Well, the 65c part isn't full load is what I meant to say. Furmark would be full load. That's like owning a race car that you can only drive 50mph because it will overheat any faster.

At 925Mhz core/ 2100 Mhz memory and the max voltage that Nvidia inspector allows by default with my cards, and it's still 20~25*c lower than the stock cooler at stock voltages and clocks....You forgot those parts, as usual.


At stock, the cards run at 45*C under load, and i know you love to whip out the furmark issue, but the fact is that it isn't a game and you should also bust both AMD's and Nvidia ass on why their drivers have application detection and when furmark is being run, the cards are downclocked automatically...What, their stock cooling isn't enough for the worst case scenario according to you(furmark).

It's pretty easy, turn off OCP, run furmark for 20 mins. A lot of people want to see the temps too, not just me.

My 6970's don't downclock in furmark. :|

EDIT: Prime95/IBT isn't a game, why use those to check your cpu temps then?

To Hap who just asked me yesterday or today in a different thread - "Why do you bother with all that long OCCT/Prime95 testing when all you do is game?"

This is why. So I'm not fending off these kinds of questions.

Edit: When people ask me "But are you REALLY running stable at that speed?" my answer can invariably be "I did every accepted stability test AND went further with combinations of those tests run together, HELL yeah it's bloody well stable!!!"

Must be just me, but I like to see if my system can handle worst case scenario and be stable.

Ahem, from the original Anandtech review when the HD6970 was launched:



http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...deon-hd-6950/7


Have a nice day...:p

It's not just you. It's the invariable question. That you asked it is no slam on you, it's a FAIR question, and one I'll never be making excuses on to wiggle out of. I'll tell ya straight up, my 850 GPU clocks are rock solid furmark tested, left running overnight while I slept. My CPU clocks are brutally tested, WAY beyond what any forum I may discuss them on will require of me before claiming stability (mainly thinking XS on that, they get MEAN about stability, and I LOVE that!!!).

Edit: Plus, even just on this forum, Caveman_Jim would SHRED me a new one for claiming hard core stability on my overclocks if I didn't do heavy stability testing before making the claim.

Edit #2: See shadows immediate post above for example of the alternative.

You'd also have to turn off OCP on your cards and run furmark overnight at 850 Mhz then...It's the only way to satisfy roadhog...:P

Setting powertune to +20% pretty much removes any furmark cap.

Well it's not so much that, I don't think it's fair to other users to post a watercooling solution for 3, 580's that can only handle basic games, but in reality can't handle 3, 580's at a true 100% load. What if they see that and then buy a similar setup to fold on only to find out it can't handle the load.

He is welcome to prove me wrong by simply turning off OCP and running furmark for a while, but he keeps avoiding doing it because I'm sure he knows in his own head that it won't handle it.

More from the article:



And in the next page, if you scroll down a bit there's a nice chart about what it throttled down and what isn't, and it looks like furmark is throttled down to 600 Mhz core speeds to maintain the same TDP...


http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...deon-hd-6950/8


However, by setting the powertune to a 20% increase like you said, does remove the cap, but makes the card hit 90*C and consume 300 watts rather than the usual 250 watts it does....not a good idea if you want that card to last in the longer term.

You should really read the whole article, or own an ATI card with powertune before making false claims. At 0% it can throttle, at +20%, it won't throttle. I already said that.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...deon-hd-6950/9

3 of mine run about 97c load all the time... I don't see them dying prematurely.

And did you also notice in the article how varying the powertune levels did very little to nothing, in terms of impacting the performance levels in actual games, so why make the cards run that hard for little to no gains?...Same applies to OCP when the GTX580's were reviewed....Little to no difference at all with it on or off except the amount of power the card was chugging down and how hot it ran.

I run -20% for most games...

It's the fan profiles that don't speed up to 95c or so.

The point is why create a scenario that you keep insisting on me doing a run without OCP, when it doesn't increase performance or even improve the overclocking potential of the cards at all.....Frankly given the clocks i'm pushing, i'd rather have it on as i get closer and closer to the 1 Ghz mark overclock as some extra protection, as it is 1500$ of my own money on the line here...

I did. Worked fine. What's the point? That's what you're SUPPOSED to do when talking overclocks!!! You find the MOST widely accepted stability testing procedures for that particular item, in this case GPUs, and jump in with both feet airborne style! HOOAHH!!! It's puts the hairs on yer chest, son!

Edit: May I be frank about your position? If you cannot run without OCP enabled, your pushing too hard, simple as that. AMD and Nvidia ONLY implemented OCP because of overclockers who would go too far and make big public stinks about the card's failure and not their own to gauge proper limits and observe total stability rules. Ahhm, hint, hint...

Edit 2: EVGA Precision software logged a max temp on my GTX 580 of 87C when I woke up to check on my all night run of furmark. It fluctuated every once in awhile between 86 and 87 but was an average of almost 87C flat. Totally within limits, never once causing problems. Still running without any artifacts that morning as well. THAT is a successful overclock, anything less is BS. I can confidently say nothing will ever beat my card up so hard ever again, so it is 100% stable.

I have an idea. Post some rig pics. :D

Me? Okay :D They're not as quite as monsterous as shadow or demowho's multi-GPU monsters, but I'm quite proud of it none the less:


Before adding Crucial Ballistix Tracers and 60mm adapted to 50mm fan


After additions.

I'm addicted to blue LEDs, sorry. I know I'm cheap :D ;) :drool:

Next addition planned : Corsair H100 to replace the H70!!!

And that's cool, but do you honestly believe that with the clocks as they are right now(925/2100), and doing 65* under load that by disabling OCT it's going to somehow get anywhere near the temperatures your setup got....I don't think so....The variations shown with or without OCT or having powertune at 20% add maybe another 7~8*C and that's on the stock cooler, not water cooling wich can handle more to begin with.


The real test with this setup will come once i flash the Bios and gradually start edging towards that 1 Ghz mark and using 1.2 volts...Then if you insist, i'll disable OCT and run furmark at those clocks for sustained periods and only back off once the load tempertures start aproaching what we see with the stock cooler, at the stock clocks and stock voltages.


Let's see if the water cooling can give me a 230Mhz overclock over stock...:evil:

See, Roadhog? Not getting the point at all. In fact just went off in the opposite direction. He'll learn though, maybe, someday :p

Let me make the point as CLEAR as it can be made. NEVER assume stability. Do you not think you can do it, shadow? THAT would be the only reason not to. Keep in mind, you're not in card killing ranges yet, problems will manifest visibly LONG before you threaten the card's life, IF you follow the REAL testing procedures that your skipping on past.

lol.. I lol'd really hard at comparing air to water cooling. Once you go over what the radiator can handle wattage wise on water temps just get higher, and higher, and higher. Air you just get hot and stay there.

Regardless of cooling, he's missing the point totally that he could still have his current clocks most likely after proper testing, but would also have a better idea of how much true headroom he has left.

I'm not going off any opposite direction....


I told you i had the cards running at stock and running at stock voltages and got to 45*C under load.....With a 150Mhz increase on the GPU, a 100Mhz increase on the memory and a 0.1 volt increase on the GPU, the load temperature only increased by 20*C, to 65*C.


There's room to breathe before i start panicking...;)

And in all this posting, i still managed to do this:





Created a new bios and flashed all 3 cards with it successfully, so the max limit for voltage on the GPU's using Nvidia inspector went from 1.138 millivolts in the original bios to 1.213 millivolts using my modified bios...


Now we'll see what's what....:evil:

I think the point they are trying to make is this. Because water has a fair bit of thermal capacity, it takes a fairly long time for your system to heat up to full temperature. If you don't do extensive testing, i.e running a stress test overnight, you aren't going to find out what your real max temperatures are.

To a point you're right, but then again how far do you push that standard?...Ambient temperatures makes a huge difference and someone living in more temperate climates, all else being equal, is going to get higher overclocks out of their hardware or at the very least, lower temperatures for a given clock, compared to a user living much further soulth, using the exact same hardware and where ambient temperatures can easily exceed 100*F in the summer, so the cooling requirements are way different in this last example.


There's no pre determined setup that fits all requirements and it really is case by case, and ambient temperature is just one variable, there's many more than just that....If i wanted to be sure that even if i'm living in the middle of the sahara desert, my PC won't overheat no matter how overclocked it is with OCP disabled and running furmark for an entire week if need be..:P, i wouldn't have picked this case, but something like the 2 examples i linked a few posts ago and shove 6 radiators in it with 25~30 fans in push~pull on all radiators and high powered pumps and call it a day....Maybe even use a water chiller whhile i'm at it.


There's no need for charts or experts in any forums of any kind when you go seriously overkill like that, but having something that's basically twice as large as the case i'm already using, wich small it isn't, is just nuts....It would take up way too much room for me, and with all those fans fitted, pretty noisy too....I'm aiming for good enough cooling and silent.

I decided to cat proof my pc since he is so curious.

In terms of how far you go, you need only run until your temperatures really stabilize. Probably at least several hours to be sure.

If they get too high you need only to turn your overclocks down.