Out of pure curiosity, how come in general, power limits are maxed out at around 150% on graphics cards? And also, how come you can't just disable the power limit completely?

 
Smoke the GPU with too much power
 
as designs get smaller in scale Voltage becomes more of an issue
 
 

some power limits raise the base value so a 20% over Voltage is not the same Voltage
 
your number 1.05 V + 20% = 1.26 V
 
then say your mod the BIOS to raise the base value to 1.1 V + 20% = 1.32 V
 
Nvidia has done a good job of locking the BIOS & it needs to Pass Validation on every BOOT or it defaults to lip mode
 
People like Vince "KingPin" Lucido go to extremes, modify the actual card with extra circuits to get more power for World record runs under exotic cooling like LN2
 
EVGA + KI|NGP|N + Intel Core i9 7980XE = World Record

The cards are not designed for that. I guess its sort of like putting a turbo on a naturally aspirated engine and turning the boost up to 50 PSI.
This is why you see higher Power targets on custom PCB cards. They are designed to handle the extra power draw.
 
You can do some modifications to the board to allow more power draw, but obviously this sort of stuff voids the warranty. Here's some links with information on stuff like that (PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY OF THIS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING AS YOU WILL VOID THE WARRANTY, AND COULD POTENTIALLY BE A FIRE HAZARD. THESE LINKS I AM PROVIDING ARE STRICTLY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES.): http://forum.kingpincooling.com/showthread.php?t=3900 | https://xdevs.com/guide/pascal_oc/ | https://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/epower_v_guide.pdf
 
Had to get that disclaimer in too :)
 
It's pretty interesting to me actually.
 
-Jacob B.

Custom BIOS setting... before Nvidia locked us out
 
Usually the "reference base Voltage" was raised ---> the slider still worked as a % of that number - But - the reference was different -->
"20% more power from What Voltage"

hbzk100
And also, how come you can't just disable the power limit completely?

In the past you could, but nvidia put a stop to that, so now you have to buy a top end card like the kingpin to get support for such things. 
 

hbzk100
Interesting, so hypothetically lets say you have a 1080 Ti locked at 1.050v, even at that safe voltage, going to say a 300+ increase in power target would still be bad for the card.

Imo, no. I did exactly that with my 1080 ti kingpin... I had it locked to 1.062v with the power limit disabled.

 
Moved to General Hardware.

I think Nvidia doesn't like higher voltages because it will lessen the 'upgrade' to the next gen GPUs.  They went after EVGA for the EVBot which I still have before voltage locking GPUs.

DS777
Please can you give me an advice how to lock 1080 Ti Kingpin on 1.062v and disable power limit ?

Sent you a PM.