Gigabyte GeForce 980Ti G1 Water block

[Lepton87]

Is there any water block available for this card yet? Preferably a full cover block but any would be better than the stock cooling.

 

[Sabrewings]

Is it the reference design? I used EK's Titan X waterblock and back plate on my reference 980 Ti. This was at launch, so I'm not sure if EK ever made a 980 Ti specific block. Reference is the same card as the Titan X, so it would fit.

You could always go over to EK's cooling configurator and plug in your card and see if they have checked it for compatibility.

 

[Lepton87]

No it does not have a reference PCB, it's longer and has 2x8pin power connectors instead of 1x8pin+1x6pin

 

[Sabrewings]

Hmm, that's weird. Why mess with the pins? Did they really think the extra 75w was worth it?

Even at nearly 1500MHz I hadn't hit a wall, but my GPU maxes at 40C so its power usage is probably less than air cooled versions. Maybe sell yours and buy a reference design?

Edit: I checked EK and for your card they say "coming soon" for a full cover. There are a few universal options but they aren't desirable.

 

[Lepton87]

Hmm, that's weird. Why mess with the pins? Did they really think the extra 75w was worth it?

Even at nearly 1500MHz I hadn't hit a wall, but my GPU maxes at 40C so its power usage is probably less than air cooled versions. Maybe sell yours and buy a reference design?

Edit: I checked EK and for your card they say "coming soon" for a full cover. There are a few universal options but they aren't desirable.

That card overclocked better than reference in every review I read. In fact it overclocked the best. With my luck I could get a reference that wouldn't even hit this cards stock clocks. I always had very bad luck with overclocking cards I haven't tried overclocking this card yet. I hope I can hit 1400MHz turbo clocks at stock voltage and 1500MHz with a voltage boost. Depending on the OC results and loudness I may even leave it with air cooling. If it hits 1500MHz and is not loud then I will be satisfied with such a result.

techpowerup managed 1512/2100MHz

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Ti_Gaming/33.html

Memory result is especially impressive.

http://www.purepc.pl/karty_graficzn...1_gaming_zegnaj_geforce_gtx_titan_x?page=0,16

1528MHz boost/1928MHz memory

It seems they consistently hit 1500MHz with stock cooling the question is at what cost in terms of loudness.

 

[Sabrewings]

Granted, there's limited data, but on water I would expect most GM200s to hit at least 1400MHz on boost. A load of 40C compared to 80+C makes a huge difference in stability. One day I'll try and see where mine hits an absolute wall, but with the voltage cranked it was rock solid at 1492MHz.

As you said, every card is different, but the difference in overclockability of air vs water is a huge feather in the cap if you're looking to watercool anyway. Cooler silicon is more stable at the same clocks/volts and it uses less current for the same clock/volts. Win win.

 

[Lepton87]

Granted, there's limited data, but on water I would expect most GM200s to hit at least 1400MHz on boost. A load of 40C compared to 80+C makes a huge difference in stability. One day I'll try and see where mine hits an absolute wall, but with the voltage cranked it was rock solid at 1492MHz.

As you said, every card is different, but the difference in overclockability of air vs water is a huge feather in the cap if you're looking to watercool anyway. Cooler silicon is more stable at the same clocks/volts and it uses less current for the same clock/volts. Win win.

If the cooler can handle the heat you don't gain much in the OC headroom from lower temperatures. I've been there. My whole PC was watercooled. My CPU gained 100MHz from water over the air cooler. My Titan's cooler couldn't handle any voltage increase so WC allowed much better clocks but a better aftermarket air cooler would get me results very similar to watercooling at least in terms of clocks not temperature. The reference blower on NV cards is not fit for overclocking at least not overclocking the big dice like GK110 or GM200 but open air cooler might. The blower might be fine on GTX770.

 

[Sabrewings]

If the cooler can handle the heat you don't gain much in the OC headroom from lower temperatures.

Sorry, but that's false. If you are running into stability issues at X clock and X volts at 80C, you have a good chance of going quite a bit further by lowering that temperature to 40C. At cooler temps, transistors switch better and use less current making the entire die run better. This is a basic fact of silicon. To see it at the extreme, that's why extreme OCers use phase change cooling to get way below zero. The silicon is much more capable at the extremely low temps. Otherwise they could use a beastly water cooler, but it's not the same. It needs to be cold.

You don't have to go below zero to see the effects. Same piece of silicon on water can achieve better stability at the same settings vs a hotter piece of silicon on air.

 

[Lepton87]

Sorry, but that's false. If you are running into stability issues at X clock and X volts at 80C, you have a good chance of going quite a bit further by lowering that temperature to 40C. At cooler temps, transistors switch better and use less current making the entire die run better. This is a basic fact of silicon. To see it at the extreme, that's why extreme OCers use phase change cooling to get way below zero. The silicon is much more capable at the extremely low temps. Otherwise they could use a beastly water cooler, but it's not the same. It needs to be cold.

You don't have to go below zero to see the effects. Same piece of silicon on water can achieve better stability at the same settings vs a hotter piece of silicon on air.

Nah it's not false, I didn't say that you don't gain anything only that you don't gain match at least in terms of clock-speed. Lower power consumption from lower temperature is more noticeable. As for extreme OC using LN2, in that case you operate your chip at 150C lower temperature not 40C and that's a big difference. 40C may give you 100MHz on the CPU or 30-50MHz on the GPU and quite a bit lower power usage. To me it's not that much.

 

[Sabrewings]

In my experience you do. I gained 130MHz on my old GTX 275 by going from the air cooler at 85C to a 45C load with water. No changes to voltage, just better switching transistors from being cooler.

 

[Lepton87]

In my experience you do. I gained 130MHz on my old GTX 275 by going from the air cooler at 85C to a 45C load with water. No changes to voltage, just better switching transistors from being cooler.

Probably depends on the process used and possibly the exact silicon. For example IDC didn't gain any clockspeed by delliding his 3770K even though he lowered the temperature by 20C.

 

[Subyman]

Lower temps allow more voltage as well.

EK said they are developing a block for the G1, to answer the OP's question.

 

[Lepton87]

I tried some overclocking at first I set it at 1250MHz (1452MHz actual boost clock) and it works fine at that frequency. I didn't touch the memory or the voltage. One thing bothers me though, it has coil whine It almost matches my Titans in SLI. It scores 20k in the 3dmark fire strike versus 22K for the Titans.

 

[Subyman]

Lepton, 20k graphics? I'm hovering just over that right now as well (graphics) with ~1450mhz actual boost. I'll bump voltage and see if I can get to 1500mhz, but I'm hitting the power limit right now so probably not.

 

[Lepton87]

Lepton, 20k graphics? I'm hovering just over that right now as well (graphics) with ~1450mhz actual boost. I'll bump voltage and see if I can get to 1500mhz, but I'm hitting the power limit right now so probably not.

Yes graphics. I'm overclocking the memory now to 1875MHz and see what happens. If everything is OK then I'll try to up the core clock more.

 

[Lepton87]

I know it's totally unrelated to cooling but it's about the card so I decided not to create a new thread. The cards clocks are:
OC Mode - GPU Boost Clock : 1291 MHz, GPU Base Clock : 1190 MHz
Gaming Mode – GPU Boost Clock : 1241 MHz, GPU Base Clock : 1152 MHz

I overclocked from the gaming mode but I'd like to enable the OC Mode but I don't know how. From what I read it is supposed to be activated in OC guru software but I don't know how to do that. I haven't found any button that activates it.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I thought that the software for OC'ing was interchangeable on these cards: YOu could use EVGA Precision, MSI Afterburner or ASUS Tweak on any NVidia card.

Maybe I'm speaking from a position of relative ignorance. But I was able to clock my 2x 970's to 1470/7500 with Afterburner and a voltage bump of 20mV.

Of course, you're discussing a Gigabyte board, they all come with their bundled software, so I wouldn't or couldn't be sure.

Did you try NVidia Inspector? That, too, should work -- just requires a bit more hands-on understanding of P states.

 

[Lepton87]

Of course I can overclock manually with whatever software I want. But I wanted GPU-Z to show the default clock as 1190 and the difference between boost and normal is 10MHz higher with OC MODE. 90MHz vs 100MHz

 

[Lepton87]

One more thing I'd like to simulate performance of a stock 980Ti but I can't go any lower than 1062MHz (offset -90MHz). Is there a way to bypass that stupid limit?

 

[guskline]

Lepton87, are you using a stock Titan EK waterblock on a Gigabyte 980TI G1?

 

[Lepton87]

Lepton87, are you using a stock Titan EK waterblock on a Gigabyte 980TI G1?

No. That waterblock is used on the Titan (the orginal GK110 Titan). 980TI is stock cooled, I'm waiting for the water blocks for it to appear for purchase. I wish I held back my purchase a little bit and buy the ASUS strix 980 it seems to be a bit better than gigabyte g1 but YMMV.

 

[Lepton87]

I found out why I can't enable the OC mode option in OC guru software. It's because I have two cards installed, that software is rubbish the GUI is horrible so that's hardly something to miss. I'm going to use EVGA Precision instead, IMHO it is a better overclocking software.

 

[Sabrewings]

I use EVGA's Precision since my last Nvidia card was an EVGA. Works pretty well for me, other than the GUI being a bit quirky in responsiveness at times.

 

[Subyman]

I found out why I can't enable the OC mode option in OC guru software. It's because I have two cards installed, that software is rubbish the GUI is horrible so that's hardly something to miss. I'm going to use EVGA Precision instead, IMHO it is a better overclocking software.

Only reason I use OC Guru is because MSI Afterburner (which I believe EVGA precision is based on) was unstable in Witcher 3. I do like the interface more in those than Guru.

 

[Lepton87]

Only reason I use OC Guru is because MSI Afterburner (which I believe EVGA precision is based on) was unstable in Witcher 3. I do like the interface more in those than Guru.

Unstable how? I'm going to test my OC and the first game after tech demos I'm going to play is the witcher 3. Should I use OC guru instead in that game?