Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming GTX1080 Waterforce, Afterburner and Presision X OC won't OC core clock.

[hoover1979]

Hi. I am trying to get a good OC out of my Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming GTX1080 Waterforce, but Gigabytes software is not up to the task. If I up the core clock to +80 (1839/1978) the display drivers completely crash when playing basically any game (including ancient ones like Quake 2).

I have heard stories of these bad boys going at and above 2100Mhz but I can't get even close to that.

So I tried resetting the Core and Memory clocks to +0 and just use gigabytes program for the custom fan curve, +50% power usage and LED effects.

So I tried both MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision X OC to see if it is the GPU, or the software (Gigabytes software) that crash the drivers.

Both programs increase the memory clock (albeit for 10400Mhz I need to set 5200Mhz) but neither program increases the clock speeds no matter what I set. I always get a clock of 1759Mhz even under a full load on a taxing game.

I would like some help in getting a decent OC on it. I can't use gigabytes program beyond a max of +75Mhz clock and won't touch the voltage, as I don't know much about voltage and don't want to fry a very expensive grephics card.

Full PC Specs:

Windows 7 Professional 64bit on Kingston HyperX Fury SSD (120Gb)
ASUS Z97-k Mobo
Corsair HX850i Platinum Grade 850w PSU
Intel i7-4790k in turbo mode 4.4Ghz via BIOS XMP settings
Noctua NH-L12 air cooler
32Gb Corsair Vengeance pro 2400 DDR3 RAM set to 2400Mhz in Bios XMP settings
Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming GTX1080 OC PCIe GFX Card with Waterforce Cooler and 8Gb GDDR5x RAM
Nvidia Display Driver 381.65 WHQL
Sound Blaster Zx PCIe Sound Card
Logitech Z906 THX Certified 5.1 Surrond Speakers and LFE
Seagate 8Tb Internal HDD
WD 4Tb internal HDD
WD Caviar 1.5Tb Internal HDD (My oldest Drive)
WD Elements 1Tb External USB 3.0 HDD
WD Elements 3Tb External USB 3.0 HDD
ASUS VG278 27" 120Hz 3D Monitor with Nvidia 3D Vision 2 (tm)
AVERMedia Volar Green USB2.0 HDTV Tuner
Targus Bluetooth 4.0 Adapter
AfterGlow Wired Xbox360 Controller (wireless controllers gave me more input lag)
Logitech K260 Wireless Keyboard (changed from Logitech G710+ Mechanicle when moving PC to lounge room)
ASUS PCE-AC68U AC1900 PCIe WiFi Card paired with:
ASUS RT-AC68U AC1900 Dual-Band Router on 5ghz band
Fractal Design XL-R2 Full Tower ATX Chassis

 

[ledhead11]

I have the Xtreme in SLI. The big issue is with NV firmware limiters and especially with the temps for these. I use afterburner as just about everything else gets crash happy. I have to go back and look at my numbers but you need to keep the GPU under around 55c to go over 2GHZ. I've done it on air. With my fans at 100%(obnoxiously loud) it will go to 2012mhz and sometimes a little higher. Once it gets to 60c it drops to the higher 1900's and at around 70c its in the lower 1900's. I don't use any OC settings other than occasionally tweaking the fan settings. These cards will boost on their own to as high as they can w/o OC'ing I've found. It's really about temps and power and I'm sure your PSU should be fine.

 

[hoover1979]

I have set an agressive fan curve to keep pushing the temps down. my card has a water block/radiator and a fan.

My custom curve is:

0 deg = 30%
30 deg = 40%
40 deg = 60%
50 deg = 90%
60 deg = 95%
70 deg and higher = 100%

At 100% my rig sounds like an aircraft taking off, and I only have 1 fan instead of 3, inside the radiator. I get 27 deg at idle on the desktop, I don't recall getting more than 40 deg on most games, except deus ex mankind divided, where it is 48-50 deg. that game flogs my gpu, even more than Resident Evil 7 (except RE7 gives almost constant 120fps on my 120hz monitor), and I am lucky to push the 60fps mark maxed out, and boy does my fan make one hell of a racket. Thank god I have THX speakers, so I can crank the sound (although I can't do that at night as the neighbors would call the cops).

My CPU is a different story.

I don't have it Overclocked at all. it is running at stock 4.0-4.4Ghz and never gets past 4.0Ghz on any benchmark. I have an older air cooler (Noctua NH-L12) that I have had, for some time, and has been in 2 cases, my old Baby Tower and now my Full Tower, and plan on upgrading it to the Corsair H115i ASAP, because I B.S.O.D. the instant my CPU hits 50 deg. which can happen in only 2 mins at constant 100% CPU Usage (something that happens too much when I make custom filters in Filter Forge 6, for my Doom Texture pack Project) so upgrading the CPU Cooler is the next on my list to keep CPU temps nominal and hopefully enable me to OC the i7-4790k to around the 4.5-5Ghs mark.

But back to my GTX1080's OC issue. Both Presion X OC and Afterburner OC the memory clock, but no matter what I try to do with the core clock, it is only 1759Mhz.

 

[ledhead11]

By all rights it sounds like it should boost but something about the software is holding it back.

This could take you some time but here's what I would recommend, and have had to do when I had slightly similar issues.

1. Uninstall all your OC software. Make sure to tell them to delete your settings.
2. Reinstall, clean install your NV driver. Restart the system.
3. Reinstall the latest Afterburner and Riva tuner from Guru3d's links. Don't need the beta's for either. Don't change anything but turn on monitoring.
4. See what it does.

When I did that with my 1080's and TI, I was able to see the boost working on its own w/o any of the manufacturer junk. Sad to say but I'm still not impressed with either Gigabyte or Asus for that stuff. Before I did that, I was also getting crashes on the TI even when I didn't OC. Since I've done that I haven't had a single crash. The other thing with OC software is that it doesn't always play nice with drivers when their generations are too far apart. I've seen Afterburner give incorrect or no readings for my xtreme's if the driver version is too far ahead. The latest stable/final of Afterburner/Riva, both about a month or so ago, have been stable with even the newest 381.65 driver for me.

Maybe it shouldn't matter but I believe it can help to layer the driver(clean) 1st and the only one OC software. It worked for me.

 

[ledhead11]

I set a nearly identical fan profile with my 1080's as well and I agree at 100% they're obnoxious. I got spoiled in the winter when I could move my case by a window and crack it and still keep 2Ghz on them at ~60c. Now I'm back to using the default profile with them and they boost to just over 1900mhz and hover around 70-80c. Default fan setting starts to get some volume then also but still not as bad as 100%.

I've ordered some different case fans for that rig and should be here tomorrow. Going to do some tinkering on the weekend to see if I can tame them a little more.

 

[hoover1979]

I also discovered another driver related issue. I found that there is a bug with the Pascal cards and the nvidia control panel's power management option.

If I select "Prefer Maximum Performance" then my core and memory clocks are stuck at 1759Mhz and 10400Mhz respectively when idling at the desktop. I had 29 deg at this idle if my rooms's ambient temp was taken down to 18 degrees with my ducted air conditioner. When my aircon was set to 20 deg, my GPU's idling temp was 32 deg.

I changed that to "Optimal Power" and now, on idle my core and memory clocks are at 291Mhz and 810Mhz and my idling temp is down to 24 deg with my rooms ambient temp at 20 deg, then when I kick in a game the clocks, these clocks go up a lot. I am yet to try afterburner and precision OC again, as I have a theory that this driver bug is what was hindering the OC programs. Another question I would have is does the fact of my CPU getting too hot, due to the Noctua NL-L12 no longer being up to scratch, could this also be affecting the boost quality of the GPU? It will be some time before I can afford to get the Water Cooler for my CPU.

One thing for sure, changing from "Prefer maximum performance" to "Optimal Power" in the NCP's power management setting, has allowed my to get better temps from my GPU when idling at the desktop.

I did some research and found that this bug has been an issue since the first GTX1080 hit the shelves, and Nvidia has not done anything to fix it, and it is unlikely Nvidia care about fixing this in the future either. My research also makes me wish to avoid the "Adaptive" setting in the Power Management section of the Nvidia Control Panel as people have stated it added stutter, similar to the stutter the GTX970 would get when it hit the 3.5Gb Ceiling, due to poor memory design by the manufacturers. My guess is in "Adaptive" power mode the drivers could suddenly cut a large percentage of power to the GPU causing a stutter.

a new issue I discovered is when running programs and games and checking my GPU speed it never goes past 1759Mhz. my settings are 1839/1978 (+80Mhz) but my clock readings are always at 1769Mhz no matter what I do. I can't seem to resolve this and I think it's why Precision OC and Afterburner would not push my clocks past 1759, as it seems that 1759Mhz is as high as my Core clock wants to go. I am getting very frustrated as I want to get my core clock to 2100Mhz or higher but 1759Mhz seems to be this cards physical max, no matter what my settings are. It seems like there is a hardware clamp preventing any software from raising my clock past that 1759 ceiling.

EDIT: I have got things running better than ever now. I only use Gigabyte's software for the fan curve and to increase the power limit to 150% and use afterburner for the rest. on Resisent Evil 7 I got 2,250Mhz on the core and 10,500Mhz on the Memory clock.

 

[ledhead11]

Yeah, I'm getting pretty grumpy with NV over driver issues. It really sucks when a new driver gives you something you want but at the expense of creating a different problem. I encountered that power issue recently with my TI. I'd set it to maximum and noticed the next morning when I turned that rig back on the fans were really loud. I remembered changing that setting and put it back to optimal again, restarted and all was good. I just use afterburner now but I'm glad gigabyte is working for you.

I'd had another issue with that power setting on a laptop(2 980m's SLI). Everytime I put it to max on that it would crash the driver, had to leave it at optimal there also.

It's kind of sad with the NV control panel how many things have not been properly updated. From power management to v-sync there are many newer features it doesn't properly explain in its help boxes. Used to be really good but it seems no one on their side either cares or pays attention anymore.

 

[ledhead11]

Oh, I almost forgot to mention.

I started finding out and others are reporting it now too with the new updated faster vram 1080's. All 1080/1080ti Pascal GPU's tend to be really happy with higher clocks on the VRAM. I've noticed that leaving the core closer to 2GHZ and raising the mem to 10.9 got me nearly the same results with lower temps or at least less effort by my fans to keep the 1080's at the same temps as before. At first I was pushing the cores also then I noticed some reviews showing much higher adds on the VRAM with upwards of 10% gain in performance.

I've gamed for several hours like that yesterday with stock fan settings as well as custom.

On the 1080 SLI setup
At stock 60-70c stock core settings in the upper 1974-82MHZ w/ 10.9GHZ mostly quiet 55-75FPS 4k w/ max settings on Witcher 3, ROTTR
At full fans 45-55c sotck core settings averaging 2012-2052MHZ w/ 10.9GHZ loud and noisy 60-80 4k & same settings and games

On the 1080TI rig

At stock fan settings 60-65c, stock core settings boosting 1972-2000 MHZ and 11.8GHZ, quiet at 80-100 FPS 1440p/G-Sync and quiet
At 65% fan, 45-55c, +60mhz on the core and averaging 2025-2050mhz and 11.8GHZ, mostly quiet and 85-110 FPS in demanding situations and much higher 135-155fps in lighter.

 

[hoover1979]

Thanks for all your info. ATM I use both Gigabyte's software (for the power limit raise, the fan curve and the LED) and Afterburner (to raise the Core clock and memory clock) I never touch the voltage and leave it locked on Afterburner to avoid touching it by accident. mucking with voltage is nothing more than a sure fire way to fry a GPU IMHO. and as I payed $1,199.00 (Yes I am Australian and got hit with OzTax) I don't want to fry it as when overclocking past the one-touch settings in Gigabytes program the waranty is voided. I'll have to see if I get a stable OC with 10.9Ghz Memory clocks and tweak the core clock to 2Ghz while alt-tabbed out of a game to see the result in real time. I wonder if it would be stable if I left my core clock as is (2.250Ghz) and boost the VRAM to 10.9-11Ghz via Afterburner, or will Nvidia's drivers fail me again and crash.

EDIT: Resident Evil 7 (maxed out at 1080p) heated my GPU to 43 deg when I had the clock at 2,150Mhz and the VRAM at 10,902Mhz Is that a good temp or a bad temp. (RE7 has 99% GPU Usage) I still can't confirm if this OC is stable as when i had driver crashes by upping the core and VRAM in Gigabytes software some game engines handled it better than others. On a more gentle OC (+50Mhz core +200Mhz VRAM) RE7 ran fine but Battlefield 1 crashed the drivers within 10 seconds of starting a level.

 

[ledhead11]

I had most of my driver crashes happening when I added to my core clocks. For the TI I could only really add 50-65mhz to push it over 2GHZ but the ram settings were mostly stable. Mostly being that Mass Effect had some issues, but TBH the game is a coding trainwreck. The 1080's seem to boost on their own as high as they can so I'm only messing with the ram on them.

I stopped messing with the voltage on either cards. I've read comments in many sites criticizing it as a cheap and dangerous way to achieve OC. For now I'm leaving them at 100% and working with that. Very happy with the results. Lower temps and more performance.

After doing a number of benches on both rigs I might dial the ram back a little. It's mostly stable but I think taking the 1080's to 10.8/10.7 and TI 11/8/11.7 should be completely stable. I never encountered artifacts like older cards but like you, if its too much the driver simply crashes. Most games I tested were fine but a few crashed here and there and usually during a demanding scene. For my TI I'll probably take it down The hard part with testing is having a known baseline for your card and the game. Some games are just notorious for crashing at certain scenes. FYI be careful about updating to NV 381.65 drivers and MS Creators Update. I did it last week and it cost me a few hours this weekend in problems. I started another thread about it. I recommend for the time being sticking with 378.92 if you can. I re-installed mine. I wouldn't pay too much attention to the GPU usage, I've been watching mine and it's not always as indicative of the FPS/performance as I expected it to be. Some games are really wacky with it. Some are 99-100% with close to max FPS for their display while other games can be 65% with lower frames for no apparent reason even if the CPU is low too. I've found watching the temps to be more helpful for real load monitoring.

Good luck and I totally understand about the money. I've sunk about $2000 here in the US with mine and now I'm mainly just focusing on better case fans and refining my settings. I'm pretty sure we'll both enjoy these cards for years to come. X80 Pascals have been awesome and I'm happy.

 

[hoover1979]

On my current settings Battlefield 1 crashed. I was trying to play the Gallipoli campaign as here in Australia it's ANZAC day, and I have many frends that served in the military so I wanted to play it as a mark of respect for those that went to Gallipoli and never saw Australia or New Zealand again. I will lower the clock to +50Mhz and maybe go easier on the VRAM, as getting it to 10.9Ghz is a very high number and I am thinking the Drivers aren't up to the task, maybe I lost the silicon lottery when it comes to large overclocks. Hopefully every time the drivers crash due to the OC being unstable, that I am not lowering the lifespan of my GTX1080.

also thanks for the warning about the drivers and creators update. Luckily for me I don't have my rig infected with the Windows 10 virus, but instead use Windows 7 pro x64. But when Windows 7 loses support and no longer gets security updates I would then be forced to have the Windows 10 virus.

It wouldn't surprise me if MS remotely deactivate Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 when support is dropped, leaving the OS as non-genuine to further force people to change to Windows 10 solely and not do a Windows 7 and Windows 10 dual boot. This would suck as there are still lots of apps and games I use that won't run on Windows 10 at all, and will either insta crash or malfunction.

I would prefer a Windows 10 and Windows 7 dual-boot, when I have no choice to have windows 10, so I could still use the apps and games that windows 10 hates, probably having both OS's on two seperate SSD's to avoid file conflicts. So I hope when Windows 7 gets it's support dropped, that Microsoft doesn't remotely deactivate my Windows 7 key.

I am very happy with my GTX1080 (I would be even happier if Nvidia could get their drviers right, as it sucks to have such great hardware let down by poor drivers) and hopefully will be able to get a GTX1080Ti or a second 1080 (which would require a new mobo, and CPU and RAM that is compatible with the new Mobo, the z97-k only has 1 x16 Pcie 3.0 slot, so is incompatible with SLI) assuming I have space in my full-tower for a second radiator as I am getting a Water cooler for my CPU that has a radiator 2 times the size of the one my GTX1080 has, unless my cpu cooler has long enough water pipes to shift my HDD cages back and shove in the front of my case (Fractal Design Define XL-R2 full tower Sound Proofed ATX Chassis).

 

[ledhead11]

NV drivers have become more of an issue in the last few years. I've had more than a few problems since I had my 970's on all my systems. I've been team green for nearly 15 years now and the last few have been a little rocky with the drivers. I keep needing to remind myself that if a new driver isn't offering something I really need then don't get it.

I wouldn't go SLI anymore. Sure, 2 1080's get a mostly 60+ fps 4k experience but the heat is insane. It's like the old ATI cards. Many games still support it but it's really nice when you don't have to wait. Definitely enjoy that 1080 now, but if you stay with NV in a few years I recommend moving up to the TI tier. I'm really amazed at how close it comes to my SLI rig. I honestly have a little remorse over the money I put into this SLI rig now. It's my last that's for sure. It was a nice run(2 560ti's, 2 970'sw/ 780 PhysX, 2 980m's, 2 1080's) but now I see why so many people love 'em even with the hefty price.

 

[hoover1979]

I've been a member of Team Green since 3DFX shot themselves in the foot, by stopping licencing their voodoo3 chipset to other manufacturers and charging extreme prices for them, effectvely going out of business. My fist card was the RivaTNT. The card Nvidia used to redeem themselves after the epic fail that was the Riva128. I was impressed as it had 32Mb of VRAM and 32bit color, where my previous card the Voodoo Banshee only was capable of 16bit color and only had 16Mb of VRAM. it was also dirt cheap comared to the Voodoo3 (which was 6x more expensive because fo 3DFX's shddy business model, that bankrupted them).

I also had a GTX970 (4Gb Gigabyte GTX970 G1 Gaming) and it was when that powered my rig that the drivers started to go downhill FAST! I think I will go the GTX1080Ti one day, although I usually go a few years between GPU's so I would probably get a GTX2080Ti.

 

[ledhead11]

That's pretty cool about the voodoo stuff. At that time I was kind of taking a break from things. I had spent the previous 10 years going from 8bit Atari's to a Tandy 1000ex. Along the way I gained experiences with Apple IIe's/Commodore's/TRS80's/TI994A's/Spectrum/ST & Amiga's through friends. For a brief time I went back to consoles. PS1 and PS2 were really impressive to me back then. After I took a break I then started working with putting parts together from family and friends stuff in the late 90's. Around the early 2000's I bought a pre-built P4 system and during the course of 4-6 years I rebuilt everything but the case for it. During that time I tried numerous GPU's and Soundcards. It was actually my first HD capable system along with 24bit/192khz sound. Still have it in a closet-too many good memories to throw away despite its obsolescence. A few years after that led to the builds I have listed here now. At my age and the ability to make builds last close to 10 years a time I'll probably only make one or two more.

I had the same 970 in SLI. They were truly awesome and only just re-boxed them last week. It wasn't until 4k they really began to hit their limits. Definitely the most fun I had with SLI. At one point they were even paired with a EVGA SC780 for PhysX. Metro's/Batman Arkham City got 60fps in 4k with that setup due to the hardware based PhysX. I guess when NV began to stop the hardware PhysX that was the beginning of my disappointments with them. I still think they make the best GPU's but I'm not quite as happy with their support as I used to be. Waiting till 2xxxTI or 3xxxTI is totally what I was saying. Sure they'll cost a lot of money but the experience of knowing you're covered for a couple of years or more is worth it. I remember before the 1080's out came being annoyed how the 980TI's hadn't really dropped in price, I was totally thinking of getting one then. Now I get it.