[ASUSfreak]

Eye catching title I figured

Anyway this is what I figured out and wanted to share. Maybe there are other people who made the same mistake I did...

First a little story

When I first bought my GTX 470's I swapped the stock cooler with the Zalman VF3000 ones.
I've read somewhere that on a decent air cooler you can put 1.150V on it (and water 1.250V or something)

So I flashed my cards so they are 1.150V
I figured: well now I can OC these babies until I find for myself the MAX t° I would give them (about 95°C)

So I started OC-ing and could hit 800/2000 easy. Stable ofcourse with that amount of Volt.
But I've seen many users with higher clocks at lower volts (yes I know, not even 2 chips are 100% identical, etc...)

And today, after 2 years???, I figured: Hmmm let's work the other way around! (wich probably ALL you guys here on OCN do

--> that's why I thought let's share my idea

)

So I put my cards on stock MHz and used EVGA Precision X to LOWER the voltage until they become unstable...
And oh boy what have I missed

I used Unigene Heaven 4.0, have my coolers at their LOWEST speed (via some Zalman fan controller, how do you call it

???)

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

And I just did some quick runs (just 1 at a time) to see any temp drops (so I don't know HOW stable 1 run is)
The cards run @ stock about 45°C and after each run I let them cool down to 45 again.

So here goes (finally):

@1.150V = Top Card 81°C and Bottom Card 62°C

@1.050V = 74° and 63°

@ 0.950V = 68° and 63°

@ 0.850V = 58° and 56° --> still stable at this time (at least 1 run...)

@ 0.825V (lowest Prec X can) = artifacting

So I figured: 0.850V for stock speeds is my new starting point!!!

Now I'll bump the Core until crash. Give a bit more Volt until stable again. Up core again, up Volt again etc...

How many runs is a way to say the OC is stable? (I also have other soft as FurMark etc...) But if Heaven is enough for stability testing, I'd prefer that!!! (it's way more interessting than Furmark when staring at the screen while waiting for results

)

EDIT: well after my half an hour typing here

I noticed my t° are 35°C @ stock @ idle @ 0.850V

EDIT 2: some more quick runs (1 test benchmarks @ max settings @ 0.850V/stock MHz)

Mafia 2 = 55°
Metro 2033 = 51°
Unigene Valley = 56°
Catzilla (Tiger) = 60°

 

[icanhasburgers]

Heaven and some 64 Player Metro game play on BF3 (1-2 hours) usually does it for me. If it's stable, try a few other maps just in case.

 

[ASUSfreak]

So eventually I've came to this result! (45 min Heaven --> about 10 loops)

800 Core
2000 Mem
1.050V
Fan's at LOW speed 91°
Fan's at HIGH speed 77°

But I can't stand the noise so a decent 800/2000 will do!

Wish I could make some more space between top and bottom card... temps would drop another 10-15°C (bottom card never went higher than 75°C while top card was 91°C)

Oh well, it's better than stock I guess