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Guru3D.com » Review » GALAX GeForce GTX 980 HOF review 5

GALAX GeForce GTX 980 HOF review 5

Posted by: Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 12/02/2014 09:51 AM [ 39 comment(s) ]

In this review we test the GALAX GeForce GTX HOF edition. No not David Hasselhoff or the Hoff, but HOF as in Hall Of Fame. The card is beautiful in design with a snow white theme; it is also the fastest factory clocked product that we have tested to date. Get this, the card is boosting at over 1400 MHz with its default settings. Armed with impressive looks, based on a custom PCB and a third party cooler the guys behind KFA2 and Galaxy introduce this gaming graphics card. 

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« MFAA Multi-Frame Samples AA Explored - Guide · GALAX GeForce GTX 980 HOF review · Guru3D Rig of the Month - November 2014 »

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Hilbert Hagedoorn
Don Vito Corleone



Posts: 44344
Posted on: 12/02/2014 07:31 PM
Ugh sorry, I should react better.

So here's the thing, Nvidia places all kinds of limiters on their cards these days. Power limiters, temperature limiters, voltage limiters, load limiters.

Much like a car with a rev limiter, you can push the pedal harder, but it won't drive any faster. A similar thing is happening on Nvidia (and AMD as well) graphics cards these days. On Nvidia cards temperature really is not an issue with the custom cooled products. So increasing the core/boost MHz will only result into limited extra performance as once the GPU hits certain limiters that performance will get molded until the card meets the requirements of the limiters in place.

Next to removing the temperature limiter, the biggest benefit is increasing the power limiter. A normal card can make use of 0 towards 100% of the power limiter. Once it hits 100% the cards limiters will kick in, e.g. lowering voltage and Boost clocks dynamically to meet the maximum power demand and or temperature of the card

So when you can increase that power limiter (normally set at a 100% value) to say 120% you will allow the card to consume much more power. Now the extra MHz come into play as you can 'put down the pedal to the metal' again as you freed up the workable performance threshold the card can make use of.

Combine that with a little extra voltage and extra memory bandwidth and that can result into substantial performance increases. So .. it's not about a few MHz extra, it's about the entire tweak you put into play.

I hope that makes it more clear now.

gavros777
Member



Posts: 39
Posted on: 12/02/2014 07:42 PM
Ugh sorry, I should react better.

So here's the thing, Nvidia places all kinds of limiters on their cards these days. Power limiters, temperature limiters, voltage limiters, load limiters.

Much like a car with a rev limiter, you can push the pedal harder, but it won't drive any faster. A similar thing is happening on Nvidia (and AMD as well) graphics cards these days. On Nvidia cards temperature really is not an issue with the custom cooled products. So increasing the core/boost MHz will only result into limited extra performance as once the GPU hits certain limiters that performance will get molded until the card meets the requirements of the limiters in place.

Next to removing the temperature limiter, the biggest benefit is increasing the power limiter. A normal card can make use of 0 towards 100% of the power limiter. Once it hits 100% the cards limiters will kick in, e.g. lowering voltage and Boost clocks dynamically to meet the maximum power demand and or temperature of the card

So when you can increase that power limiter (normally set at a 100% value) to say 120% you will allow the card to consume much more power. Now the extra MHz come into play as you can 'put down the pedal to the metal' again as you freed up the workable performance threshold the card can make use of.

Combine that with a little extra voltage and extra memory bandwidth and that can result into substantial performance increases. So .. it's not about a few MHz extra, it's about the entire tweak you put into play.

I hope that makes it more clear now.

Wow thanks for taking the time to school me, i knew you were a good guy :)

Cyberdyne
Senior Member



Posts: 3582
Posted on: 12/02/2014 07:50 PM
Loving the humility there.
I would have put it a little simpler by saying you can technically overclock modern GPU's with the Boost function without ever touching the clock speeds by adjusting the power limit and voltage.
But I liked your example.

UZ7
Senior Member



Posts: 5523
Posted on: 12/02/2014 08:30 PM
Yeah, if you look at how AMD cards overclock you pretty much set a clock and it will overclock to that. With nVidia cards and their "boost" technology you set a clock and then it will add boost, and like Hilbert said earlier you will hit limiters. For example say I was hitting 1481MHz on stock voltage and I max the voltage slider, next boost will use that voltage and boost me to say 1501MHz without adjusting overclocks. Or say I'm hitting 1304MHz at 100% Power Limit, you move the slider to 110% and you get bumped to 1451MHz. (These are examples btw lol). So with boost in play you have voltage, power limit as well as temperature. I was playing Far Cry 3 with +160 core clock, it gave me 1512MHz in game, once I reached above 60C it put me to 1501MHz, so thats another example of temperature in play.

So even if you have the exact same card model or same settings as someone, unless you have the same environment you wont get the exact same results. For example if you're doing a 3DMark benchmark and you were hitting 1554MHz and somewhere along the lines you hit high temps and it lowers to 1537MHz then right then and there you lost a few points as opposed to someone who has consistent 1554MHz boost will get higher points but you both were at the same "afterburner settings".

I personally don't mind boost, but some people (enthusiasts) opt to flash custom BIOS that disables boost and overclocks the old fashion way.

Another odd experience/example is when I had my ol eVGA 770 4GB SC, it was like 94% ASIC? All I did was open up Percision, everything was +0 +0 +0 +0 and it boosted to 1241MHz without touching anything.



Then I maxed out the slider to 1.212V and it automatically boosted to 1254MHz.

BarryB
Senior Member



Posts: 1163
Posted on: 12/02/2014 08:53 PM
Guess my Palit 780 SJS will serve me a while longer then, no coil whine and never heard any fan noise, maybe it's never kicked in yet? If I could be arsed I would pop in my other 780 SJS and have SLI.

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