Is it worth to install better cooling in order to get better boost?

[dienicy]

|Hi,

I have EVGA 04G-P4-2673-KR. It will spin up to 1150 MHz, but thats record. More often is 1136 MHz.
I was planning on replacing stock cooler for better but temperatures are lower than I expected so I have no pressure right now.
As in the title, can I expect better performance if I get GPU temperature lower by ~10-15?C? That'l be 60-70?C as right now is up to 80?C.

Thanks

[CryptiK]

Yes you will, first throttle point is 70*C and it'll start dropping just before to try and keep it under 70. It's throttled again by 80, again at 85 etc

here's the graph and discussion thread on on TPU

[Ket]

Forgetting about boost, lower temps is always better, simple as that. While most people seem to "accept" 80c temps as being "fine", they certainly are not. Make no mistake, most stock coolers look far fancier than they used to but their performance is still woefully inadequate weather it be in cooling performance, noise levels, or both. Case in point would be the HD7950 Vapor-X which I just reviewed HERE (had to delay it for some time, all explained in the review). You might be aware, but the Vapor-X uses a technology called a vapor chamber, simply put its kind of a hybrid between air and water cooling. Anyway. temps with the Vapor-X cooler when overclocked reached in excess of 80c, by contrast fitting a Gelid Icy Vision A and using the same OC showed what a good cooler can really do, with the Icy Vision temps did not exceed 58c.

[Ryleh]

I have to agree with Ket. My GTX 670 FTW not only clocks higher (1293mhz/3800mhz) but runs 30c cooler than it did on stock cooling when it was overclocked with a modest 25/100+ boost(before I became more familiar with kepler OCing). It's completely silent as well and the loudest thing in my computer is my HDD. I'm using an AA Twin Turbo II by the way.

[Boulard83]

yep ! as other told, latest kepler card have onbios clocking algorithme that clock the card if XYZ data are within some margin.

I installed an Accelero TTII on my GTX670 and the only tweak ive done is allowing 110% powertarget. result are ~1100mhz while gaming since the card remain under 55?c.

All that in silence

[CryptiK]

Depending on cooling solution used the price: performance ratio could be pretty poor.

[Filter]

its all about voltage and your power limiter

[LedHed]

Kepler boost is based on dedicated circuitry talking between the hardware and software. Multiple things are taken into account and one of them is temperature, so yes it will help the possible boost speed. However other things out of your control, like power consumption/headroom, are also taken into account and can not be changed by the end user (aside from bumping the power target to max in GPU OCing Apps). You are better off upgrading your cooling to extend the life of your hardware and also possibly increase your boost (and core) clock. There is more than just temps and power taken into account, but that is the two main factors.

From the Kepler White Paper (http://www.geforce.com/Active/en_US/...aper-FINAL.pdf):

When determining the thermal design power (TDP) limit of our GPUs, NVIDIA engineers monitor the GPU?s power consumption while running a wide range of real-world 3D applications in a worst-case thermal environment. We then set the GPU?s clock speeds based on these results.
Under real world conditions running today?s latest games, however, most GPUs will never approach their TDP; power consumption varies from one application to another, and most users don?t run their GPUs under worst-case environmental conditions.
In cases where the GPU isn?t fully taxed, it would be beneficial if the GPU could increase its clock frequency to deliver improved 3D performance and/or higher image quality with richer graphics effects enabled. This is where NVIDIA?s GPU Boost technology comes in.
A combination of hardware and software technology that works with the GeForce GTX 680, GPU Boost works in the background, dynamically adjusting the GPU?s graphics clock speed automatically, based on GPU operating conditions. Dedicated hardware circuitry continually monitors GPU power consumption. GPU Boost automatically adjusts clocks to achieve the maximum possible clock speed while remaining within a predefined power target.

GPU Boost operates completely autonomously with no game profiles and no intervention required by the end user, providing an instant performance boost to gamers.
GeForce GTX 680?s base 3D frequency is 1006MHz, which is called the ?Base Clock.? This is the minimum 3D frequency the GPU is guaranteed to achieve running under load in TDP apps (strenuous real-world applications that push power utilization to the Thermal Design Power limits of a GPU).

The ?Boost Clock? is the average clock frequency the GPU will run under load in many typical non-TDP apps that require less GPU power consumption. On average, the typical Boost Clock provided by GPU Boost in GeForce GTX 680 is 1058MHz, an improvement of just over 5%. The Boost Clock is a typical clock level achieved while running a typical game in a typical environment.
However, in many cases the GPU will have additional power headroom available and will automatically increase the Boost Clock even higher than 1058MHz. As long as the GPU remains under its power target, GPU Boost will seamlessly increase the GPU Clock: clock speeds of 1.1GHz or higher have been observed internally in testing various non-TDP apps.

GPU Boost is fully compatible with GPU overclocking. Using third-party overclocking utilities provided by NVIDIA board partners, GeForce GTX 680 users can adjust the GPU?s power target to enable higher clock speeds. Once the power target has been increased, the GPU can be overclocked by raising the GPU clock offset. As you can see in the screenshot below, some GeForce GTX 680 cards are able to scale to much higher clock speeds:

The white paper doesn't flat out mention temperatures, but TDP (mentioned multiple times) is directly connected to temperature/cooling (TDP = Thermal Design Power). It is the maximum amount of heat/power the cooling system is required to dissipate. When you increase the power limit in say MSI Afterburner, an aftermarket cooling setup will be better equipped to dissipate this increased heat/power than the stock design is. You will also get better stability and possibly your boost clock will run at a higher speed for a longer period than it would with the stock cooler, especially with the power limit increased.

[Radical_53]

But it's safe to say that as long as there's no artificial limit within the bios, and the card stays below 70?C, there's no advantage of spending money on better cooling, right?

I'm using a Gigabyte Windforce card at the moment so TDP headroom is fine already. The heatsink it comes with can be really good as long as it has proper contact: Out of the 5 people I know using this card personally, the 3 (myself included) that sanded the block got much better results afterwards. Only two out of three heatpipes even had contact to the GPU.
The card never exceeds ~65?C even with 112% TDP and roughly 1300MHz core. IIRC that's the first time stock cooling did a decent job for me

[AH64]

More cooling, the better... always

[Radical_53]

If it were free, yes. It's not worth the hassle and effort anymore though. You gain nothing and pay lots of money still.

[fuzelogic]

I've noticed the my GTX 680 FTW card was running about 168 degrees before adding a EK water block and now it will hardly ever exceed 135 degrees when crunching or running a game.

Probably the better question would be is can a card run at high temperatures for 2-3 years before being replaced with a newer version or upgraded card. I would say most likely the card will last 2-3 years running a overclock with minimal issues.

If you plan on keeping the card for 5 years or longer, then maybe adding the waterblock would be a good idea to minimize the heat on the card