In possession of two Gigabyte G1 980 Tis and two Gigabyte 980 Ti Reference cards - which to keep?

[cheru2016]

G'day mates,

as the title says, I am in possession of the four above mentioned cards.
I only intend on keeping two to run in SLI configuration, and I have been driving myself mad as to which two I should be keeping.

I've never run SLI before, but I have spent copious amounts of time researching the subject; particularly about the exact question that I'm posting here. Unfortunately however, there are SO many different opinions that it's making my head spin.

I'm using a Coolermaster cm690 iii with a Corsair H100i mounted on the top, and the stock rear and front fans that came with the case (4 fans in total). Unfortunately the side of the case is a windowed side and doesn't have a mounting spot for a side fan. I ran the G1s for a few days and of course, noticed app. 10 degrees difference, with the top card running hotter. I am now running the two reference cards and am noticing almost 20 degrees in difference.

I understand that open air cards will blow hot air into the case and reference will blow it out the back. My ASUS Maximus Hero Vii has about an inch between the top and bottom GPU cards so they're not directly stacked on top of one another, but there isn't an enormous amount of space. Cable management is very tidy, but the hard drives and other peripherals take up a lot of interior space which could negatively influence ventilation.

When run through 3Dmark Firestrike, the G1's came out with an overall score of 18,655 whilst the two references pulled 17,454. Whilst both are extremely powerful, that still translates to quite a difference. Even when the reference cards were overclocked to the same base clock speeds as the G1 (+152MHz) they only came out with 17,838 which is still 800 less than the G1 cards.

If it were based on preference alone, I would go G1 all day long, but I'm just concerned about ventilation and perhaps damaging or shortening the life of the top card due to overheating.

I really do need some direct advice as to what the better course of action would be. G1 or reference?

Thanks so much in advance, mates!

- Cheru

 

[cheru2016]

Hey mate,

I already set the hotkeys to bring it up, but it doesn't seem to work.
I'll try again this evening after work and see.

On a positive note, the store has agreed to swap it over on Saturday.

 

[Reaper_7799]

Ahh k cool man, just lookin out for ya. That's good they'll do that but those that are saying they are 400 over base of the G1, have to be including boost in that too or there boost is turned off.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1865303

If you're hitting anywhere near or above 1500 with boost, it seems to be where a lot of people are at, even with water coolers and the g1 and the zotac amp extreme and such. There are some in the 1530 range and maybe a few here and there 1550 but 1500 range is good, so I would try to get your on screen display to work so you can see where you're really at.

 

[Reaper_7799]

hw info I think will monitor a gaming session and give you your max clock speed afterward.

http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

 

[cheru2016]

Ahh k cool man, just lookin out for ya. That's good they'll do that but those that are saying they are 400 over base of the G1, have to be including boost in that too or there boost is turned off.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1865303

If you're hitting anywhere near or above 1500 with boost, it seems to be where a lot of people are at, even with water coolers and the g1 and the zotac amp extreme and such. There are some in the 1530 range and maybe a few here and there 1550 but 1500 range is good, so I would try to get your on screen display to work so you can see where you're really at.

I think off the top of my head, base was 1292 and boost was 1330 or there abouts. It certainly wasn't impressive in the least.

 

[Reaper_7799]

Ahh k cool man, just lookin out for ya. That's good they'll do that but those that are saying they are 400 over base of the G1, have to be including boost in that too or there boost is turned off.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1865303

If you're hitting anywhere near or above 1500 with boost, it seems to be where a lot of people are at, even with water coolers and the g1 and the zotac amp extreme and such. There are some in the 1530 range and maybe a few here and there 1550 but 1500 range is good, so I would try to get your on screen display to work so you can see where you're really at.

I think off the top of my head, base was 1292 and boost was 1330 or there abouts. It certainly wasn't impressive in the least.

Oh yeah if that's where it is, I don't blame you at all. I thought it was boosting higher than that

 

[cheru2016]

Ahh k cool man, just lookin out for ya. That's good they'll do that but those that are saying they are 400 over base of the G1, have to be including boost in that too or there boost is turned off.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1865303

If you're hitting anywhere near or above 1500 with boost, it seems to be where a lot of people are at, even with water coolers and the g1 and the zotac amp extreme and such. There are some in the 1530 range and maybe a few here and there 1550 but 1500 range is good, so I would try to get your on screen display to work so you can see where you're really at.

I think off the top of my head, base was 1292 and boost was 1330 or there abouts. It certainly wasn't impressive in the least.

Oh yeah if that's where it is, I don't blame you at all. I thought it was boosting higher than that

I'll screenshot the info when I get home and send it to you man.

Do you have Skype?

 

[cheru2016]

This is a screenshot from 3Dmark - heaps of artifacts and a crash on the second test.

These were the settings.

 

[Reaper_7799]

This is a screenshot from 3Dmark - heaps of artifacts and a crash on the second test.

These were the settings.

Ahhh k, you're gonna have to mess around with this one a little bit. Take core voltage back to minimum and raise the power limit to 110% to start. Then save it and apply and try it again at that core clock level.

Everytime it crashes like that or fails to be stable, the clocks will drop to 595 and you have to either reset afterburner or close it and restart it, otherwise it keeps running at the 595, even if you applied another tweak to it.

I have skype but I haven't got a webcam for this comp, as I just got it built last month or headset, I have a full surround sound but I might have an old headset mic combo from ps3 or somethin, I can see if it works. My laptops bein a bit funky, is why I built this and I haven't picked up another laptop yet.

EDIT: Also, try this hotfix driver for chrome crashes, I don't know if there was anything else done but it seems to be a lot more stable than the other one, while overclocked. I haven't had a single crash since I installed these.

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3694/~/geforce-hotfix-driver-353.38

 

[cheru2016]

Haha - no webcam or mic needed man.
I use Skype with my mates for messaging one another - same username as I'm using here

I just made an extended post over at Reddit regarding exactly what happened last night.

Update -

Hey guys,

I have an update on my card situation.

Last night I tested my cards again and noticed in MSI AB that my card was throttled to a constant clock speed of 595hz. I also noticed in OC Guru that my clock, memory and voltage were extremely low. So, I unplugged the bottom card from the MB and tested again.

The results of the single card immediately showed an enormous change in OC Guru. Clock, memory and voltage were up where they would be expected to be. In 3Dmark, MSI showed the proper clock speeds that the card was running at - app. 1,300 something.

I then removed the top card and placed my other G1 in the top slot and tested. The same story unfolded with the second card, showing the expected clock, memory and voltage.

I then placed the second card back in and switched SLI on. This time, the cards were both showing with the correct clock, memory and voltage.

Unfortunately however, there appeared to be some disparity between the base boost on the two cards. My top card which has an asic of 82% had a stock boost of 1,392hz whilst my bottom card with an asic of 69% only had 1,354hz - 38hz between cards.

I attempted to apply a very mild OC to the cards, increasing voltage to 50, power to 110, core to 100, memory to 0, and fans to 65 - all were done through MSI AB.

The temps remained around 65 degrees C, however towards the end of the first test, my entire PC shut down and when it restarted, the BIOS popped up with an error that the PSU had experienced instability and had shut down due to built in surge protection.

My PSU is the Coolermaster Vanguard 750w +80 Gold Capacitor, which is considered a high quality, reliable PSU that according to all those I have asked, should be more than adequate for powering my two G1s and the rest of the components in my case. Though this obviously is not the case.

I'd appreciate whatever advice you can give me regarding this.

Thanks guys.

What do you reckon mate?
If it's the PSU, I may buckle down and buy a 1,200 coolermaster to futureproof myself.

Also, that 38hz difference between cards is a bit shit ..

 

[Reaper_7799]

That 750 just might not be enough, although it is a good quality psu though. It looks like they are saying 850ish on the low side to 1000, quality psu. When it was doing that thing before in the demo, I don't know why I didn't mention it, probably because it was running fine through the benchmarks but it might have been running through lower clocks then too.

Yeah, my skype is bigd7799, I just added you up.