780M GTX Undervolting?

Has anyone undervolted their 780M GTX with the slv7 BIOS?

 

As far as I can see, there is no need to undervolt it... 780M works fantastic and runs nice and cool, even when overclocked as far as the standard svl7 vBIOS mod voltage will let you. Why are you wanting to do this?

 

I never tried undervolting my 780m's either. I guess it would work fine at stock speeds if you did it a little. But as Brother Fox mentioned their isn't really any need. They run plenty cool at stock.
If you really hell bent on shaving off heat you're better off repasting with a quality TIM.

 

I just played Far Cry 4 on Ultra, getting low 30fps on avg, which is about right. The thing is, my GPU temps hit high 80s, roughly 88-89C. I repasted with Ceramique 2 (cured it for maybe 4-8 hours) then went on to play FC4. I'm also idling at 60C. Not sure if these are normal, but with the 780M being touted as a reasonably cool card I feel like my temps are quite a bit higher than they should be.

My GPU also is constantly using 25% GPU power and my clocks never go down to the higher P-states...this is probably why I am idling at 60C. It seems to stay at P-state 0. Shouldn't the GPU be at like .837 voltage or something and much lower clock speeds on idle? Oddly, I remember idling around 52C a while back. Not sure what's up here. But hearing people say their card doesn't pass 80C even with an overclock sounds blasphemous.

Ambient temp is around 72-73 degrees and the laptop is on a flat desk.

 

Yeah is that making your GPU not downclock to lowest state when not being used? Have you tried reinstalling drivers etc?

 

I heard the trick to overclocking the 880M is to undervolt it. Not sure if it's true or not.

The 780M doesn't need any tweaking. It's a great card.

 

Maybe the paste job is the problem with your temps. I cannot remember ever seeing my 780M cards hit 80°C except once or twice with a massive overclock of about 1200 on core with like 1.200V. Playing games at stock clocks, they are generally in the upper 60's for temps, maybe worse case scenario I might see 72°C in a sweltering hot room with my wife getting carried away with the thermostat on the central heating in the coldest part winter time.

I've never had good results from Ceramique. Idle temps seem way too high. If all the thermal pads are in good shape and in the right spot, use Gelid GC Extreme or IC Diamond for your GPU. Also, are the fans running as they should? You are not using the crappy stock vBIOS, correct? Using svl7 mod, right?

 

This is exactly what I used to do, someone else noticed this as well ?? I also lower the core speed abit, and get better performance too.

 

I agree with Mr. Fox - don't cheap out on the paste. Get the good stuff.

I just re-pasted my 780M and it hit 71C once in BF4, but hangs around 65C~68C (about 90% of the time) on Ultra w/4xMSAA.

 

Yeah. I never noticed this before. Anyone have any ideas as to why my power consumption is constantly 25%ish and my P-state is 0? I thought svl7 drivers were good lol.

Then the problem is with me lol.

Idk I put down right in the middle a half pea size (maybe a tad less) since the surface is about half the size of an avg. cpu. You think the aforesaid pastes will be significantly beneficial? I've looked at tests and it seems like those mentioned pastes are only 1-3% better tops. Which would be insignificant as it's only 1-3 degrees C.

Yeah 71C max...that's just dumb if I'm hitting high 80s. You running on a flat surface in a room with normal temps?

 

We keep our house at 68F-70F (in the winter). Just prop up the bottom of the laptop to allow more airflow.

 

How much paste did you use and how did you apply it? Perhaps I am using too much or not enough (though I doubt it lol).

Edit: Fixed my P-states by reinstalling vid drivers. I suspect that nvidiainspector or EVGA precision messed up something when I was tweaking profiles. Now my GPU idles at 46-49C.

 

Glad you solved the problem, and glad it was something simple.

You cannot believe much of what you see published or posted regarding thermal pastes. Between the lies, mistakes and inexperience, a lot of it is very unreliable. There are a few pastes that I have found to not work well at all. Some do a nice job for a few days or a couple of weeks, but many are not very durable. Ceramique is one that I was never satisfied with results, but I am an overclocker. Some pastes do an OK job with normal use results and give poor results when exposed to more harsh operating conditions.

 

Exactly.. I personally don't trust any Arctic Cooling pastes after the disaster which was the MX-4.. Honestly, it was junk.. D2 Ultima swears by Arctic Ceramique but personally, I would just use IC Diamond.. it's a solid paste... Gelid GC Extreme also seems to be good...

 

MX-4 is probably the worst thermal paste I have ever used, and NT-H1 is almost as crappy. MX-4 was like using nothing and NT-H1 works great for about a day or two, then it is totally worthless. It pumps out from between the heat sink and die like hand lotion or toothpaste, LOL. Ceramique was one of about 6 thermal pastes that I tried for managing thermals when I first started overclocking the 2920XM and I found it was ineffective for heavy overclocking. It did an acceptable job (not amazing) with the 2720QM that the 2920XM replaced. GPUs are not as demanding, but I use Liquid Ultra (exclusively) on my CPUs now and IC Diamond and Gelid GC Extreme on GPUs. This combination seems ideal... extremely effective at thermal management and the most durable thermal pastes of any that I have tested. The Liquid Ultra is just mind-blowing effective at controlling thermals and ultra-durable.

 

Thanks for the responses you two. Running svl7 BIOS, however, I still face the same temp issues on load, with the GPU hitting 90C. I suppose that many users that experience temps in the high 70s are not using these BIOS, as these BIOS prevent the card from throttling and seem to make it run hotter for other reasons.

Do you think I should just get Gelid and repaste my GPU? What do you suspect the temperatures to be afterwards?

 

With ICD or Gelid you should not see GPU load temps above the lower to mid 70's. You may need to make your fans more aggressive with HWiNFO64 manual fan profiles. If they are not coming on and running as fast as they should, that will not help matters.

 

Hmm okay. But really a 10C + difference? :O

And IC is conductive but Gelid is not, right? And with the fan speeds, it seems like 3400RPM is the highest the GPU fan goes. Oddly it goes this fast without me touching it though.

 

IC7 isn't conductive. You might be confusing that with AS5

 

AS5 isn't conductive either.

 

Really? I was under the impression it contained silver traces making it not ideal for GPU applications.

 

Arctic Silver Incorporated - Arctic Silver 5

 

Yes, easily 10°C difference (or more) between using superior thermal paste and taking control of your fan behavior. Look here: [Death Match] Thermal Paste Showdown: IC Diamond vs Noctua NT-H1 vs Liquid Ultra

What I mean by that is timing is everything for the fans. If they wait until stuff is already too hot, they will not be effective. They need to kick in sooner (at lower temps) and not "wait to see" if things are going to get hotter.

 

Thanks for the responses everyone. Looks like I'm gonna get Gelid GC Extreme for the CPU and GPU (not tryna see any disasters come out of a Liquid Ultra attempt)

And Fox, I completely forgot about this...if the fans have X cooling power and the GPU temp is at Z degrees then of course if they start at Z-10 degrees the temps will not go as high. Gonna update this thread (or start a new one) in a week when I repaste.

 

Good choice.. GC Extreme is more then enough for 4800/4810MQ..

 

So I repasted the other day. I used a long grain of rice for the CPU and an X-shape for the GPU....and man was I in shock. GPU never passed 76C when playing Far Cry 4 for 15 minutes. And my CPU has yet to pass 78C. I can't believe that the GC paste made such a ridiculous difference over the seemingly viable alternative of AS Ceramique 2.

Thanks again everyone for your comments and suggestions.

 

The arctic pastes are pretty old now, the modern pastes do better especially in low heatsink pressure systems.

 

Yeah, pastes like GC extreme, IC Diamond or Zalman-STG2 simply destroys AS. Additionally Zalman is also good priced same as AS.

 

I always thought that liquid ultra had a relatively short operating life, needing a re-paste every 6 months or so. I used to use ICD24, but it pitted my heatsink and scratched my CPU die. On top of that, my temps began to destabilize within the year, hitting TDP limit on the CPU quite often, so never again. I don't know why MX4 is getting all this hate, it does fine for me and keeps the temps down.

 

Liquid Ultra is not only the most effective at cooling, it has outlasted everything I have used by a very wide margin... like 300% longer than IC Diamond based on my heavy CPU overclocking use. Next most effective and durable has been IC Diamond, which I usually get about 2 months worth of reasonable cooling from. All the other pastes start out OK, but last anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks before they are no longer effective. MX-4 lasts me for about 2 days and then becomes utterly worthless. I tried 3 applications and it was not a good product for me.

 

My experience with MX-4 mirror's yours Mr Fox.. It's a total fail after 2 days...

 

Well I suppose it is hard for liquid metal to dry out ^-^