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GPU 670M - my settings and usage

c_man
Level 11
Disclaimer: This is what I do, based on my experience. It might not apply to everyone and/or everything. Also, even if there is nothing dangerous involved, you are responsible for any unpleasant outcome.

The reading will be quite long, apologies (yeah, I know, too much Spartacus is not good for my health).

Let's see first who is the biggest enemy of the GPU.

While some consider this to be very high temperature, that is only part true. It's not exactly the temperature itself (up to a point), but the difference between minimum and maximum temperature. As the GPU cools down there will be some microfractures in the solder (well eco solder in the ball grid arrays is good for us, but not good for them and this can get more tech, but I'm not exactly this kind of person so I'll stop here) and in time, the connections at GPU level will not work anymore.

This problem can be fixed a several ways. Some put their cards into the oven to remake those connections. While this might work, it is not 100% safe. There is also the option of going to a pro guy with special equipment. If he does the job right, you will use the card for a long time. If not, maybe it will last for 6 months.

How to prevent this?

Well, make sure that the difference from low to high is not big and, most important, cooling cycles should be rare. Limit them as much as possible. I'm not saying you should not use the GPU at full power if needed, but if you game, then game. Do not exit the game every 5 min. to do something and cool down the GPU. Also, if you do not need the extra power, don't stress the GPU for nothing. I will show you what I do. Of course untill I had this practice, some cards died on me very fast.

I will use 670M as an example since most of you have this.

Programs:

- NvidiaInspector - download here;
- HWiNFO64 - download here;
- Furmark - download here;
- Heaven benchmark - download here;
- 3Dmark11 - download here;

NvidiaInspector is the OC prog I use.

HWiNFO64 will give you a lot of info about your system.

Furmark is a stress app for GPU. DO NOT USE IT FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME. It will damage your GPU. I only use it to put some load on GPU and do some initial testing.

Heaven is a nice benchmark that will help us determine some OC limits.

3Dmark11 will help us compare results.

The 670M has 4 working performance stages » P-states. They are active depending on load.

The first one is P12 - minimum power consumption.



This will set lowest clocks used. As you can see, it's 51/135MHz.

The second one is an intermediate state, P8 - video playback.



The third one is another intermediate state, P1 - balanced 3D performance.



The last one is P0 - maximum 3D performance.



As you can see the GPU clock is grey. You cannot change them. But you can change the Shader clock. So let's see what happens.

The default value for Shader clock is 1240MHz (the truth is that the numbers we see are not 100% accurate, but since we all see them, the reference is valid and I will work with it).

I'll change that to 660MHz and hit Apply Clocks and Voltage.

You might be looking at your value and say that it bottoms at 365Mhz. Just click Unlock Min (next to P-states scroll menu).



Now during this Windows session, when P0 will get active, the maximum GPU clock will be 330MHz.

If I want to access this value in the future without starting the app, I have the option to create a shortcut on Desktop with Create Clocks Shortcut.



If I want to use this everytime Windows starts, I have the option with right click on the same button.



Remember that for every P-state you will have to make a different shortcut.

At this point since P0 is the maximum performance, this is the one that I need to change to OC the card and get more performance (captain obvious here). I'll get to this later.

Underclocking

What if performance is not what I want, but more battery power or less heat.

Well, I have 2 performance states that I need to change, as the first 2 are already low. I need to change P0 and P1 and like I've said, I'll have to make Shortcuts for each (remember to hit Apply first, Shortcut second). Let's try it.

I'll set P0 to 135Mhz. Remember to Apply.



If I open Furmark and start Burn-in test, the system will consider that I need P0 and:



I only do this for a few seconds to trigger P0. To stop Furmark, hit ESC.

If you change to P1 you will see that it has 365Mhz. I don't want to have a higher value so I change it to 135Mhz.



135Mhz was just a random value. If I open a 4K video right now, the system will activate P8 state. This means I can go with P0 and P1 as low as 74Mhz without any problems. If the system can play 4K video, it can do most routine stuff under battery usage. This combined with Battery Saving (tweaked for low brightness, camera and ODD off) in Power4Gear and no keyboard lighting should give a maximum amount of battery time or minimum heat with still decent performance.

Don't forget to down clock the Memory as well, but in P0 state with current driver it does not go lower than 1500.

When you want the default values back, just click Apply Defaults for every P-state.

Overclocking

Let's see how I OC this.

Now you should really run Furmark for the first time with stock clocks to compare temps with other members. Use the Burn-in benchmark 1920x1080 for 15min. I have about 75°C at room temp 33°C. I've seen on this forum temps above 90°C. If you have those, please solve the cooling problem and then OC.

If everything is fine, run Furmark again with Burn-in test, Resolution 1920x1080 and 8xMSAA for 10 min. Note the temperature.

I've said that for maximum performance the target is P0 so this is what I need to change.

I will use 20Mhz steps to increase value from 620 up (remember we need to change Shader clock, so there it will be 40Mhz). After every increase I start Heaven to see if I have any artifacts. I don't use Heaven for anything else. Artifacts should look like fireworks mostly or something similar. When you see them, stop and decrease the value.

Do the same for Memory clock.

Some GPUs can OC more, some less. Don't worry, it's normal. My card can run stable above 755 GPU/1650 Memory, but I've set this as top mark and so far I have used it only with Max Payne 3. With other games I run much lower clocks, for example I play Inversion at 365/1500 Mhz.

Adjust power as needed and remember to keep the difference between minimum and maximum temp as little as possible, when you can.

After you have set the best OC values with Heaven, run Furmark for the second time with Burn-in test at 1920x1080 and 8xMSAA. Let it run for 10 min. and compare results with stock. If it's within ~5°C more, it's fine. If it's above 10°C more, if you still need to use those values, do a in game temp check.

In the end ru 3Dmark 11 with basic settings and check the score. This is your maximum performance P0-state for the most demanding games. You can compare scores here to see how close you are to the next best GPU.

Using NvidiaInspector you should have on the desktop the shortcuts you need to get quick access to any setting without starting the app. Remember that for every P-state you need a shortcut.

I know there are ways to force a P-state or to run more shortcuts at once, but I like the dinamic behaviour and the control that individual shortcuts give.
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33 REPLIES 33

c_man
Level 11
Indeed most of them are, but they don't have cooling cycles similar to GPUs. Now don't image that the GPU will die after a few months (even if some do).

Eco solder is not exactly years old (I'm not sure how old the compliance is, but I don't remember seeing it years back).

Even old Pentium III laptops still work turned on 12h a day for years (well, they are IBM, simply perfect laptops, I wonder how long will they work, only the batteries had problems, they were never open for cleaning or anything), but they have another tech and were not gaming machines. In any scenario, there was little temp variation, not that it matters for them.

About the "always on" policy, that is something old and I know people doing so ever since 486, but for different reasons. I never did that. I don't think it is related to our problem here.

We could use simple common sense. You just shut the laptop once a day. I've seen some gaming routine with alt+tab(ing) so often in a short period of time, I think it's like shuting down my laptop for a couple of months. So if you leave it on, there is little gain. And only for this reason I don't think we can compare the situation of shuting down with a constant cooling from a high temp (like 80-90°C to 50°C) every 5 min.

About this problem there is a lot of info over internet. It might be more interesting to talk to tech service guys that repair electronics and they will explain exactly what happens and why.

mrwolf
Level 10
I did some reading on this subject. It seems it is something that is more evident in GPU's rather than CPU's and really only concerns gaming machines mostly because of the high temperatures you reach.
I dont think shutting down every night makes any difference lol its only an issue when your reaching very high temps and then rapidly cooling.

Technically this only happens when the GPU cools rapidly which is what happens when you quit a game. I guess you could say its perfectly safe to hit high temps in the 90s and then slowly cool down the GPU by 5-10 degrees every 5 minutes. This would prevents the 'Hair line fractures' to develop as it would smoothly change temp 🙂

I strongly think that we or someone at ROG should make an app or program that automatically starts to slowly scale down the GPU in this manner. By gradually reducing the temp after each gaming session this issue can be fully avoided 🙂 I hope some devs or Asus marshal sees this and we get some results..

What do you guys think..? good idea no? it wouldnt even be that hard to make, very simple concept


Interesting topic.

I think that GPU's and CPU's are made to handle those temperature changes between the idle operating temperature and the load temperature though.

Especially since usage is never the same. Certain games don't use certain parts of the GPU, such as if you are running a game without tessellation, then the tessellators on the Nvidia shader cores are not being stressed. If you are running a DX9 game, then there's more of the shader cores you aren't using.

If you always keep your computer on, then everything stays at a nice idle temp, which is good.

Shutting down your computer daily will probably lower the lifespan much more than Alt - Tabbing frequently.... but even then, good computer components are made to last for decades. People don't get new parts every couple of years because something goes bad, for the most part. They do it to upgrade.

When you shut down the computer, temperatures plummet very fast as the heatsinks are still pulling heat from the chips. When you turn it on, it goes from 0 C to 50 C VERY fast, mostly by the time Windows starts. For someone with an SSD, that's about 25-30 seconds.

IMHO, that seems like it would have more of an effect than 50 C to 65-70C.

Is there anything conclusive on the subject from hardware manufacturers?
G75VW-BBK5
i7
8 GB
660m

mrwolf
Level 10
Yea that makes sense.. If my notebook sleeps does the temp go all the way down too?


c_man
Level 11
Manufacturers will not tell you anything about this. Why should they? But there are some interesting facts. For example Dell had a problem like this with some GPUs and what they did was to make the GPU run a little hotter even at idle. It will hit around 75, but instead of original drops to 50, the limit was set at 65. The life span was increased from few months to about two years. And Dell always has BIOS updates that try to control problems like this and keep a good balance. Most people will only think that the cooling system is poor. A good cooling system is judged by how fast the temperature drops. This is part true, since sudden drops are not that good either. HP also has a number of failures due to this. Xbox was a big scandal due to this.

First this needs to happen lots of times before GPU will be affected. You don't shut down your laptop tens of times a day, but you could have more cooling cycles during few hours of usage.

The problem is real, there are tools to fix it and people that I do this for a living.

If you take let's say a former high-end card that has a few years on it's side, my trusty 8800GTX, you get about 1 million result on google for it dead due to microfractures. And you can search for people that repair them, about 3 million results.

Now it's up to you if you want to keep the laptop working as long as possible. I'm just the messenger here.

c_man wrote:
Manufacturers will not tell you anything about this. Why should they?


Sorry, but I have a GPU in another computer that has been used for over 5 years that is still just fine... and it gets FAR hotter than any GPU out currently. A G80 8800GTS.

The issue was so prevalent with Xbox's because they used cheap solder. Not all solder is the same, there is solder that has heat tolerances far higher than what a GPU will put out.

If this is common knowledge, then a manufacturer should tell their customers how best to take care of their equipment.

1-3 million... did you look at every single link to verify that they were 100% about what you thought they were? I don't think internet searches work the way you think they work. Searches are sorted by relevance, meaning the latter end of the results are irrelevant to the search terms.


I know you are trying to help, but with you brushing off that idle to load probably doesn't effect this nearly as much as idle to zero/ zero to idle during startup, it's hard to take this seriously.

It can't be that hard to find something from AMD or Intel about this subject if it is really that big of an issue.
G75VW-BBK5
i7
8 GB
660m

mrwolf
Level 10
Yea i totally agree.. I searched myself last night and found alot of info on this and there are businesses who soley repair this particular problem..
Also it was very common for xbox 360 to have this issue..

C_man, what do you think of my idea about the app that does gradual cooling?? How do we get someone to make it? lol


c_man
Level 11
It's not impossible, but it won't be that easy I think since control over fans is little to none, for starters. I know a lot about Dell as I had a few laptops from them and I know the problem, how they tried to fix them, how the fans behaviour changed after BIOS updates. I know little about Asus.

On the other hand we must not jump over the board with this. It does not happend over night. Just a bit more consideration to what's going on and how we can minimize it, without making a pain using something that we got to give us joy, no?

mrwolf
Level 10
Yea fair enough.. For now i have a temporary method to prevent this..
After playing your game or whatever uve been doing that heats up the GPU to optimum levels (65-75degrees) i jus put on an HD video and let it play for a while when im done so the temp gradually drops to about 50-55 and stays like that.. then u can close the movie and it can go back idle or whatever.. Either way, by doing this the temp doesn't shoot down from 75-40.. 🙂