..

Yeah, even if you're only using 10-15% of it 20% of the day... It adds up quick... Throw in an error and your toast as far as pie is concerned.

Oh, and FYI - keep posting clocks and revisions. I'll add them all before the weekend. :yepp:

And thank you to those who have already posted! :up:

[Mabyboi]

Yeah, even if you're only using 10-15% of it 20% of the day... It adds up quick... Throw in an error and your toast as far as pie is concerned.

Oh, and FYI - keep posting clocks and revisions. I'll add them all before the weekend. :yepp:

And thank you to those who have already posted! :up:

711/1600/1233 stable, 4 WU's done, will push the core up another notch in the morning, see what i can do...

When i get my new Macbook Air, ill probly use that more frequently than the desktop.. so ill be able to overtake you that much faster! :up:

[Snow Crash]

Mabyboi ... I am running an i7-920 at 4.0 GHz which helps and sometimes it is days between when I actually plug in a video cable and look at that machine :-)
I am also running it with HT off anf most importantly, because this is a dedicated crunher (cpu doing WCG) I am running Windows XP which helps reduce runtimes by ~20 minutes per wu.

[mreuter80]

Hey Otis,
Just a little update.
My RAC climbed a little bit to 26650 PPD. I haven't changed anything on the clocks.
Looking at the graph in BOINC managaer it seems that the average is still growing with a small rate - max not reached. I guesstimate it will level a little bit above 27K.

[Mabyboi]

just got my air back, gonna let the desktop sit and accumulate points now :D bumped the clock up to 717mhz too.

[Snow Crash]

Otis11 ... :toast:

I may be old but if you beat me hard enough with a stick long enough I can learn new tricks :up:

You got me thinking about the interaction between the GPU components and I realized I was blinding myself with the *shaders shaders shaders* mantra.
While not for the same reasons you state in your ratio theory (harmonic distortion, frequency collisions ... dude... what??? not saying you are wrong, I'm just not smart enough for that), I decided to see if I had my shaders so high it was preventing my memory OC which in turn was starving the very shaders I think are the catz azz.

Damn , damn, damn ... I gotta listen better to you whippersnappers ... I turned my shaders down one notch (1620) and my memory up (1215). While I did get a couple of errors this morning I have since been returning a little FASTER than before (~10 min per WU). So yes, utlimately I think ratios are important and will continue working on finding the sweet spot for my cards.

[Mabyboi]

Since upping my core clock from 707 to 717 i've gone from 6k PPU up to 6.8K PPU! a whole .8 from that little?! WHAT DID I DOOO :shock:

[Snow Crash]

which PPU are you referring to?
PPU Pay Per Use
PPU Physics Processing Unit
PPU Palestine Polytechnic University
PPU Power Processing Unit (solar electric propulsion)
PPU Picture Processing Unit
PPU Public Protection Unit (UK)
PPU Price Per Unit
PPU Point Park University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
PPU Professional People in Urbe
PPU Portable Pilot Unit (Microsoft)
PPU Physical Planning Unit (Grenada)
PPU Procurement Policy Unit (UK)
PPU Peoples Potential Unlimited (record label that reissues vinyl records)
PPU Portable Production Unit
PPU Pending Pick Up
PPU Prime Power Unit
PPU Packet Pick-Up (racing events)
PPU Please Pick Up
PPU Peripheral Processor Unit
PPU Protocol Processing Unit
PPU Pre Purification Unit
PPU Post Processing Unit
PPU Pre Processor Utility
PPU Postpartum Unit
PPU Pixelpushers United (pixel art commune)
PPU Primary Place of Usage
PPU Preproduction Unit
PPU Production Prototype Unit
PPU Powerplay Unit (hockey)
PPU Programme de Prévention Urbaine (French)

[Mabyboi]

which PPU are you referring to?
PPU Pay Per Use
PPU Physics Processing Unit
PPU Palestine Polytechnic University
PPU Power Processing Unit (solar electric propulsion)
PPU Picture Processing Unit
PPU Public Protection Unit (UK)
PPU Price Per Unit
PPU Point Park University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
PPU Professional People in Urbe
PPU Portable Pilot Unit (Microsoft)
PPU Physical Planning Unit (Grenada)
PPU Procurement Policy Unit (UK)
PPU Peoples Potential Unlimited (record label that reissues vinyl records)
PPU Portable Production Unit
PPU Pending Pick Up
PPU Prime Power Unit
PPU Packet Pick-Up (racing events)
PPU Please Pick Up
PPU Peripheral Processor Unit
PPU Protocol Processing Unit
PPU Pre Purification Unit
PPU Post Processing Unit
PPU Pre Processor Utility
PPU Postpartum Unit
PPU Pixelpushers United (pixel art commune)
PPU Primary Place of Usage
PPU Preproduction Unit
PPU Production Prototype Unit
PPU Powerplay Unit (hockey)
PPU Programme de Prévention Urbaine (French)

My programme went up by .8! but then i realised its cause of the new boosts...

[Snow Crash]

So you meant Points Per Unit.
Not only are they changing because of the new bonus scheme but they vary between WU types anyway.
That's why I try to always test from the same *type*, they are usually consitant and not just in runtime but also in how they use the GPU itself.

[Mabyboi]

Riddle me this: If everyone says that GPUgrid is the toughest thing for your gpu, and if its stable here, its stable everywhere.. and my 717/1600/1233 is stable here.. but then when video gaming. it crashes... why is that? it does the driver reset thingy and does half of what its supposed to..

[CaptMorgan]

Mabyboi- maybe because the work the Grid does is consistent; my own experience game graphics are dif kind of intensive

[PoppaGeek]

GPUGrid and F@H use the cards differently than games do. I had a 260 that was fine in games and certain F@H WUs but not GPUGrid and most F@H WUs. I also think F@H is much more demanding than GPUGrid on most WUs. GPUGrid does not generate as much heat either.

[Otis11]

GPUGrid also only stresses the Shaders... sure it uses the other stuff, but they don't feel the pressure. Games make the core work and can even max the memory - Two things Grid will never do.

I do maintain though... If you're GPUGrid stable you're pretty flippin stable.

[Mabyboi]

and my games are coming out crappy, even at stock settings... :shrug: dead card?

[PoppaGeek]

and my games are coming out crappy, even at stock settings... :shrug: dead card?

Ya might try CUDA Memory Tester (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Memory-Tweak/CUDA-MemTest.shtml). Tests GPU memory. Let it run like 1000 or more loops.

[Mabyboi]

Ya might try CUDA Memory Tester (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Memory-Tweak/CUDA-MemTest.shtml). Tests GPU memory. Let it run like 1000 or more loops.


When gaming, it makes parts of the screen look like they're artifacting, and tearing.. its not good... would this help?

[PoppaGeek]

Artifacts a good or I should say bad sign of memory problems. OCing can cause artifacts. The tearing may be syncing. Try setting game to sync with monitor. Nvidia drivers call it "Vertical sync". Set to yes and also in game. If you can limit it to a little less than htz of monitor. My LCDs are 60HZ so i set game to 56 and sync frame or horizontal.

[OldChap]

How many results completed do you want to get an average ppd?

I'm seriously impressed with this so far ...when I first used my 295 on here I was getting around 36k/day...from 4 results today I average over 31k on a 260 55nm

[Snow Crash]

PPD just started to settle in after the last new app but bonus points changed yesterday :up: so they are changing again.

On top of that they just put up a new beta (6.16 for windows only) that is suppose to be even faster still :shocked:
PPD are going to in flux for quite some time. All moving upwards so it's all good :party:

[Otis11]

PPD just started to settle in after the last new app but bonus points changed yesterday :up: so they are changing again.

On top of that they just put up a new beta (6.16 for windows only) that is suppose to be even faster still :shocked:
PPD are going to in flux for quite some time. All moving upwards so it's all good :party:

Yeah, unfortunately because of that, ppd is not a good gauge of how effective the OC is... :rolleyes:

So any ideas on how to do this strategically? Test the effects of OC?

[Snow Crash]

I try not to use PPD to gauge how effctive my OC test settings are for two main reasons. 1. It simply takes way to freakin long for PPD to normalize again after changing settings and 2. I'm just not that patient. I typically look at runtimes of individual WUs of the same type within a given application version, then I try to see if I can get a couple in a row to get a better sense of an average. This way I can use WUs I already crunched as my baseline and realisticaslly only need between 1 and 4 WU of the same type to see if/ how much of a difference I am making. I will say there is one downfall to this approach and that is that you are onlyntesting against one WU typre and they are all a little different so you might not be as stable as you think you are until your run a couple of each.

[Otis11]

So it should be updated... Please let me know if I missed something, cuz that is VERY likely... Tried me best though. :p:

Also, anyone figure out anything?

As far as the timing issue goes - I talked to a researcher about it... He said the OC is only going to help if that component is being stressed as newer cards have advanced interfaces between the different components. But it might have an impact on older cards... Not that we have many of those... (idk where that distinction is though...)

[mreuter80]

Hey Otis,

Since we get more points for the WUs I think we can scratch all PPD/RAC from the first message.
My latest OC success: 702/1656/1296; fan 55; temp 70 (GPUGrid stable :up:, but not FurMark :shakes:).
Points will need some time, because the machine will be on/and off (so no 24/7 right now). But from what I see it's maybe some 3% faster than just using the shaders. Only time will tell.

Considering your previous message, I really think to revert back to stock and just leave it running at that speed.
Cheers

[Mabyboi]

If anyone is interested, my 295 is now up for sale in the for sale section: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=248061

[WhiteFireDragon]

i wasn't sure if i should use EVGA precision or riva tuner, so i picked evga precision for the sake of simplicity, and it also works my zotac gtx260 :lol:. either i got lucky or this software is not exclusive to evga cards only.

so i got lazy and ramped up my clocks to Otis11's max OC on his gtx260. i'm now crunching at 700/1507/40, fan on auto at 40% 60C for 24/7 load win7 64bit. so far, 2 WU's has been complete at these clocks and they are both vaid. i'll report back if i get any errors. thanks Otis11!

[Otis11]

Huh, good to know Precision works with zotac... i think you just got lucky, but hey, if it works. :up:

[CaptMorgan]

Ya it did not seem to work with my Gigabyte card- though funny thing I was able to OC the fan?! So I used RivaTuner, took me a bit to get used to it but it does cover everything, I must say Precision is very simple

[Otis11]

I've been doing a little research and came to the conclusion that all 200 series should work at 685/1477/1160 and most should work at 702/1512/1188.

Anyone willing to test that statement and validate it for GPUGrid? I know it works on mine! (especially need validation on 250's and 295's as those are the extremes)

If we can prove this, that's a really good note for our team as everyone at stock willing could safely get a 19-22% boost in output.

Also, need updates on the RAC of OCs as the points have changed...

[Snow Crash]

I'm gonna guess that Precision will work with any reference card cause they really are all the same, just different stickers and tighter bins.

[WhiteFireDragon]

I've been doing a little research and came to the conclusion that all 200 series should work at 685/1477/1160 and most should work at 702/1512/1188.


dam, i may have spoken too soon. 700/1500/1180 might be stable just for GPUgrid, but it's not stable for 3dmark vantage. now i'm having doubts as to which application is more demanding.

i think a good compromise would be having high shader clocks for GPUgrid, while only having moderate core and memory clocks to satisfy everything else. Otis11, you pointed out earlier in the thread that it's probably best in terms of stability and clocking to keep the shader and core linked, so hopefully 685/1515/1400 would work for all applications (moderate core OC, high shaders, stock memory). i'm testing that out right now.

edit: it's also a pain in the arse every time 3dmark vantage gets errors, because then the GPU downclocks and i can't seem to bring it back up to even stock speeds unless i reboot the computer

[Otis11]

dam, i may have spoken too soon. 700/1500/1180 might be stable just for GPUgrid, but it's not stable for 3dmark vantage. now i'm having doubts as to which application is more demanding.

i think a good compromise would be having high shader clocks for GPUgrid, while only having moderate core and memory clocks to satisfy everything else. Otis11, you pointed out earlier in the thread that it's probably best in terms of stability and clocking to keep the shader and core linked, so hopefully 685/1515/1400 would work for all applications (moderate core OC, high shaders, stock memory). i'm testing that out right now.

edit: it's also a pain in the arse every time 3dmark vantage gets errors, because then the GPU downclocks and i can't seem to bring it back up to even stock speeds unless i reboot the computer

1400 on the mem?!?!?! Are you kidding? Is that will double data rates or before you consider that? The highest I've gotten mine is 1188... haven't pushed it, but 1400 seems really high.

And my clock is rock solid on any test i've done... pretty sure that included furmark.

If you have time, would you mind finding out what part causes it to be unstable? Would 685/1477/1160 work on it?

[WhiteFireDragon]

oops! sorry typo, memory was stock 1050, not 1400 lol.

yeah i'm trying to find the edge of stability for all applications right now. i just tested it with 685/1500/1050 and 3dmark vantage still errored at 1440x900 resolution, so it's either the high shader clocks or the moderate core clock since memory was stock. 700/1500/1180 passed vantage at standard resolution though, but with higher res, it'll fail. i have the zotac AMP edition, so i kinda expected it to clock a little higher than reference, but i guess not. if i have enough data test points, i can make a small chart. i will keep editing this post with my own personal results.

GTX260 (216)
700/1500/1180: GPUgrid *stable so far* .... 3dm vantage- stable 1280x1024, unstable 1440x900
685/1500/1050: GPUgrid *stable so far* .... 3dm vantage- stable 1280x1024, unstable 1440x900
680/1485/1050: GPUgrid *stable* ............. 3dm vantage- stable 1280x1024, stable 1440x900
680/1500/1050: GPUgrid *stable* ............. 3dm vantage- stable 1280x1024, unstable 1440x900
680/1490/1050: GPUgrid *stable* ............. 3dm vantage- stable 1280x1024, stable 1440x900
700/1490/1050: GPUgrid *stable* ............. 3dm vantage- stable 1280x1024, stable 1440x900
715/1490/1050: GPUgrid *stable* ............. 3dm vantage- stable 1280x1024, unstable 1440x900
715/1485/1050: GPUgrid *stable* ............. 3dm vantage- stable 1280x1024, stable 1440x900

the last line is my final stable clock where it's crunching at.

[Otis11]

So what happens if you keep the core at 680 and push the shaders up to 1500? will that pass?

If not we know where the error is. Also might try 1485 shader and 702 core... if it passes both of those, it should work at 702/1500, if not, you know which one is the error.

:up:

[OldChap]

What I found was that both evga and xfx 260's will fold/grid @ 1620 IF the ambient is below 22deg but because that temp is on the cusp of normal house temp it is best to drop 1 step to 1584 (this with 100% fan and core @ 590 (586 real) and mem @ 999) then again I don't game ...all settings/readings from precision

[WhiteFireDragon]

So what happens if you keep the core at 680 and push the shaders up to 1500? will that pass?

If not we know where the error is. Also might try 1485 shader and 702 core... if it passes both of those, it should work at 702/1500, if not, you know which one is the error.

:up:

my results so far answer this, it's the shaders. 1500mhz shader will not run, but 1485mhz will. i will lower it by 10mhz only, now testing at 1490mhz shader, and i think 1490mhz - 1495mhz will be the max.

[Otis11]

Ok, well your shaders only run at 1476(1468-1494) or 1512(1495-1532)... you can change the slider to whatever you want, but it really runs only at those values, so bumping by just a few notches won't make a difference.

OC, how'd you get them so high? bumped the volts up something serious?

[WhiteFireDragon]

i have a gtx295 co-op running at 740mhz core and whatever the corresponding linked shader is. the fan is on auto, which is around 50%, and temps are around 63C, and on stock volts. what is the max you guys are getting with these 295's? ironically, this actually worries me because it's hard to believe i can run these high clocks stable without touching the voltage. i have not tested it higher, but i think it can even OC higher. what is the default voltage? i'm just afraid as i increase the clocks, the card might be overvolting itself.

[Otis11]

OK, so by my guess you're at 1584 for your shaders... which is kinda high on stock voltage, but not unheard of.

Mabyboi did manage to pull it up to 1600 on shaders before getting majorly unstable... What are you using for your tool? The first page has some good ones if you need them.

Edit: and I should really update this thread - anyone who would post the info I'm going to clear the point values and start again. Any and all info welcome!

[WhiteFireDragon]

well the big difference is that he watercooled his. this one is bare stock cooling with no tweaks at all, fan only runs at 50% on auto, only tool i use is evga precision to OC the card. usually i'm worried with my CPU or GPU can't OC for crap, but in this case, i'm a little skeptical it can OC so high. when i get the chance, i'll trying maxing it out to see how high it can really go.

[Snow Crash]

My EVGA 295 (vanilla) is rock solid stable at 1518.
If I bump to 1138 with EVGA voltage tuner I am 1656 stable.
Some GPUGrid WUs are less stressful than others but if you let it run a few days you will probably hit each different type and claim stable :up:
I always double check the WUs that fail against the results from other machines to make sure it is not a bogus WU but those have been quite rare lately.

[Zloyd]

Sorry if this is OT but ive noticed that the max gpu usage i see thru boinc is ~73% it hovers consistently between 67-73 , is there a way to increase this to increase productivity. I am reporting gpu usage numbers from precision.

EDIT - scratch the above i just noticed that one gpu 2 is sitting at 50% ~ . Im guessing it varies from WU to WU.

[WhiteFireDragon]

different WU's will vary, but XP will use between 70-95% of the GPU, while win7 will only use 50-75%. that's why XP will consistently give you faster WU completion times.

[Zloyd]

giving 1500 shader a go.

[Snow Crash]

Shaders on the 295 move in "straps"
Setting 1500 will really move it to 1512 (I typoed in my last post)
If you get errors there move down to 1476 and see if that is better for your card.

Good luck, let us know how it works out :up:

[Zloyd]

I have the setting still with core and shaders linked and Voltage already set at 1.138 , I know I am going to use that since I do want to see how much I can push out of this , temps are going to be a limiting factor ultimately.

I think with lower volts and unlinked core (1500 shader 600~core) I am getting errors so I thought wth and bumped volts and kept them linked for now.

Hopefully I have the patience to run like this for a couple of days before trying the next step.

[Snow Crash]

Core doesn't help in GPU crunching so you can unlink and save the power and heat, did I post that using an extra fan on the backside of the card helps tons???

[Zloyd]

So you mean a fan on the outside to pull air out ? makes perfect sense it puts the gpu heatsink in a push pull config

I have at other times benched with various fans strapped to it :P , I am also waiting on a shipment of 2 case fans which will pull air out from above the gpu (side panel fans the one that will do the work is a 80mm silverstone that can do a 80 cfm if i need it to the other is a 120 mm thin scythe nothing bigger will fit atm)

I just checked out how fast your 295 completes tasks and if I am correct it shows half the card at a time , its outscoring the 285 (half a card) you have, guess XP has a huge impact on performance , they should really optimise it more for win7. Oddly the averages dont reflect the superiority of the 295 system > 285 , I am missing something obvious :D


I cant go back to xp now I use this rig all the time (might try a dual boot so before I sleep or go out for my classes I make it crunch as efficiently as possibly) im sure they are working on making it as efficient on 7.

I will take your advice and drop the core I just feel with my card if I drop the core it will error out , I have not tried dropping the core since increasing the volts .

Silly me it seems I HAVE dropped the core a tad bit :P it is at 670c/1512s/1100m (precision settings) was 700c earlier.

The next shader strap that is worth trying for is 1600 , not sure if it can do that with current volts.

Could you suggest how far I can drop core for 1512 and 1600 shader settings. I was thinking 600 core for 1500 and 670or700 for 1600 though pulling off 1600s on this card seems unlikely at this point in time.

Edit - gonna try out 700c/1620s for a few hours and see how it goes.

[Snow Crash]

Actually I have my fan blowing against the side at ~60 degree angle from the pcie plugs pointed towards card's exhaust vents (typically the back of the case but I'm not running in a case which helps keep temps down).

I move my cards around to much to have any of the stats make much sense.
The current difference you are seeing between the latest runtimes on my 295 and 285 is that the 285 is downclocked during the day because it is upstairs in my study (I'm not spending extra money on more AC than I really need to) and the 295 is in the basement which is cool enough so no AC used there. I just moved the 295 so am running it at 1476 which is 1 strap below my stock volts max (1512).

I'm thinking I might move the 285 onto that same board, breakdown the 480 and re TIM it all with IDC to see if that helps. Anyone know if leaving the shroud off entirely helps?

The optimization actually needs to happen at the driver level between NVidia and MS because the driver mode changes that MS made at the OS level, GPUGrid can't do anything about it.

Because these cards are used for crunching and daily driving (I'm not a gamer) I use Precision to underclock the core as much as it will let me (just pull the slider as low as it will go) and I have never had a problem with stability because of it.

Upping the core freq will only create more heat which in turns brings the max OC of your shaders down ... dont do it :rofl:

[Zloyd]

I seem to crash if I dont have the core and shader somewhat in each others vicinity , this is probably because of the straps mentioned in the first page of this thread.

Damn you have some insane cards for someone who doesn't game though I should get used to that this being GPUGRID :P

I too have played with fans blowing on the side of the card it helps all right. But the fan i have now for that is too darn noisy , I sleep in the same room and when I used to run that fan my ears were buzzing so I had to kinda stop that. Im hoping to get my fans in a couple of weeks I dont think it will help a LOT because my ambient temp is always close to 30 , card runs at high 80's and low 90's depending on the day. 295 temps were pretty exciting this summer :P

[Otis11]

http://i28.tinypic.com/vwubtg.png

[WhiteFireDragon]

:rofl: Otis11, were you too tired when posting this? wrong thread buddy, but thanks for the update

Zloyd, i think you can up your gtx295 a bit higher. my gtx295 has shaders at 1585mhz, and my gtx275 has shaders at 1656mhz right now. all my cards are stock cooling and voltages.

[Zloyd]

Damn ive noticed that i lose work when i stop boinc and re-enable sli to game. I lose 1 gpu thread it errors out and starts on a new work unit :(

I usually right click on boinc and hit exit before re-enabling sli and I disable it again before i start boinc.

But the last 2 times its been crapping out. I think I will try a system shutdown and then restart to enable sli . Anyone else notice this issue ?

[Snow Crash]

Damn ive noticed that i lose work when i stop boinc and re-enable sli to game. I lose 1 gpu thread it errors out and starts on a new work unit :(

I usually right click on boinc and hit exit before re-enabling sli and I disable it again before i start boinc.

But the last 2 times its been crapping out. I think I will try a system shutdown and then restart to enable sli . Anyone else notice this issue ?

Are you getting the exit confirm dialog, are you choosing "Stop running etc"?
Sometimes it takes a few for the drivers to reset so maybe wait a minute or two between switching back and forth.

[Zloyd]

I was not getting the exit confirm dialogue have now enabled it.

[Zloyd]

Still getting errors , also dont seem to be getting a improvement in performance while crunching. Am I running a bad OC ? I am comparing to Snowcrash's and Whitefiredragon's 2xx cards but they are on xp64. Wonder if this is just win7 32 holding me back.

[WhiteFireDragon]

yeah your errors are most likely because of the overclocks because the error happens after a few minutes of the WU. if you get an error in under 15 seconds, the it's most likely because of the WU, but this doesn't seem like the case. lol it's a bad idea to clock your cards to try and match my numbers. my 295 is most likely a better clocker than the average 295. i'm running it at 1585mhz shaders with this co-op version, and XP also gives a good boost to the GPU utilization. if you switch to XP, you WU completion time will closer to mine. i have a regualr dual pcb 295 coming in soon, so i'll try to max out the clocks to see how it compares to the co-op version. maybe that one will be a better comparison to yours. what's your max stable OC?

btw, what's the difference between the gtx285 vs gtx275 in terms of crunching? both have same shader cores, with the 285 having barely faster shader clocks. any kind of shader overclocking will cancel out this advantage, and memory bandwidth and capacity does not matter, so is it safe to say a 275 = 285 when crunching?

[Zloyd]

Im thinking there is no way of really telling if I can come close to those numbers as long as I run 32 bit. Dont think im going to get close to those numbers with 32 , irrespective of the oc the numbers that are being churned out are more or less similar. Im not sure how much moving to win 7 64 will help this.

[Zloyd]

Where can I see projected gpu stats ?

Sorry White I didn't answer your question last time round but my stable gaming oc is 626c1100m corresponding shader for crunching I'm playing with the shader now but before I try something blindly I want to check my oc against a projected stat or something. I saw a page in the 480 thread or somewhere cant find it.

[Zloyd]

Have run into some driver issues. I cant get my 295 to sit at 3d clocks when I disable SLI , it used to happen before quite easily but now its a major pain in the arse and if I try to set the power management mode to max performance it goes to SLI on its own it seems.

I have tried driver sweeper but with no success , I have retried it last night and installed the latest whql drivers but the same symptoms remain. Any suggestions short of a complete reinstall ?

[Otis11]

When the clocks drop does the WU error? - Might be clocked to high...

That's the only thing I can think of... Not familiar with 295s

[Zloyd]

Nope its happening at stock clocks. Its dropping even before i can start boinc. And once i start boinc only 1 gpu clocks up and accepts work the other is just idling.

[WhiteFireDragon]

hmm weird problem. try enabling SLI and run a few stress test (3dmark and furmark) while monitoring the clocks and GPU usage with evga precision. if this seems fine, then disable SLI and crunch on it to see what happens.

[Otis11]

Hey guys, was just updating this and needed some information.

Since points seem to change quickly as they update the client, I axed that portion of the entries, but I'd really appreciate some more numbers for the cards we're running here at XS. (Especially the 240, 250, 270, 280 and all 4xx)

I also need a stock baseline of PPD for every card if possible and a PPD for the Strongest OC you've got (trying to get a range of what can be expected - but please don't exaggerate, this is all to get max ppd/$ for any given set up. People may use the info you submit to choice what to buy)

This is all the info I need:

Core/Shader/Mem - Your Name.......... PPD
.......... Brand: xxxx.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ xx% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: ???

Finally, does anyone know the steppings for OCing the 4 series?

Thanks for the help guys!

[WhiteFireDragon]

i'll try to posting results on all my cards, but i don't have a lot of results for baseling PPD, none of my CPU's and GPU (except one) are running stock :lol:. here's the first results on the minimum at maximum for my gt240's:

this is the worst case scenario for a gt240:
- Galaxy gt240 ddr3 512mb
- all stock clocks and voltages
- fan auto (40%) at 58C load
- 15.7k PPD (taken from RAC over a couple months of WU)
- notes: win7, WCG also loaded, machine used for daily tasks also

best case scenario for gt240:
- EVGA gt240 ddr5 512mb
- 405/1595/1701 clocks on stock voltages
- fan 85% at 67C load (temps a little unfair, it's sandwiched between two gtx295's with almost no room to breathe)
- 20.1K PPD (point projection using many different WU's types)
- notes: winXP, WCG not loaded, but it's sharing resources with 4 other GPU's in the system. you may get a little more if the GPU was by iteself

will look at stats for my other cards tonight

[Otis11]

Updated. - also added OS for reference.

Thanks for the info. :up:

[PoppaGeek]

GTX 460 MSI 1gig DDR
800/1600/1800(mem stock)(volts stock)
Vista 64, Fan on auto - 59% with GPU @ 65% usage temp 48c room at 25.5c
Almost 30k a day but some days I play LOTRO for 1-3 hours.

Not using SWAN_SYNC, 6 core running WCG.

[Otis11]

Thanks :up:

[PoppaGeek]

Thanks :up:

Thanks for all you do for the team. :clap:

[WhiteFireDragon]

ok, i put one of my gtx275's at stock clocks for a few days just to test for the lower end of PPD for a gtx275.

this is the worst case scenario for a gtx275:
- evga gtx275 ddr3 896mb
- all stock clocks and voltages (648/1458/1188mhz)
- fan auto (40%) at 71C load
- 34.7k PPD (taken from PPD projection averaged from several types of WU)
- notes: win7, WCG also loaded, machine used for daily tasks also

here's the upper end for my other gtx275, but not maxed out yet:
- EVGA gtx275 ddr3 896mb
- 468/1620/1134mhz, on stock voltages
- fan 80% at 69C load, in a small mATX case
- 42.0K PPD (point projection using many different WU's types)
- notes: winXP, WCG also loaded, sharing resources with another crunching gts250 in the system. PPD will be a little higher with HT off, no WCG, and single GPU

will look at stats for my gtx295's, gts250, and gtx260 later. btw Otis11, you have a typo on the first page. the gts240 you labeled is not retail parts you can buy, and it's based on the older g92 chip. i think you meant gt240. and brand for my second upper end gt240 is evga, not galaxy. there's also no such thing is a gtx270 :p:. i know these aren't important typos, but still might confuse some people trying to pick up a gts240 or gtx270 and can't find anywhere selling them :lol2:

[Otis11]

there's also no such thing is a gtx270 :p:. i know these aren't important typos, but still might confuse some people trying to pick up a gts240 or gtx270 and can't find anywhere selling them :lol2:

I was wonderin' why everyone was doing such a poor job of gettin stats for those. :ROTF:

Thanks. Anything I can do to make this better is always appreciated. :up:

[Kryja]

I've clocked my 275 a bit. Just upped the shaders and downed the core clock. I haven't touched the memory - there is no point right?

How do I find out expected ppd?

485/1630/1152 - ??? PPD
OS : xp 32bit .......... Brand: BFG.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ 65% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 70

[Snow Crash]

I've clocked my 275 a bit. Just upped the shaders and downed the core clock. I haven't touched the memory - there is no point right?

How do I find out expected ppd?

485/1630/1152 - ??? PPD
OS : xp 32bit .......... Brand: BFG.......... Cooling: Stock fan @ 65% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 70

Good work :up: ... and you're correct, there is not much gain (maybe 1% at best) for OCing memory and you're running the best OS for GPUGrid :yepp:
As for expected PPD ... that's kind of tricky, some WUs point better than others and some (although not recently) are double length so run a really long time and don't point particularly well, how stable is the card long term, it this a dedicated cruncher, etc. A ballpark firgure based on your last returned WU (first one with the new shader setting) gets to about 43k per day, however those WU types point the best so you might want to lower your expectations to about 40k per day.

[Kryja]

Cool thanks Snow. I've upped the fan to 70% now, gpu core is sat on 67. Nice little drop - just depends if I can sleep with it.

You think upwards of 1650 would be achievable?

[Snow Crash]

2XX shaders move in straps so your 1630 is really running at 1620.
(see the first post in this thread)
The next strap is at 1656 which, if you are not volting up will be pretty tight.
Then after that move on to 1674 and kill em :explode:
Here is how I test ....
Suspend Network Activity in BOINC.
Suspend Activity in BOINC.
Stop BOINC.
Make a copy of your BOINC data directory.
Mess with your OC and Restart BOINC.
If you get a Comp Error stop BOINC.
Delete BOINC data dir
Rename your backup to BOINC
MAKE ANOTHER COPY (can you guess I've forgotten this step more than once :rofl:)

Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you are stable.
Once you are good then turn Network Activity back on.

This prevents you from pulling too many WUs and GPUGrid shutting you off for the day :up:

Let us know how high you can go :sonic:
KASHIF_HIV are the most demanding and TONI_CAP is about the average.

[Kryja]

Cheers Snow :up:

I'll get to work after dinner and report back http://omg.wthax.org/smilies/emot-salute.gif

[Kryja]

1656 shader is safe. Ran a KASHIF_HIV for a couple of hours and no errors. Halted everything, copied my BOINC folder and upped to 1669 and it errored my wu after a while. Wiped my boinc, coppied my backup in its place, still had the errored wu :shrug:

I'm happy sticking at 1656 as I don't really want to start pumping volts into it. Not exactly going to get pie with just a 275 now am I :rolleyes: Just happy to be putting some work out. Temps were @ ~70 with 70% fan. Good enough me thinks.

[Snow Crash]

A 275 at 1656 is real nice ... you'll get some good point for sure :up:

[Otis11]

1656 - on stock volts?!? Dude that's pretty sweet!


And do we have a ballpark for overclocking the 4xx series?

[Snow Crash]

Sorry I had not posted ...
480s get interesting as each card has been hand set for their own default v at the factory so we all have a different base to start from
My base is 1038 (ouch, I've seen people bragging about much lower but you get ewhat you get:shrug:)
Anyway ... at 1138 mv I can go up to 1736
My sweet spot is 1050 mv for 1595 which I think is :up:

[roki977]

It is nice clock for 1.05v. My 470 works at 1530 at same voltage.

I am testing 1560 and it looks good for now.

http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/2077/newpicture016.th.jpg (http://img695.imageshack.us/i/newpicture016.jpg/)

[LC_Nab]

Is it possible to get help on a good and stable OC for two GTX 465 and yes they are wc, They are both MSI N465GTX-M2D1G . So far they have been crunching since I got them xD I feel like I need more crunching powah !!!, I barerly get to play on them because of college ( 9 hours ) .

Thank you

[lkiller123]

Is it possible to get help on a good and stable OC for two GTX 465 and yes they are wc, They are both MSI N465GTX-M2D1G . So far they have been crunching since I got them xD I feel like I need more crunching powah !!!, I barerly get to play on them because of college ( 9 hours ) .

Thank you

You can try to unlock it to a GTX470 to get some more points, possibly some PIE.:D

[LC_Nab]

You can try to unlock it to a GTX470 to get some more points, possibly some PIE.:D

: O... I tought that this models cant be unlocked but hey, Ill try it, also yes Pie please !!! :D

[Plan.B]

Galaxy GTX 480

803/1606/1900 - Plan.B - last 7 day average is 50,152 ppd

Volts: Stock
Cooling: watercooling, gpu only
Temps: 107 - 109 F loaded

This is a 7 day 24/7 stable loaded oc. I've just started playing with this card, but it overclocks nicely so far. Watercooling the gpu, with the rest of the card naked, dropped the gpu and pcb temps by over 20C.

[lkiller123]

Swan_sync on?

[roki977]

59.8k yesterday. Not bad for 470 in win7.

[Snow Crash]

LC Nab: A pair of 465s ... I bet you will be able to get some nice points with those. What tools and experience do you have overclocking?

Plan B. - Nice .. we like stable better than fast :up:. I'm with lkiller123 in thinking you are not using SWAN_SYNC=0. We realize this uses a full CPU thread in conjuntion with your GPU and some people don't want to do that. Either way ... nice card!

roki977: Good score ... let it run for a week straight out and your average PPD will climb higher.

[LC_Nab]

LC Nab: A pair of 465s ... I bet you will be able to get some nice points with those. What tools and experience do you have overclocking?

Plan B. - Nice .. we like stable better than fast :up:. I'm with lkiller123 in thinking you are not using SWAN_SYNC=0. We realize this uses a full CPU thread in conjuntion with your GPU and some people don't want to do that. Either way ... nice card!

roki977: Good score ... let it run for a week straight out and your average PPD will climb higher.

I have no experience at all on GPU ocing ( I know I'm a nub :( ), only tools I have is the MSI afterburner thats about it xD

[roki977]

That is all you need. Unlock voltage (if your gpu use Voltera regulation u ll be able to use volt. reg. ) controll and try ocing. What card u use?

Snow Crash, I would love to let my 470 run for a week straight but i own only one pc for everything..

[Plan.B]

Swan_sync on?

Not yet. The setup with WCG running was easy without digging into the settings, so I just let it rip for a week or so to test oc stability and temps. The next step is set swan-sync on and start bumping up the oc.

[LC_Nab]

That is all you need. Unlock voltage (if your gpu use Voltera regulation u ll be able to use volt. reg. ) controll and try ocing. What card u use?

I'm using two of these VGA MSI| N465GTX-M2D1G, I have read about the unlock to a 470, But im skeptical about it, luckily my wc blocks just arrived, so I shall find out if they have 10 mem chips or just 8 .

[Kryja]

Update:

My 275 errored on a KASHIF_HIVPR wu at some point monday. I backed my clocks down to 485/1652/1152 monday evening, just a 4mhz drop on the shadders, and it has successfully completed another KASHIF_HIVPR wu and been going strong since. I'm still in the 1656 strap so it's all good :cool:

[roki977]

I'm using two of these VGA MSI| N465GTX-M2D1G, I have read about the unlock to a 470, But im skeptical about it, luckily my wc blocks just arrived, so I shall find out if they have 10 mem chips or just 8 .

I think you can unlock shaders on every 465 regardless of mempry chips and only shaders are important for gpugrid.


http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/520/gtx465ocs.th.png (http://img441.imageshack.us/i/gtx465ocs.png/)

Under the water you can use 1.087v with no problems and you shoud get at least 1500mhz or more if you are lucky

Fermi loves cold. My 470 under ln2 with 1.15v goes over 1900mhz easy(1730 air), with stock mem. memory freq even more. If you overclocking for gpugrid leave mem. on stock.

[Plan.B]

Galaxy GTX 480

809/1618/1954 - Plan.B

Volts: Stock
Cooling: watercooling, gpu only
Temps: 107 - 109 F loaded

Swan_sync=0

Win Vista 64

Daily average over the last week is down to 42.5k

???

GPU usage as per EVGA Precision is at 65-66%

WCG is running, 7 wcg threads and 1 gpug

[werdwerdus]

disabled hyper threading to increase ppd a bit

[Snow Crash]

even without disabling HT if you tell Boinc to use one less thread than you really have then GPUGrid will use it and you will get much better scores.

[Plan.B]

btw, cpu is i7 960 (ES) at 4.0 GHz. RAC is climbing, up to 48k now. I probably haven't let it run long enough on the new settings to get a good daily average.

[SMTB1963]

...SMTB1963 ... go to EVGA's website and download Precision ... then unlink the shaders / core (this is pretty easy button to see) and slide the shader up to say 1548 ... should be nice and easy, likely stable and will get you a little quicker runtimes :toast:
Post over in the OC help thread if you need some more step by step.

Hello everyone,

A couple of months ago I picked up a second EVGA GTX275 SC (648/1458/1188 clocks), primarily because I wanted to ditch SoftTH in favor of nVidia surround for my triple monitor setup. We finally got some cooler weather here, so the other day I fired up GPUGRID to see what the cards would produce. I ran them both between 8pm - 2pm for a couple of days (got too hot in the man-cave during the afternoons), then we had more cool weather on 10/2 and I've been running them 24hrs ever since. Looks like they're each averaging ~33k/day (while running 8 WCG threads concurrently), which is pretty much in line with my expectations .

But I'd like to see if I can get a little more out of them. Snow Crash suggested bumping the shader clocks a little, and posting in this thread if I need any assitance. Now in the past, I've briefly experimented with a few MILD overclocks on my cpu, but I've never tried anything on a GPU. In other words, I'm a complete n00b when it comes to this sort of thing.

:am:

I've done a little reading up on GPU overclocking; here's my current understanding of the process at a high-level:

Run GPU stress/stability tool (I have FurMark)
Run OC software (I have Rivatuner)
Unlink core/shader/memory clocks and increase MHz values in small increments
If artifacts/system lockups occur, back down to last stable clock value/restart system if necessary
Watch temps (keep below 80c?)

Is this roughly accurate?

Most of the OC guides I've come across seem to be oriented toward increasing gaming performance - they talk about stepping the core clocks first, then shaders, then memory. But in reading through this thread, I guess it's only the shaders that really matter for GPU computing. So before I try my hand at this, I have a couple of basic questions:

1. Is Rivatuner ok, or should I use EVGA precision? (I'm on 258.96 driver)
2. I'm assuming I should step the shaders according to the "Scale for G200b" table in the first post...correct?
3. I guess I leave the core clock alone, but do I need to bump the memory clock each time I step up the shader clock - i.e. do these need to be kept in sync?
4. After increasing shader MHz, how long should FurMark run before considering the frequency stable and moving to the next step?
5. Since I'm working with dual cards, should I OC one then the other, or both in tandem?
6. What kind of temps should I be concerned about for these cards? It's currently ~72F ambient and the cards are running 67C with GPU utilization at 65-67% running GPUGRID (which seems OK). I ran FurMark when I bought the second card and GPU utilization was 94% or more (I don't recall what the temps were)...what temps should I expect when running FurMark?

I'm very much a crawl/walk before run kind of guy, so I'm looking for a "mild" to maybe "medium" result (at least to begin with). Also, please let me know of any pitfalls I may encounter. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

:help::help::help:

EDIT: System specs -

ASUS P6T6 WS Revo
Intel i7 920 (stock clocks)
6GB OCZ3X1600LV6GK @1600MHz
EVGA GTX275 SC x2
Corsair H50
Corsair TX750

Regards,

[Otis11]

1. I prefer EVGA precision - It has just worked better for me in the past. (But to be fair I had more experience when I used it)

2. Yes... And you can probably just jump the shaders to 1512. (1476 is you want to walk first :p:)

3. I like to bump the memory also and keep the core close to what it should be if it were locked, but that's just me. Many here leave the mem at stock and drop the core below stock.

4. Furmark - yeah I mean if you really want to. I have yet to see a card that can't do 1476, so I would recommend jumping there and testing, then going to 1512. Also, GPUGrid itself is a much better test of shaders than Furmark. I would just try it (disable network so you don't burn through your Queue though)

5. When I had two, I did both in tandem until I hit a problem, dropped both one step and bumped up each. (Turned out neither could get above 1512 without extra volts though... and one card couldn't overvolt)

6. I don't worry about Furmark temps...If it's below 70C on GPUGrid I'm happy. I even run up to 80s in the summer - but not for long stints. Only gets that hot during mid day. But then again I'm not very cautious about temps. I say it's going to be old in 3-4 years so I'll get rid of it before I'll ever kill it. :shrug:

I believe that's everything, but I'll go through this more thoroughly later. Feel free to point out anything I overlooked.

(And get that 920 OCed! :p: Vcor 1.275, VQPI 1.300 mult 21 bus 180+ easy - maybe even 200 for 4.2 Ghz. With your cooling you're golden :up:)

[Snow Crash]

WTF ... I wrote a big long post yesterday and was certain I put it up???
Odd how it looked and read so much like Otis so no real loss :rofl:

[SMTB1963]

4. Furmark - yeah I mean if you really want to. I have yet to see a card that can't do 1476, so I would recommend jumping there and testing, then going to 1512. Also, GPUGrid itself is a much better test of shaders than Furmark. I would just try it (disable network so you don't burn through your Queue though)

I'm not married to FurMark by any means. I just got it because the most recent 275 came from EVGA's "B-Stock", and I wanted to stress the card to make sure everything was kosher with it. If I can do without it, GREAT.

So as far as testing goes, do I just start GPUGRID, step up shader clocks 1 notch and watch for errors in BOINC Manager? How long should it run before considering the OC stable? Do I need to complete the WUs and check for errors at the GPUGRID site before moving to the next step?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm sort of a nervous ninny about this. Maybe I'm trying to make it too complicated? :shrug:


(And get that 920 OCed! :p: Vcor 1.275, VQPI 1.300 mult 21 bus 180+ easy - maybe even 200 for 4.2 Ghz. With your cooling you're golden :up:)

Hehe, I should've known better than to admit to having an i7 at stock around here. :shakes: I was going to delve into CPU OCing using the dedicated cruncher I picked up last May (AMD 1055t), but the wife loaned it out to one of her (recently divorced) friends because "...her kids need their own computer..." :upset: I told her that Santa had better bring those kids their own for Christmas...

Anyway, thanks for your help!

Regards,

[Snow Crash]

The real test are the KASHIF_HIV type of WUs. They are the most demanding and will run a little hotter than any other WU on GPUGrid.
We could go through the whole process of suspending network activity in boinc, close boinc, make a copy of the boinc data folder, up your shaders, tuen boinc back on. if you get a driver crash you can close boinc, restore you backup (make another new copy) and start again. That being said, if you stick with 1478 I would just turn it on and let it run, no need to be nervous. Certainly open Precision now and again to make sure your not getting too hot (the GPU will automatically shut down before it burns itself out). Right ... set the fan speed manually ... crank it up to about 75% and see what temps your gpus get to.

[roki977]

MY new gtx460 1gb is stable at 1660mhz, 1v. Temps are around 60c.
In this setup 470+460 it is around 60% slower then gtx470.

[Plan.B]

RAC is up to 54k+. GTX 480 at 822/1644/1990. Stock volts. Haven't had a single blip yet oc'ing this card, so I suspect there is more to go. I'm still excited about the 20+C drop in gpu and pcb temps with watercooling. 4x120; 2 heater-cores.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i256/truckstopcbrambo/Capture5.jpg

[Kryja]

This had slipped onto the second page. With the Super Computer Week coming up I thought it'd be a good idea to bump this :up:

[Fhqwhgads6680]

ok guys I am having a bit of a problem... I had gpugrid added to boinc and it was running fine. I suspended it to play with overclocking my new GTX 560. I tested it to be very stable gaming and though ok well I can turn gpugrid back on then. As soon as I did, the 2 task it had downloaded "finished" and said "computation error" I update to try to get new work and now the servers won't give me diddly.

I have tried rebooting, detaching, re-attaching, resetting the project. just about everything I can think of and since last night it won't give me any new work...

any ideas??

[Fhqwhgads6680]

ok guys I am having a bit of a problem... I had gpugrid added to boinc and it was running fine. I suspended it to play with overclocking my new GTX 560. I tested it to be very stable gaming and though ok well I can turn gpugrid back on then. As soon as I did, the 2 task it had downloaded "finished" and said "computation error" I update to try to get new work and now the servers won't give me diddly.

I have tried rebooting, detaching, re-attaching, resetting the project. just about everything I can think of and since last night it won't give me any new work...

any ideas??

[Otis11]

Unfortunately once the servers mark you as returning bad work, you just have to wait 24 hours unless you want to reinstall...

Whenever you OC it, I try to save my BOINC folder on a flash drive and disconnect from the internet so that if I kill the tasks I can just replace the folder and try again.

Good luck :up:

[stoneageman]

The server is now being silly. It sends out a known duff wu, then blacklists you for 6 hours when you return it with an error :shakes:

[lkiller123]

The server is now being silly. It sends out a known duff wu, then blacklists you for 6 hours when you return it with an error :shakes:

Same here...:shakes:

[Kryja]

Would explain why our numbers have dipped a little :shakes:

[SMTB1963]

The server is now being silly. It sends out a known duff wu, then blacklists you for 6 hours when you return it with an error :shakes:

Fortunately this hasn't affected me yet. I was a little concerned when I saw SAM's post, because I just fired up my 275s & my 570 last night.

BTW, my 275s seem to be on pace to produce significantly more work than when I ran them for SC week...did they improve the app somehow since Jan 1-8?

Back on topic: Otis11, if you're still keeping up with the data in your first post:


my 275s are at 576/1656/1188, ~70C, 35-40K ppd (now maybe more?)
my 460s are at 828/1656/1566, ~60C, 34-36K ppd
my 570 is at 842/1684/1652, ~65C (no reliable ppd figures yet)


(And get that 920 OCed! :p: Vcor 1.275, VQPI 1.300 mult 21 bus 180+ easy - maybe even 200 for 4.2 Ghz. With your cooling you're golden :up:)

Done! (finally). I'm probably one of the few oddballs that OC'd his GPUs before his CPUs. :wth:

[Otis11]

Fortunately this hasn't affected me yet. I was a little concerned when I saw SAM's post, because I just fired up my 275s & my 570 last night.

BTW, my 275s seem to be on pace to produce significantly more work than when I ran them for SC week...did they improve the app somehow since Jan 1-8?

Back on topic: Otis11, if you're still keeping up with the data in your first post:


my 275s are at 576/1656/1188, ~70C, 35-40K ppd (now maybe more?)
my 460s are at 828/1656/1566, ~60C, 34-36K ppd
my 570 is at 842/1684/1652, ~65C (no reliable ppd figures yet)



Done! (finally). I'm probably one of the few oddballs that OC'd his GPUs before his CPUs. :wth:

It looks to me like they might have changed something in the last 2 days... My average for both of them has been higher than normal. Anyone else notice anything?

And thanks for the info, I'll get it added later today. If I missed any data you guys have posted let me know.

Out of curiousity, what'd you end up OCing that thing to?

[SMTB1963]

Out of curiousity, what'd you end up OCing that thing to?

It's at 3.6GHz, under-volted to 1.125v IIRC. Can't remember the other settings atm. But I did apply the same settings to the i7 950 in the wife's machine as well - and my 1055t is also at 3.6Ghz. Probably plenty of room for improvement in all cases, but I'm rather pleased with the results so far (given my naiveté with overclocking). :yepp:

EDIT: On the question of a new & improved app, there's this thread (http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=2411) on the GPUGRID forums that may explain the improvements I'm seeing on my 275s. I guess time will tell...

[Otis11]

Hey guys, I'm going to try to get enough information to redo this thread this weekend as the ppd figures have changed since it was done last... I could really use some help.

Any cards you have, please post up the information and I'll add it all this weekend (and clear out the old info if I can get enough new stuff). Here's the form:


702/1512/1188 - Otis11.......... 38.3KPPD
.......... OS: Win 7.......... Brand: EVGA .......... Cooling: Stock fan@40% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 62C

TIA guys. The more info we can get, the better advice we can give crunchers. :up:

[josh1980]

Mine is as follows:

EVGA GTX 275 896MB - 260.99 drivers with XP x64. Settings are 700/1600/1200 and PPD is 48k. Stock voltage. Fan at 60% at 61C
EVGA GTX 480 1.5GB - 260.99 drivers with Win 7 Ultimate x64 - Settings are 802/1604/1900 and PPD is 59k. Stock voltage. Fan at 65% and 58C.

[PoppaGeek]

EVGA GTX 260 - 197.45 Vista 64 626/1350/1053 fan @70% 54c all stock. 34k
M.S.I. GTX 460 - 260.99 Vista 64 800/1600/1800 fan auto@60% 48c all stock. 35k

260 is on HTPC and gets some use, not daily.
460 is in daily use PC.
Second GTX 260 get 31k but used alot including games.

My RAC went up a little recently. Hard to tell to much by it as usage on these PCs is not always the same day-to-day. :shrug:

[SMTB1963]

bump, dammit!

(Just thinking this thread might come in handy for any new GPUGRIDders that might come our way during WCG SC Week)

BTW, anyone know what the recommended driver version is these days? I was on 280.26 when I started back up last week; cards ran decidedly hot. Just switched to 285.62 today & things seem cooler, but I'm wondering if I should revert to an earlier driver...anybody know?

[Otis11]

Good thinking SMBT. If I can get all this info i'll update the OP:


702/1512/1188 - Otis11.......... 38.3KPPD
.......... OS: Win 7.......... Brand: EVGA .......... Cooling: Stock fan@40% .......... Voltage: Stock .......... Temp: 62C

Until then I'm stuck - Still crunching with the 260 for now. Got one 570 crunching but it's not in my computer so I haven't had the chance to OC it yet.

Plus I think I need to scrap the OP, or the numbers anyway - too much has changed since then. I'll do that this weekend and update with as much info as I have, so post up what you can guys!

Sorry, I don't know about the drivers though.

[PoppaGeek]

Trying my GTX 660 TI on here again. Do core clocks and mem clocks still not have much impact? With a small OC I have 75% usage and 63c. Seems a bit mild.
Also is it still best to leave one CPU core free? Uses 50-75%, mostly 50%. Will WCG sharing the core impact performance?

EDIT:
Second WU is using 93% GPU, 68c but less CPU. First finished in 3 hours. So poking around others stats I see different length and point WUs.

[Snow Crash]

GPU utilization and overall performance is tied to some basic factors, presented in my best estimate of importance

1. CPU core - leave one free, otherwise results will be substantially slower.
2. OS - Linux <best>, WinXP <good>, Win Vista and up <WDDM crap> ... maybe 10%-15% for the same WU between Linux and Win7.
3. GPU core - almost linear performance wise on a well balanced machine - my660Ti is rock solid at ~1220 but once I get much higher not so much.
4. GPU mem - not sure this makes more than 1-2% diff but my 660Ti is rock solid at ~3200 so that's what I run.
5. CPU OC - tested with i7-920, i7-980X, and a 4670K ... almost no difference if OC'd. I'm not sure how "old" of a CPU would start causing a bottleneck.
6. The research parameters (the different types of WUs) - with no control over this we just have to accept what we get

[PoppaGeek]

Good answer thanks. :up:

OK I am missing something. Everything I find to free up 1 core for GPUGrid from WCG tasks is Boinc wide not WCG specific. There is Tools>Computing Preferences>On Multiprocessor Systems, Use at Most and there is <NCPU> in cc_config.xml. When I ran E@H I did it thru the web site settings and in BoincManager. Have looked thru some postings but can't find anything. What am I missing?

OK guess I found it, use the Boinc Manager settings. But if the settings are in Boinc Manager how does that free up a CPU for GPUGrid? Is it still not 85% of all CPUs?

[Snow Crash]

Sorry I did not get back to you on this ...
I use an app_config file in the to tell boinc that a GPU Grid gpu task needs 1 cpu (this overrides the settings the gpugrid project assigns for cpu usage). I'll post the app_config details when I get home tonight (about 8 hours from now).


this goes in an app_config.xml file which is placed in the GPUGrid's \project folder



<app_config>

<app>
<name>acemdlong</name>
<max_concurrent>1</max_concurrent>
<gpu_versions>
<gpu_usage>1.00</gpu_usage>
<cpu_usage>1.00</cpu_usage>
</gpu_versions>
</app>

</app_config>