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The tighter timings have lost me about 20mhz on the mem clock artifact free, overall the score is still up a bit though. Not messed with changing trrd back to 10 or trp back to 9 yet to see which (got a feeling its those) is causing the artifacting and what performance drop that would cause. The fact that I can bench to 866mhz with artifacts would suggest that a vmem mod would clear it up.
That 866 is with default volts? like 1.82 or so?Quote:
Originally Posted by PiLsY
Garret - Yup...the memory on this card is awesome, just the core seems rubbish. I've got no working voltmeter, so I can't check the vmem, but theres no reason why it would be higher than any others as its just an off the shelf MSI. Regarding the vmem mod...seeing as i've got no voltmeter can someone give me an idea of how pencilled in the resistor should be? Im guessing 4 or 5 strokes with a 2B should be enough. Hope I've got a pencil - lol.
Been doing more testing with the modded memory timings bios. It appears I was hasty before when I claimed it gave me 350 points... I've been testing all morning to find which timing was giving me artifacts, so I've been changing every timing back to default and testing with the others tightened. It turns out its TRCDRD 9 thats causing my issue - set it to 10 and the artifacts vanished. However, during the course of the testing I came to realise that this bios is doing absolutely nothing for my scores. With default GTO bios I now get 5512 3dmarks. With the modified bios I got 5524. With modded bios and TRCDRD 10 I got 5529. With the GTO bios with TRP 8 and TRRD 9 I got 5521. The performance gain here really is negligible. However, tightening the timings can massively reduce your memory overclock, so overall its best to stick with the standard GTO bios. Its even got me wondering whether loosening timings may be a good idea. Mind you I saw no perfromance boost when I tried samsungs BJ11 settings which were conciderably looser than the GTX settings. I'll test tonight with a couple of runs on 01 and 03 using the GTO standard vs the modified bios (but trcdrd 10 so no artifacts) and post my results. I'm guessing 01 and 03 may show more of a difference due to the higher points scale, but even so, I'll be surprised if I get more than 100marks extra in 01 and 50 extra in 03.
Matt.
What CPU are you using? Looks like your 06 score is down in the mild clocked single core territory. And, more memory clocks <> more performance. You need to balance the two.
The tRRD at 10 is 2 LOOSER than stock 1.4 ns spec. I set it to 9 to increase the clocks a tad.
I have pushed my card to 710/825 with stock voltage to score 6800 in 3DMark06.
As a tip, once you find your memory peak, roll back 10 Mhz on the memory. Scores usually improve. Even with 2.1V into the RAM, most GTX cards barely get to 850. So, just keep it balanced.
Pilsy, I did this last nigh with a sharpened pencil and it seems that it is .01 volts a stroke.
Cheers Robbie - 1 stroke at a time it is then :). Which resistor did you do, the left or the right?
HeavyH20 - I'm on a 3700+ San Diego @ 2.75ghz. Also I tried TRP 8 and TRRD 9 earlier this afternoon, did absolutely nothing for my score.
Just had the heatsink off, core contact is perfect - damn. Guess I've just got a rubbish GPU. The PWM regulators underneath the little black heatsink didn't have very good contact though. The three closest to the back edge of the card weren't touchng at all - now sorted it, may help. Will post up later.
From my pic, it's the left resistor...Quote:
Originally Posted by PiLsY
May I sincerely suggest you do NOT pencil without a Multimeter!!!!!! :nono: :nono: :fact:
Heh - dont worry I didn't go overboard.
Since reseating the heatsink my core will now clock to 680 - bonus!
However, since reseating the heatsink and doing the vmem mod my memory clock has dropped significantly - b@lls!
I've wiped the pencil mod off, but still isn't clocking like it did. Im getting artifacts at anything over 825mhz now. Before I was artifact free at 851. I can still run at 851, its just that within a minute of starting ati tool is spewing errors and trying its best to paint the furry box yellow one dot at a time...
In all honesty I may just need better cooling. My motherboard is red hot around the northbridge. The entire 7900GTO is too hot to touch after an hours gaming (I have a heatpipe burn to proove it!), and my room turns into a sweatshop if I don't have the window open - lol. GPU temp is currently @ 65c after 5 mins of ati tool.
Matt.
Some results without mods. These were so easy .....boring :rolleyes:
06:
Attachment 52193
05:
Attachment 52194
Maybe more results with mods later.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=120029
Seems to be settling down again now. Now @ 680/840 for 30 mins no artifacts. Guess it must just be the thermal pads bedding in again. Looks like I'm 5mhz up on the core. Should be able to bench at 690/866 with severe artifacting. The vmem not helping the mem oc has me confused though. As I said before though, I'm starting to suspect temperature is to blame. GPU is now @ approx. 70c.
Matt.
Those are lower than the others, be careful not to ruin the balance. The heatsink touches the first two columns closest to the GPU, the others...not.Quote:
Originally Posted by PiLsY
As for better cooling, we all want it, but it's not available to buy, so you'll need to make one yourself somehow. I wanted to make my own cooling but realized the stock is very good except it does not cool the RAM as it should.
I mean better cooling in general. I need to get my case temps down so the gfx heatsink is sitting in cooler air. At the mo my case temp is approaching 40c. Ive got 2 x 120mm fans, both at about 7v and my psu, thats it. And one of the 120mm fans is in front of 4 hdds which won't be helping airflow. I think really i need to watercool it if im gonna go further (have had several wc rigs in the past). Need to get the cpu heat and northbridge heat out of the case.
I am having some trouble with mine being stable now. I flashed it back to stock from 650/800, and I penciled the ram to 1.92v. I have 2 120's blowing on it, but it won't last 10 min in css without crashing. Any ideas? I have a maze4 and I will put that on it when I get my water cooling setup put together later this week. I hope this card isn't dying on me.
-rob
Robbie - have you removed the pencil mod? Also was CSS stable before the pencil mod? Other than that, try reseating the card. If neither of those work then clock down the core to say 275mhz (2d speed) for 3d and see if it still crashes. If so clock down the ram to 500. If it still crashes...errr. Not sure... :). Good luck.
Mines fine now. I think the initial problems were down to the thermal compound and pads bedding in again. Now at 680 / 850 stable and artifact free, so ive gained 5mhz core :D.
Matt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SF3D
Yup, the power of Conroe. Looks like you gained on the CPU score of 3K. Same video performance, however, but mine was OC'd over 700. Those are killer scores for a spec run! I for one, am still stuck with a dual core Opteron for now.
Sell opteron ASAP :p:
HeavyH20
I remember using your 7800gtx bios that gained 200-300 points in 05 mark at the same clocks and it clocked almost the same with tighter timings. Anything similar with GTOs for a huge score jump? :)
It was decent until the Conroes appeared. Waiting on Kentsfield. I figure a Kentfield/G80 combo should be a decent setup for a bit. The Opteron is not worth selling. I will push it down the line to one of the other three PC's.
As for the BIOS. it was posted earlier. Using the same premise as the 7800 GTX.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=149
And, PiLsY, the VREG cooler needs to contact all the surfaces evenly. The other flaw on the older cards was the mixing of vreg components so they were not the same height. I saw a few cards, and most of the problem cards were uneven. So, I pull the TIM off the higher ones, use a thin layer of Ceramique and use better TIM on the lower row. Keeps the pressure even.
Well guys my card is dying as we speak, I took off the hs and as5'd it, and it dropped 3c idle, not bad. Then I ran 3d mark 06 and it crashed during it. So I rebooted and to my horror the tell tale signs of my card dying where there. Now I am running in safe mode, and I just requested a rma from evga. Hope it turns out well.
Best of luck to the rest of you,
-Rob
That's exactly what my card does if I have PEG link mode on any setting except disabled in bios. Identical screen. Does make me wonder (given the poor core oc and the yellow dots in ati tool at defaults speeds and below) whether my card is slightly faulty. It reminds me a lot of my 9800se which I couldn't use the disabled pipes on. You could run ati tool for hours on that and it wouldn't detect any errors, even though you couldn't actually see what it was rendering. Same issue here, the yellow dots don't apparently count as artifacts. Time will tell whether it needs an RMA.
Sorry about your card robbie, but check your motherboard bios settings before you send it back, even try a "load setup defaults". You've nothing to lose at this point :).
Matt.
HeavyH2O - Since I sorted the vreg heatsink it gets RED hot now - before it ran cool. It was only contacting the 2 banks of chips nearset the gpu, the outermost row was basically untouched. I used white gloop on the 2 rows nearest the gpu and built up the pads on the outside row using the pads removed from the others. They're a full 2mm lower, so each one basically has 3 of those pads on so I could get some decent contact/pressure. The temp of that black heatsink during 3dmark though is over 80c....
Matt.
Well, atleast they are no longer broiling without a heatsink. I had a couple of cards that started showing the issues, then did the VREG heatsink fix and the problems went away. The chips are good to 150C, but, if the heatsink is at 80C you can only imagine what those components would hit without it.
I don't really like the idea of anything in my case being 80c or over ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by HeavyH20
Couldn't you just stick a thin piece of copper between the sink and those 3 chips?
They lie lower as people say... that would make up for the height difference.
Hey guys,
Now I have played with the card. and the performance is stunning for such a cheap card, my scores are in sig.
Anyone got any ideas for some improved scores? Use HeavyH20's bios + remove bios delta.?
/Grau
Anyone can tell me a good way to monitor your gpu temperature while running 3dmarks ? ... the best solution I founded is to open the nvidia temperature tab and between each 3dmark test I can see the temps 3-4 seconds ...
Last this I want to ask you guys is how high the temperature can go on a 7900 GTO ? ...
Thanks and sorry for the newbs questions I didn't OCed a video card since 6 years :)
I got myself a GTO also and pushed from 650/660 to 705/770 with stock cooling and no MODS what are the settings that they can go to?