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Review of Nvidia Driver's *inc Modded drivers (Updated Regularly)
I figured why not create a thread to test how Nvidia drivers are performing. Since coming from ATI (lets not go there regarding driver issues
)I have not had the chance to really see what Nvidia is capable of. I remember back in the day's when I use to go through several drivers before actually being satisfied and even then I used to go round asking, 'what are the best drivers'
Anyways I will try my very best to update this regularly and present my findings as clearly as possible. I have tried my very best to maintain the conditions and the settings when running benchmarks, however, anomalies may appear here and there. I have also tried keeping 'things' consistent when comparing these drivers.
Comments and suggestions on how to make this thread better is always nice.
Just a note these drivers have been tested using my sig rig, cpu at all times at 5.1ghz, however core clock varies between some benchmarks.
Hope you enjoy and find my results helpful. Now lets get started
SINGLE CARD TESTING
1. Xtreme-G 266.58
2. Xtreme-G 267.24
3. Xtreme-G 270.51 (Must be BETA aswell)
4. Nvidia 266.58 (WHQL)
5. Nvidia 270.51 (BETA) - COMPARISON 1-5 HERE
6. Nvidia 267.60 (WHQL) - COMPARISON HERE
7. Nvidia 268.03 (WHQL with modded inf) - COMPARISON HERE
8. Nvidia 270.61 (WHQL) - COMPARISON HERE
9. Nvidia 270.71 (WHQL with modded inf) - COMPARISON HERE
10. Nvidia 270.73 (WHQL with modded inf) - COMPARISON HERE
17/05/2011
Since I got my second card I decided to introduce the SLI testing in this thread. I will be combining both Single and SLI testing in one, however, i will be using the above data for future testing. From this point forward I will not be doing single card testing separately so please refer to 'SLI & Single Testing'
I will continue making recommendation's for both single and SLI user's
SINGLE & SLI TESTING
1. Nvidia 266.58 (WHQL)
2. Nvidia 270.51 (BETA) - COMPARISON BETWEEN 1 AND 2 HERE
3. Nvidia 275.27 (BETA) - COMPARISON HERE
4. Nvidia 275.33 (WHQL) COMPARISON HERE
5. ~~***NEW***~~ Nvidia 280.19 (BETA) COMPARISON HERE
Some drivers are causing folders a few problems, please refer to the folding section for more info
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Firstly you want to download a couple of things and make sure you have a usb stick at hand:
Nibitor 6.02- this one worked for me HERE
Nvflash - HERE
GPU-Z - google it lol
Hp utility with win98 - HERE (you need this in order to make the usb bootable)
Now you have everything we can begin.
First and foremost we want to save the original bios of the card, people make the mistake of using gpu-z which can cause issues, something to do with the checksum size (thanks brad) so what we have to do is use nvflash to save it.
You can go ahead and download the HP utility, it will have the win98 files in it to make it bootable, for instructions on how to do that click HERE
After you have done that, go ahead and copy the nvflash files (around 5 files I think) on to the USB.
Restart the pc and change the boot priority to the usb, once it's loaded you will be presented with a commant prompt.
Type this in to save the original bios of your card to the usb - nvflash -b backup.rom
This should save your original bios. Exit and restart windows and in the usb you should find the backup.rom file.
Now this is where you need to pay attention, open up Nibitor and open the .rom from it
You should get something like this:
To get the voltage editor click tools then Femi voltage. The only thing to change is tab right at the top, scroll down and select the maximum voltage you require.
Hit apply and then save the bios as modded.rom or something to your desktop. Then what you want to do is copy the modded one on to the usb, at that point you can make a backup of your backup.rom somewhere on your pc.
Now we want to do the same as before, restart pc and boot with usb. this time round there is a few commands that you must key in to flash the bios with your modded one.
nvflash -r
nvflash --eraseeeprom
nvflash -4 -5 -6 *.ROM (* denotes the filename for the BIOS, in this case will be modded.rom)
that's it
If you have any problems refer to this thread Here (I always recommend saving and flashing in dos, however, I encounted errors when trying to flash in dos, so it left me no choice but to flash within windows. People will say it is risky flashing in windows, however, I just want to say that I have done it coutless times and had no problems. This should only be done as a last resort. As said beofre please refer to the thread I linked if you are having similar problems.
This was a quick write up, so if I have made any mistakes anywhere please let me know asap but I will go throught it again.
Hope you guys enjoy the 'reviews' and if you have any questions fire away.
I figured why not create a thread to test how Nvidia drivers are performing. Since coming from ATI (lets not go there regarding driver issues

Anyways I will try my very best to update this regularly and present my findings as clearly as possible. I have tried my very best to maintain the conditions and the settings when running benchmarks, however, anomalies may appear here and there. I have also tried keeping 'things' consistent when comparing these drivers.
Comments and suggestions on how to make this thread better is always nice.
Just a note these drivers have been tested using my sig rig, cpu at all times at 5.1ghz, however core clock varies between some benchmarks.
Hope you enjoy and find my results helpful. Now lets get started
SINGLE CARD TESTING
1. Xtreme-G 266.58
2. Xtreme-G 267.24
3. Xtreme-G 270.51 (Must be BETA aswell)
4. Nvidia 266.58 (WHQL)
5. Nvidia 270.51 (BETA) - COMPARISON 1-5 HERE
6. Nvidia 267.60 (WHQL) - COMPARISON HERE
7. Nvidia 268.03 (WHQL with modded inf) - COMPARISON HERE
8. Nvidia 270.61 (WHQL) - COMPARISON HERE
9. Nvidia 270.71 (WHQL with modded inf) - COMPARISON HERE
10. Nvidia 270.73 (WHQL with modded inf) - COMPARISON HERE
17/05/2011
Since I got my second card I decided to introduce the SLI testing in this thread. I will be combining both Single and SLI testing in one, however, i will be using the above data for future testing. From this point forward I will not be doing single card testing separately so please refer to 'SLI & Single Testing'
I will continue making recommendation's for both single and SLI user's

SINGLE & SLI TESTING
1. Nvidia 266.58 (WHQL)
2. Nvidia 270.51 (BETA) - COMPARISON BETWEEN 1 AND 2 HERE
3. Nvidia 275.27 (BETA) - COMPARISON HERE
4. Nvidia 275.33 (WHQL) COMPARISON HERE
5. ~~***NEW***~~ Nvidia 280.19 (BETA) COMPARISON HERE
Some drivers are causing folders a few problems, please refer to the folding section for more info
Quote:
**~**NEWS about upcoming driver's**~**Originally Posted by juano;15358901
FYI Munaim1 the problem CSM mentioned with the drivers getting stuck at 405Mhz is problem that all of the 270, 275, and 280 drivers have had during folding. When you pause and then resume the client they will get stuck at 405Mhz almost every time requiring a reboot and will occasionally do it randomly without even pausing too. They really suck for folding, luckily the 285s don't have that problem but they aren't the most reliable as of yet.
Quote:
**~**Driver Sweeper**~**Originally Posted by Anth0789;15373263
Quote:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=211130&view=findpost&p=1310428FYI. New drivers will be released the day before Battlefield 3 launches. Make sure to grab them especially if you will be purchasing Battlefield 3 as there are numerous bug fixes and better performance as well. For those who have modded the latest Quadro driver (http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-tesla-win7-winvista-64bit-285.58-whql-driver.html) it is very close to the final driver but is missing a few Battlefield 3 fixes so if you do download and mod them, make sure to update to the newest Geforce drivers next week. The Quadro driver does contain the fix we've added to address the TDR issue.
Quote:
**~**How To Unlock Femi Voltage**~**Originally Posted by Anth0789;15306742
Driver Sweeper gets updated look here:
http://phyxion.net/Downloads/
Firstly you want to download a couple of things and make sure you have a usb stick at hand:
Nibitor 6.02- this one worked for me HERE
Nvflash - HERE
GPU-Z - google it lol
Hp utility with win98 - HERE (you need this in order to make the usb bootable)
Now you have everything we can begin.
First and foremost we want to save the original bios of the card, people make the mistake of using gpu-z which can cause issues, something to do with the checksum size (thanks brad) so what we have to do is use nvflash to save it.
You can go ahead and download the HP utility, it will have the win98 files in it to make it bootable, for instructions on how to do that click HERE
After you have done that, go ahead and copy the nvflash files (around 5 files I think) on to the USB.
Restart the pc and change the boot priority to the usb, once it's loaded you will be presented with a commant prompt.
Type this in to save the original bios of your card to the usb - nvflash -b backup.rom
This should save your original bios. Exit and restart windows and in the usb you should find the backup.rom file.
Now this is where you need to pay attention, open up Nibitor and open the .rom from it
You should get something like this:

To get the voltage editor click tools then Femi voltage. The only thing to change is tab right at the top, scroll down and select the maximum voltage you require.
Hit apply and then save the bios as modded.rom or something to your desktop. Then what you want to do is copy the modded one on to the usb, at that point you can make a backup of your backup.rom somewhere on your pc.
Now we want to do the same as before, restart pc and boot with usb. this time round there is a few commands that you must key in to flash the bios with your modded one.
nvflash -r
nvflash --eraseeeprom
nvflash -4 -5 -6 *.ROM (* denotes the filename for the BIOS, in this case will be modded.rom)
that's it

If you have any problems refer to this thread Here (I always recommend saving and flashing in dos, however, I encounted errors when trying to flash in dos, so it left me no choice but to flash within windows. People will say it is risky flashing in windows, however, I just want to say that I have done it coutless times and had no problems. This should only be done as a last resort. As said beofre please refer to the thread I linked if you are having similar problems.

This was a quick write up, so if I have made any mistakes anywhere please let me know asap but I will go throught it again.
Hope you guys enjoy the 'reviews' and if you have any questions fire away.
