So I realize that the reason I cannot maintain a stable clock speed in benchmarks is due to the fact that the card is throttling. I always thought it was thermal throttling, but today I sat down and analysed the graphs, and I realize it is the power that is being throttled. This is because I am far away from 80C but I am already seeing heavy down clocking, from 1418MHz to 1359MHz in Firestrike. In fact, right when the benchmark loads up I have 1392, then increases to 1418, then oscillates between 1405 and 1359.
 
The nature of this fluctuation makes it seem clearly like a power issue.
 
So, I go to MSI AB and increase power target to 110%. Nothing. No difference at all!
 
I further tested with Furmark,  to see if I was getting extra power or not. Again, not the case.
 
so what's the issue here? Why is increasing the power limit not stabilising the clockspeeds and why are they fluctuating? Why does it seem like no extra power is actually being delivered?

Sajin
Increasing the power target doesn't give the card more power. Increasing the power target allows the card to draw more power if needed. If you're still throttling at 110% then you'll most likely need to mod the vbios on the card to fix the problem. Stock 110% power target watts is most likely set too low in the first place.

Ok, but if the card is at 100% power, when I increase it to 110% it should draw that extra power, no?
 
My problem is, even when I do that, I DO NOT see any improvement at all.
 
This time, I installed GPUZ and looked at the Perfcap graph. I ran Hitman benchmark. As was my suspicion, Power is the most common perfcap. The other is Vrel, but I assume this is not an issue cause Vrel was when my clock was at max. When my clock drops unexpectedly low, it stated power as the reason. Temperature was not an issue at all.

No, when it is hitting Perfcap it uses 100%. There is no difference at all when I compare the power consumption graph before/after increasing from 100% to 110%.
 
[The power % usage actually does got to about 103% when it spikes, but this is the same before and after I increase to 110% and I am told it is normal to see slight spikes over the designated power limit value]
 
Clocks do not increase, power usage % remains the same, temps do not see an increase etc.

Then I do the reverse. I drop power to 90%. Instantly I see lower power usage %, lower clocks and lower temps.

I then downloaded the BIOS of my GPU and checked it using Maxwell Bios Tweaker II. And it shows, my 100% power target as 128 watts (matches EVGA's rating) and 110% as the max at 141 watts.

So the allowance is there in the cards BIOS. But why is increasing the power limit via either of MSI AB or EVGA PX not working? Can someone please hazard a guess?
 
So long story short, is there a "hidden" setting that needs to be enabled/disabled to actually allow the GPU to draw that extra 10% of power?

EVGATech_JaesonW
Like Saijin said, increasing the power target allows the card the possibility of drawing more power, not that it necessarily will. Generally unless you're pushing a hard overclock, you're not going to see the card draw extra power from increasing the power target, and even then it may not if the drivers and card determine it's not necessary. 

I'd say overclocking 123MHz on the core (boosting till 1541MHz) and overclocking +400MHz on the memory would be considered a "hard" overclock for the 960 SC.
 
The thing is, I have compared the graphs before/after (via MSI AB and Nvidia Inspector) and they're hitting the power limit at the same points. The GPU doesn't use the 110%, and there is zero performance increase after increasing to 110%.
 
Now, the moment I reduce the power target to just 98%, I can see the clock speeds decreasing. Performance decreases slightly. The GPU now uses up 98% power on the graphs.
 
So I am 100% certain it hits the power limit in the case I mentioned above, and I am saying this, when I set it to 110% I don't believe it gets "applied" to the GPU, for whatever reason.

I contacted EVGA support about this. The Taiwan office replied.
 
He showed me two screenshots saying that "things are working". First screenshot, he sets a GTX 980 Classified to 110% power target and shows a power reading during a benchmark at 111.4%. So it's working.
 
Then the second screenshot he shows me a GTX 960 SC (same as mine) and sets power target to 100%, and the power reading during the benchmark shows 97.4% and he says "EVGA PX functions properly" and calls it a hardware limitation.
 
What is that supposed to mean? If there is a hard limit at 100%, why then even allow the "illusion" that we can set the power target to 110%?
 
I even confirmed with GPU Shark, again it shows my power never exceeding 100% even when I set the limit to 110%, and it keeps showing "Power Limit Reached" under the limiting policies.
 
Now I hope EVGA can let me know why on Earth is the GTX 960 SC hardware limited to 100% of power limit only, when the BIOS clearly shows that there is an allowance for a further 10%.
 
EDIT: It's really not a big deal, but now that I've gone down this rabbit hole of trying to understand how a GPU works and its limiting factors, I would like to know from EVGA why/how the model of the GTX 960 I have cannot go past 100% power even when the limit is raised by 10% under a condition where the GPU is clearly power limited.

It would not be surprising if NVIDIA layed down the law with EVGA and said 'you will do it this way'. Most of the time they give some free reign to EVGA allowing them to do ACX cooling, factory OC's, etc.

Basically I guess EVGA was asked to make the firmware unresponsive to the power target increase on that model. I have a GTX 970 SC 2974-KR and its firmware is unresponsive to core voltage increases. (But it responds to power target)

Can somebody from EVGA Support please respond?

arestavo

himmatsj
Can somebody from EVGA Support please respond?

https://www.evga.com/about/contactus/ if you are wanting a EVGA tech rep to respond for sure.

Thats how I contacted them and got a reply in broken English as posted above from Taiwan office. When asking for clarifications, he replied "Sorry my English is not good".
 
 

I would like to know, are all SC cards like this? I'm very interested in the GTX 1060 SC, but if it is going to be hard locked to 100% power I may have to look elsewhere.

I have faith in EVGA. Their knowledgable USA support reps are on these forums. They have answered my queries helpfully before. Their Support email redirects me to Taiwan maybe because I live in Asia despite actually buying EVGA from USA Amazon.

Dr.Death
heres a example   of what I mean    if its trivial  maybe ?   like this link  and plenty like it never show up ? 
 
http://forums.evga.com/What-is-the-difference-m2512646.aspx
 
or like here they cant even give a straight answer   one evga guy tells his this and then one tells him that  ??  they don't even seem to have a clue on there own product ? 
 
''Ok,an update, since the EVGA reps here are not responding to this thread, which is slightly concerning in itself,''
http://forums.evga.com/New-980-ti-hybrid-radiator-fan-constantly-on-full-speed-m2453739.aspx
 
you must not follow much to not see the trend
 
anyway good luck
 

This is a user-to-user forum and you should never expect an EVGA representative to show up in the forum and answer a question.  They browse the forum when they have the time, but it isn't their primary job.  If you want an answer from an EVGA representative directly, use one of the methods listed here.  Did you notice that the "EVGA Forum" is not listed on the "EVGA Contact Us" page not even one single time as a method for contacting EVGA?

Dr.Death
why are you telling me all that quoting my reply  ???   I'm not the one  asking for a evga rep to answer ??? lol..... I know the score  lol... you need to remark to the OP   not at me 

You were agreeing that EVGA is following a trend of not responding. I was pointing out that your examples of "not responding" are in the forum where EVGA is not expected to respond. Is it that hard to understand a point and counter point? Maybe you forgot your own argument already.