[m70b1jr]

Hey guys!
I could use some help regarding overclocking a Tesla K80.
Long, long, long, long story short, I'm building my own "cloud" gaming server, and decided to pickup Tesla K80's since they're very cheap (less than $100 on ebay), works great for running in VM's with Parsec / Steam Link (with a bit of setup). The only "issue" is poor performance. Low clock speeds pretty much.

I've already flashed this BIOS here (check attachments?) that suppose to get the GPU to around 1ghz, however, it's not really hitting that, and hitting more like 800 - 900mhz. GPU-Z is reporting a "Pwr Limit" flag, so it's looking like the card is indeed hitting it's max TDP. I'm not sure why the guy who made this bios didn't increase it, but he didn't, or didn't do it by much.

Now, I totally don't mind doing it with KeplerBiosTweaker, but the issue is, I don't remember, nor can I find reliable information on which field correlates to what in regards to the power tab. I have 8 entries rather than the 6 standard entries. This card does use a 8 pin CPU EPS connection, rather than 2x PCIE 8 pins (I just run adapters). I changed what I'm most likely is the TDP, but it still will only draw 150 watts according to GPU-Z, with the Pwr Limit flag.

Anyways, I was wondering if someone could modify my BIOS, or help me tweak it, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

[m70b1jr]

No, the TDP should be the 3rd from the bottom (265000). 175 is a bit low. Whatever you change TDP to should also mirror your first entry. I would leave Def and Max the same numbers as Teslas don't have TDP sliders on Afterburner/X1.

What you have marked is probably 8 pin rail. The one above that (66000) is slot and should be changed to 75000

It is hard to tell as the pictures look like an already modified vBIOS. Do you happen to have the stock one? Or is this one bone stock?

NVIDIA Tesla K80 Specs

NVIDIA GK210 x2, 824 MHz, 2496 Cores, 208 TMUs, 48 ROPs, 12288 MB GDDR5, 1253 MHz, 384 bit

www.techpowerup.com

NVIDIA Tesla K80 VBIOS

11.25 GB GDDR5, 562 MHz GPU, 1253 MHz Memory

www.techpowerup.com

That vBIOS I linked seemed low for TDP

Yes, the BIOS I sent is already a modified one. The Tesla K80 is a Dual-Gpu card. it's suppose to pull 150 watts per "gpu", for a total of 300. Right now I'm just trying to edit the first GPU, not the 2nd one.

I can upload my stock one I saved from GPU-Z.

 

[m70b1jr]

I am aware it's a dual GPU card, I have owned several. There is no way to segregate the vBIOS per GPU. It's just one. You can't modify a vBIOS for each GPU. If you can, then I was not aware of it at time I played with Keplar bios tweaker. Can you show pictures of the stock vBIOS?

This I actually wasn't aware of..
I thought each GPU had it's own BIOS. Currently I have each GPU passed through into separate VM's in ESXi, both do report having different BIOS's.

It does look like the power limit wasn't changed from the stock vs modified one I downloaded.

 

[m70b1jr]

It is possible, bust shouldn't matter. Both GPU's pull from the same 8 Pin and same slot. If you look at the tech power up site, it lists the card as a 300w TDP and does not segregate it into 150w (Per GPU) even though the card does it on it's own.
For a somewhat safe trial (Validate with GPUz) I would do 1000/300000/300000 on Power Limit, 1000/75000/75000 on slot and change TDP to 150000/300000/300000. The 8 Pin rail at 100000/149000/175000 is already pretty good. It has been my experience with bios tweaking that you very rarely get the wattage you are seeking with the modifications.

Have you personally had any luck OC'ing the Tesla K80? I feel like if I can get temps down, 1100 - 1300mhz is possible, very similar to 780ti / titan

 

[m70b1jr]

Yes, some. I had more successes with the M40's. Because they are passive, I had to integrate 3d printed blower coolers that used double sided tape to secure on the top of the cards. They worked very well after re-padding of vmem and re-application of TIM on the die.

The only Tesla I have currently is the GRID M40 (4 GPU) and I can't find any drivers that can run it currently so I haven't played with it much.

I'm running my K80's in a server, so lots of static pressure with the fans
I'll try your settings to raise TDP later

 

[m70b1jr]

@Avacado
Still seems like I'm limited, even though I raised the limits, lol

Even maxed out the slider in afterburner

 

[m70b1jr]

It's what I was expecting TBH. Is that Board power draw for both GPU's or 1? 154x2 is right at TDP of 300ish for the card. There are a few things you can do at this point. Increase wattage on the slot/8 pin rail/ TDP and power target. Or you can try to increase voltage, which will help a ton if it works.

Power limit increase to 450k, TDP to 450k. slot max to 80w, 8-pin to 300k. My bet is you might see a slight increase in wattage, but not much. You are going to need to play with voltage to see any real gains from this card. I can help you there if you want.

Run a torture test and show GPUz tab for
voltage max.

That's only for 1 gpu. Other one is currently disabled. Running nvidia-smi shows another story though. It shows that 185 watts is the max tdp, but it's not using it?

Also, it's only using 1.0v exactly during stress tests.

 

[m70b1jr]

Ok, cool. Yea, 1.0v is very low. I would be totally comfortable running up to 1.2v daily. I even push 1.35v on some Keplar/Maxwell GPUs for benching.

185 Max TDP doesn't make sense as none of your wattage parameters are set to that.

I just fixed / edited my comment to show you a picture. Yea, that's super weird.

EDIT: The value that I set to 185k, that you thought was the 8 pin, is actually the TDP. I raised it from 175k to 185k, and that's what nvidia-smi is reporting. You may have your 8 pin connector & TDP mixed up. Underload it's actually more like 0.93 - 0.95 volts, not even a full 1.0v