How does this apply to reference 970s?

Agreed. Instead of throttling at 65 or 70C, you can postpone temp throttling. My temps are well below so I think I'm ok so far. 48-52C full load. According to NVidia, higher temp target= better performance/less-no thermal throttling.

 

Mine either... It's nice just to play games and not worry about my card dropping core, voltage or memory. 

MrImSoGood
How does this apply to reference 970s?

The reference 970s had a pretty low power limit, but they suffered from poor cooling.  So, keeping the memory cool, in order to get really good clocks out of it would be problematic.  Not sure if they're voltage locked or not, but.....they weren't dual bios cards, so flashing them could be risky.

HeavyHemi

kwkrnu72

HeavyHemi

kwkrnu72
lol, Henrique33, meet DeathAngel74....another one that benefits from having a custom bios.  

However, he is correct in that there is a hardware limit. All the BIOS editing accomplishes is to raise the level at which the Boost 2.0 throttles the GPU.

Haven't found it.  And my cards don't throttle.  

And you can't get an unlimited power draw either, correct? Your GPU will only boost so far and the voltage will only go so high without a hardware mod. Those are facts. Nothing personal, but I do this professionally for a living while not long ago, you didn't know what a PWM was or flashed a BIOS. So, what I stated is accurate.

Don't need an unlimited power draw....you can't get enough voltage without a hardware mod in order to pull enough that you'd have to use the shunt resistor trick to get more power to the card in the first place.  This isn't a thread about doing hardware mods.  It's about flashing bios versions, in order to get around the limitations in the stock bios files...that WERE set artificially low.

I'm a fast learner.  = )  This stuff isn't brain surgery......  

LOL! good to see you here too Hemi. I think we're long-time guru3d'ers. At least 13 years. Remember when Forceware drivers were released every week or so and they didn't break stuff?

kwkrnu72

HeavyHemi

DeathAngel74
Mine either... It's nice just to play games and not worry about my card dropping core, voltage or memory. 

Absolutely. I run a modified BIOS myself. It's a fairly simple process once you understand the effects of modifying the various BIOS parameters. I think AIBs could have been a bit more aggressive in the BIOS settings. On the other hand, *lower* power draw and quieter operation are selling points against the ebil AMD.

Bah...some people just want performance.  For the plug and play crowd, that may be the case, but.....lol, ebil AMD.  That's funny

 
I'm happy with mildly overclocked 980 performance from my 970.

Alcohol bathe....= more volts :D

Heh, Merry Christmas bro! 

I'm having a very Bi-polar xmas here. Its interesting to say the least...poor kid.

Hello guys, I need some help with bios flash. I've recently tried to flash some different bios on my 970 and it did go that well. Obviously, I worked not with the main but the secondary bios, which I switched to before trying anything. However my attempt was not successful and my display was not showing anything after restart, so I switched back to the main bios. I did a backup copy of secondary bios before the failure so I'm wondering now, how can I reflash back my secondary bios? BTW will it switch if I flip the switch on the pcb from main bios to secondary while being already in Windows?
 
Thanks guys, any help will be much appreciated.

Lexkalin
Hello guys, I need some help with bios flash. I've recently tried to flash some different bios on my 970 and it did go that well. Obviously, I worked not with the main but the secondary bios, which I switched to before trying anything. However my attempt was not successful and my display was not showing anything after restart, so I switched back to the main bios. I did a backup copy of secondary bios before the failure so I'm wondering now, how can I reflash back my secondary bios? BTW will it switch if I flip the switch on the pcb from main bios to secondary while being already in Windows?
 
Thanks guys, any help will be much appreciated.

Boot up into Windows with the primary BIOS. Then flip the switch to the secondary BIOS and flash your backup secondary to the secondary position.

Yes, it is fine to flip the switch while it is booted.

All right... Did a lot of research, (i'm an engineer btw) and here are my conclusions:
Kwkrnu72, we both were right. There is in fact an limiter at hardware level, but it's not as accurate as the software monitorer, so it acts almost like an fuse, only works on extremes but it's there, and in some cases, it gets into action. So yeah, there is some headroom for improvement in the bios.
So... going to facts what we have? An 225w capable GPU (75w from pcie slot and 75x2 from each pcie cable) that is rated on 170w default and 187w at 110% power target. In theory we can go up to +132% and stay within spec from the power draw point of view. BUT we do not know how the VRMs will handle that temp wise, so i would be cautious with that.
In the end, all that i wanted was a bios that can overcome that 110% power target and do not mess with frequencies, voltages, fan curves and whatever. So, i did this simple bios here that i think it's what you guys wanted (it is what i wanted). It's exactly like the original bios from EVGA, but with it you can raise the power target all the way to +132%.
Below there's a screenshot showing precision x with the slider on +120%. I settled at 120% because is the Asus Strix limit,  wich has a similar power delivery system, so is something i know the VRMs can handle at long term. But feel free to run it at 132% at your own risk. Oh.. And you can see that it is no more being power perfcaped ;)

Bios Link: ht*tp://w*ww.filedropper.c*om/ftwpwrunlocked_1 (remove the three asterisks)

DeathAngel, You will Always have a perfcap. Be it power, voltage or temp. Otherwise you would have infinite clock speed. These values are way out of spec and simply would not be used in real world. Before using that much power your VRMS would be fried. There's a reason for GPUs that use that amount of power to use more VRMs and dual 8pin connectors.
And remember... each 6pin conector can suply only 75w. Otherwise you are putting strain on your PSU. Look into that.
Oh... And the fact that neither your GPU or your PSU are fried proves that there is a hardware limiter :)

Oh... Alright is a ftw+. But it remains way above spec. I would not go over 75w on the 6 pin or 150w on the 8 pin
Anything above that you are out of spec, wich is dangerous. Your max power draw shal not exceed 300w on the ftw+. Wich already is way more than the 970 needs.