How overclocking can improve your render times

I have been messing about with 3d modeling over break and the time it takes to render has been getting on my nerves. I was interested to see what effect overclocking had on over all render times and after reading The Moo’s how-to on overclocking I gave it a try. I thought I would share my results incase anyone else out there is into 3d animation.
I first created a simple test scene with several light sources and a fairly high detailed material that included specular displacement and diffuse maps.



To test the effectiveness of each FSB increment I set up a 1080p render of the model. After each successive restart and FSB change I rendered the scene and recorded the time to render one frame and the maximum temperature reached. Note I am using a Cryo LX.


The image has been cropped and scaled down to fit the forum.

The resulting render times show that the advantage to overclocking even with a p8600 is very beneficial. Taking the FSB up to 1333 allows for an overall reduction of render times by almost 23%! Now if only I can figure out how to turn these 280s into quadros



Hope this helps someone out there.

 

nice research. Rep.

 

just flash them with the quadro 3700m bios

 

you can do that?

 

yes the gtx 280 is a quadro 3700m

nvidia rebranded it

 

I bet it would not work with SLI though.

 

... It will

Wether you can sli quadros is beyond me ...

I see no issue why it would not work ... My 260 will show up as a quadro 3700m if I flash it

 

Well my buddy has a precision m6400 I bet I could grab the bios off his quadro. What program would I use for that?

 

Next thead to see "I Bricked my gtx 280m"

 

Gpu -z

Not 100% on this but you can flash it back no harm done

save your current bios to

 

hahah I hope not

 

Even if he did just switch to the 9400 and flash back to stock

win/win

 

Yeah, Fact. I was going to suggest maybe doing one but i guess you got that covered with the 9400

 

I would love to see this happen

So op when ever you come back hope we get the ball rolling

 

Nice research. Now you should OC your GPU and see how that chart changes

 

I think he should try changing bios it would have the biggest affect i think.

 

Unfortunately with rendering the only factor seems to be the cpu and ram, unless you are using the Nvidea cuda render galleto. The GPU's only handle the view ports. If I had quadros the texture would show up as well as the lighting effects in real time in the perspective viewport instead of just being gray.

 

Now go get a quad and crank it up and watch those numbers really fall!

 

I would, but I cant justify the expense, stupid college

Moo,

I have backed up my bios with GPU-Z and my buddy is emailing me a copy of his quadro 3700 bios now. What program is the best to do a flash, NiBiTor or nvFlash? Should I do just one or both to start out?

 

nibitor is just an editor. nvflash is what you want.

 

hehe, shows how much I know. Thanks

 

Nvflash and make a USB dos disc

gonna take trial and error here. I'm not the best at flashing gpus and their options.

I can do it though, soviet sunrise- kaltmond - and a few others can offer more but all you do is

nvflash.exe rom.rom

but since you have sli I don't remember how to specify which gpu. Which is where soviet can help.

 

The GTX 280M and the FX 3700M are indeed the same card and can cross flash each others' BIOS. But there is one thing that sets the two apart: the FX 3700M has a little switch embedded in the hardware (that we can't change) that unlocks the remaining features for OpenGL. The GTX 280M has this switch locked so even if you try to flash the FX 3700M BIOS onto it, which you safely can, one cannot fully utilize all of the features of a real Quadro card. Yes, you can still use the GTX 280M flashed to FX 3700M to accelerate your workstation apps, but the programs that require those remaining features won't be able to use them because the card has it locked.

Also, the FX 3700M has memory rated for 900MHz while the GTX 280M has memory rated for 1000MHz.

 

The first few pages of this thread should help you get on the good foot, maxwell36. Instructions for flashing two cards in SLi are also on the first few pages. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=400299

This thread will also help. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=388335

 

thanks for aswering the call soviet

I would bet 10$ that a quadro MXM 3.0b would work in there

maybe the 3800m

 

No problem. Just give me a ring if you need anything.

Yes, it will work just fine. The system BIOS has the microcode for the G92b and that's all it needs, on the software side, to accept the card. Whether the card itself is a GTX 280M or a FX 3700M is irrelevant. The same goes for the GTX 285M and the FX 3800M, or even the 8800M GTX. As long as the card is a G92 and is in MXM 3.0 it will work.

 

exactly, its why the m15x (area 51) could use it and the sager m somthing

 

Oh, maxwell36. May I ask you for a copy of your FX 3700M BIOS? The FX 3700M BIOS's I have now are for MXM 2.1 cards and I can't use them on my MXM 3.0 GTX 280M. I'm going to be doing a bit of CAD for my senior project this semester and the extra performance boost would really help.

 

Sure thing man, I appreciate your help. I need to call and bug my friend about sending it, I think he forgot. When I have It I will pm you and send it through email.

 

well it does because you are not using the gpu much to render

i remember lightwave had an option to use my old ati 9600 mobility to help the rendering i could render a scene in less then a minute (depending on what i put on it)

 

Every bit of performance counts with my formal work. I won't be fooling around as much this semester so I might as well turn my GTX 280M into a FX 3700M too while I'm at it. If I'm lucky and I get the last two classes I need, I might just graduate this semester, and top 25 in the engineering department too.

 

Here is the file. If any of you dont want to use the upload site just pm me your email address and I will send it that way.

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/99684/Quadro_m3700.bin

BTW this bios came off of a precision m6400

 

Thanks, maxwell36. I'll flash this on my card later. +1 rep for you.

 

Let me know how this goes!

 

Strange. The flash didn't work. The Quadro BIOS gave me a black screen and I had to force flash back to my GeForce BIOS. I guess my Clevo can't take the FX 3700M BIOS. Oh well.

 

I have overlooked a crucial detail. The FX 3700M on the Dell M6400 does not follow MXM 3.0 standards and will not be able to function properly on our cards. The BIOS on the Dell card is coded to handle that card specifically. Even the physical shape of the card is different. http://cgi.ebay.com/Nvidia-Quadro-1...emQQptZPCC_Video_TV_Cards?hash=item27ade37b7c

Unless you like looking at black screens, do not flash the FX 3700M BIOS. It will only work on another M6400.

 

You need the vbios kaltmond had ... Try him soviet

 

awww bummer