GTX900 BIOS mod and unlocked nvflash

Thanks to JoeDirt and welly59 from OCN we have unclocked nvflash which is working with GTX970/980 cards:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/...-build-and-new-nvflash-5-190/80#post_23037661

So far I'm checking BIOSes made myself so I won't post anything what won't be tested. I also didn't want to post this thread in the general/gfx section as most readers won't make it right and will ask a lot of questions that others won't be able to answer ( at least for now ).

Right now my GTX970 is working at 1.31V max, unlimited power limit and disabled boost. That is working so far but clock scalling isn't good at higher voltage. I have to play some more with clock tables.

Nice, Are you on air or cold ?

Right now I see no point to move to the cold when on air I have ~70*C after OC. After overvoltage max clock raised by ~70-100MHz depends from test but I feel that something is blocking it.
I won't go cold till I see higher temps or that better cooling is actually giving me higher clocks. Temp max is 91*C before throttling.

I wonder if it's OCP that is kicking in?

I don't think so as it would give me black screen or something similar. It's acting the same at 1.21V before BIOS changes and at 1.31V after changes. The only difference is that I can set higher clock. So at 1.31V is stable in tests.
When I raised voltage then max clocks were higher just not as much as I was expecting. While going from 1.21V to 1.31V I saw about 50-100MHz higher core clock. On GTX780 it would be good but GTX970 has already much higher stock clock so 100MHz isn't so big improvement.

My card has higher power limit and even without changes it should make 250W+. Also thermal limit isn't an issue as I saw max about 70*C when limit is 91*C.
It looks like scalling is just bad for these cards or I missed something.

There is one weird thing that I still haven't figured out. I left only 2D and 3D clocks while boost is disabled. No matter what value I set in clock tables, real clock in 3D is always ~1379MHz. So when I set max 1450 then I got 1379, when I set 1550 then I also got 1379. At the same time GPU-Z sees 1450 or 1500+ as 3D clock on the main tab. I can raise clock manually higher but clock tables have something to do with 3D stages and voltage settings so maybe I just missed something that won't let me pass some clock.

I was playing with some clock profiles and switched 3D and Boost stages what gave me additional 40MHz in 3DM11 which is the hardest to pass on my card.
Right now single card is passing 3DM11 at 1593MHz on air with max temps around 68*C. Before mods could make max ~1470MHz.
Tested card has ASIC 64% what is quite low. The lowest I saw was 58% while the highest 85% and I actually have my friend's card with that ASIC at home. Will check that other day.

Some results at 1593MHz





I still can't beat GTX780 results in some tests.

So you gained what about 300 MHz over stock boost clock? That's decent nearly 25% isn't it?

Stock 3D is 1379MHz or something. Manual OC on stock BIOS gave me between 1450 and 1570MHz. Manual OC after bios mod gave me 1560-1590MHz in every benchmark. I was counting that max clock will raise but at least this card won't make 1600MHz.

I find it so much easier to OC a card after the over boost is disabled, just my .02. Nice results so far Woomack.

I does save a step (checking MSI AB/GPUz graphs for actual clocks), but once you know the boost bins over stock, its pretty easy. I normally do not disable boost unless the BIOS I use forces me/already off.

Maxwell BIOS Tweaker is available in the web so it's even easier to modify your BIOS. The only difference that I saw is working boost clock table but maximum OC is the same as using Kepler BIOS Tweaker 1.27.

I have 3x GTX970 right now. 2x GB G1 Gaming and 1x GB Windforce ( cheaper one ). GB Windforce belongs to my friend so when I make fully stable BIOS at higher clocks then will flash it and give him back. It's also the card with highest ASIC what is somehow funny as it was cheapest and from lower series.

In all cases memory was overclocking till about 2000-2030MHz ( depends from card ). ASIC 85% is about the highest you can find. Lowest is about 58%.

So far it looks like:
#1 ASIC 62%:
- max clock before changes: 3DM11 ~1450MHz 3DM FS ~1550MHz
- max clock after changes:3DM11 ~1593MHz, 3DM FS ~1585MHz

#2 ASIC 64%:
- max clock before changes 3DM11 ~1470MHz, 3DM FS ~1570MHz
- max clock after changes 3DM11 ~1593MHz, 3DM FS ~1593MHz

#3 ASIC 85%:
- max clock before changes 3DM11 ~1540MHz, 3DM FS ~1593MHz
- max clock after changes 3DM11 ~1604MHz, 3DM FS ~1620 MHz

Summary:
Higher ASIC cards are not much better but without mods let you run at higher clocks. After mods difference is lower.
Because of high stock clock, 50-100MHz OC is not giving much more FPS so in some cases all that BIOS modding has no point.
My cards with Boost enabled or disabled are overclocking the same so there is no point to disable boost.

Maximum voltage in BIOS is 1.30-1.31V what in real gives ~1.30V. I see no vdroop on my cards. Voltages measured with multimeter under load. Looks like it's still not enough and something like 1.45V would be good.

My cards are heating up about 2-5*C more after overvoltage when max temps are barely passing 70*C on stock cooler ( also this weaker in Windforce version - different heatsink design with less heatpipes )

Little update.
I went up with voltage to 1.35-1.40V but OC isn't higher. It looks like something is blocking anything near 1.35V and above. I had no time to check it exactly but sometimes it's passing tests at 1.35-1.37V and sometimes driver is instantly crashing or test is crashing or I get black screen. Maybe OCP/OVP as it looks similar.

Woomack said:

Maybe OCP/OVP as it looks similar.

Click to expand...

That could very well be unless these new chips have a lower temperature threshold when using higher voltage.

Most GTX780 have ~1.32V OCP/OVP limit so maybe here is the same. Hard to say as it can be also driver issue. Sometimes it's running and sometimes is instant black screen or driver reset. At 1.4V is only driver reset or freeze.

Just an update, this thread http://www.overclock.net/t/1517316/...-970-and-980-firmware-nolimits-and-gamestable contains the updated NVflash and Maxwell Bios tweaker. Plus a lot of pre modded BIOS files.

I was playing some more with BIOS but it seems like GTX970 that I have is not overclocking any better at higher voltage than ~1.28V. 1.28V gives max stable clock of 1582MHz while memory is running at 3950MHz without artifacts. I was playing couple games at these settings and it seems fine.
At 1.32V+ there is instant driver crash but between 1.28 and 1.32V there is still some space and I'm not sure why card is not overclocking even 10MHz higher.

Here is dusty photo of my current cooling ( it's for tests so I don't care if it looks good but someone asked me to post it ).
Power section heatsink still needs good airflow around or just low speed fan or it gets hot when card is at 100% load for longer. In idle it's fine without fan.




There is also one interesting thing that I've noticed. My card is lowering clocks when is "boring". I mean when I enable vsync ( 60 FPS ) in games which can make 100+ FPS then clock is sometimes dropping to ~1200MHz even though I'm using BIOS without boost. When I disable vsync then card is keeping stable 1582MHz.
Also temps are much lower when vsync is enabled and I can't hear coil whine.

Are there unlocked bios for these cards?
EVGA 04G-2983-KR GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 ACX 2.0 PCI Express 3.0

I need as I have 4X and right now stock cooling but wan to go LN2

Thanks
T&B

BIOS mod won't help you much on LN2 as these cards have OCP/OVP not much above stock voltage ( stock is ~1.28V max is ~1.31V ). Without hard mods you can't make much. Check overclock.net threads for BIOSes. There are many posts about it ( too many actually and it takes time to find good info ).