Graphics GTX 460 Appreciation Society - Plus VGA Cooling Thread!

i'll have to have a look at that as heaven won't play nice for me for some reason.

 

Just had a read...

I have a pair of Pallit GTX 460 Sonic Platinums as number crunchers ( BOINC ) and as soon as I got them I wound them up to 930 MHz and 100% fan speed.

They are a bit noisy, and luckily my Asus P6T6 WS has two free slots between them to help cooling. At almost 100% load 24/7 I'm seeing 64 and 50 degrees at a "safe" 880 MHz, as those scientists aren't impressed if you OC and screw up their science

My third card ate it's cooling fan , so currently looking at water cooling it for use in my quiet HTPC.

dunx

P.S. Don't you just hate non-reference cards....

 

The Palit Sonic Platinum cards are clearly higher binned for overclocking. I could try getting one of my Sonics to 930MHz but it's not likely.

 

I think TheGreatSatan might have something to say about that.

 

I got mine to 880 MHz with the two SP versions... then the fan melted/broke/committed suicide.

dunx

 

Just got my pc set back up yesterday, wiped all the drives and starting fresh, as soon as i finish the updates i will run some benchmarks on my cards sli'ed before moving to overclocking them.

Its reported they can be pushed to 900mhz up from there preclocked 815mhz if the temps behave themselves. The issue i see is there is not alot of room in my case now i have two cards there for airflow.

 

I can get mine to 950MHz, but have to drop the Mem back slightly, normally I have it set at 2000Mhz. But I must add that my cards are under water with some serious cooling so temps are not a problem, the cards just run out of steam.

 

Appreciating my EVGA 460...

 

GTX 460 SLI makes one hell of a difference compared to a single card, it does literally double the frame rate!

 

It seems Battlefield 3 works with 870MHz core at 1.050v in SLI! Even happier with this!

Might gun for the 200MHz overclock over reference GTX 460 and achieve 875MHz with a little luck.

 

Maaan I loved my Evga superclocked GT460, I could get it running at 900mhz core and it really flew! Best part about it, I only paid 45 quid for it 2nd hand!

I am interesting to see how far I can push this 560 when it arrives tomorrow!

YES I didnt upgrade from 460 to 560 as that would have been stupid! Its two seperate builds

 

@ Blogins - That's awesome; I'm sure the extra 5MHz will come easily seeing that you have an extra 37mV of voltage headroom.

I'll be overclocking my GPUs soon (possibly even tonight if I can summon the energy) - I've got 10m of aluminium ducting at the ready and I'll see how "cool" I can get my highest OC at 1087mV with the freezing outside air. The temp this week is meant to stay below zero, and seeing that it's currently -3°C outside I think approx 55C max load temps are on the cards (pardon the pun)! I wonder what kind of OC I can get at 1087mV with that crazy air temp!!

GTX 460 overclocking f t w

 

The temperature doesn't seem to be a limiting factor from my tests. It just gets to a point where it doesn't want to play for any duration stably! Time to try 875MHz on 1.050v!

 

Finally got my 875MHz on the core in SLI with Battlefield 3 but had to up the volts to 1.075!

I think the only way I'm going to achieve more is with a voltage mod, tempted to try the BIOS route.

 

Yeah you're right - I think my stability problem might be software/driver related, as only Vantage crashes when I push the core above 884MHz (in SLI). I was running dual-GPU Furmark with 900MHz cores with no artifacts or hitches. I haven't reinstalled Windows since getting a very nasty virus earlier this year, and I'm using Nvidia 270.61 drivers as they are the only ones which would install with the control panel... looks like I'll be doing a complete system overhaul this week, or at the very least chucking Win 7 on a spare HDD and testing stability with a clean slate.

Anyways, with SLI disabled the GPU was crunching Furmark @ 930MHz on 1087mV and it seemed to be absolutely fine with no artifacts/crashes etc, temp sitting at 57°C after 2-3 mins LOL I'll try again this week and I'll post some screenies and pics of the setup.

 

I modified the BIOS so it'll allow a maximum of 1.212v as far as software is concerned.

Not applied it to either of my cards yet.

 

CHEAT!

 

Just removing a limitation of the cards software surely?

 

I've updated the BIOS on both cards taking away the voltage limitation so I can use 1.212v, not that I will!

Took lots of tinkering with the settings but finally managed to run a 20 minute stability test using FurMark (Multi-GPU) hitting 890MHz on the core with 1.112v. Looking at my previous clocks 900MHz actually offers depreciating returns whereas 890MHz seems to be the sweet spot limit for SLI. Going to run some 3DMark11 now and compare it against the previous results I saved.

Temperature wise I got 90 Degrees on the top card and near enough 70 on the bottom. I think at these settings it would benefit from a fan blowing directly over the top card from front to back. Maybe time for another 120mm Silverstone Air Penetrator!

 

Also my 890MHz overclock is Battlefield 3 approved, faultless!