Witcher 3 Wild Hunt

Remember Noctua NT-H1 has been widely praised... LoL. Many of the tests on thermal grease can you take with a grain of salt. Either is the thermal paste tested with a desktop CPU or in a test bench. It is not possible to compare these tests with your own hardware.

 

Also, comparing results with freshly applied paste is very deceiving. Even some poor quality thermal pastes work fairly well for a short period of time. After a short period of time you see the sheep separating from the goats. NT-H1 is like that. Works fairly nice at first... but, not for very long.

 

I run at ULTRA preset 2560X1600 and get 30-35FPS. Which is to say, at half the number of pixels, i.e 1080p I would get 60FPS for sure. (4Mp to 2Mp)
I think its pretty Opitmised. HOWEVER - I crash if I do borderless windowed mode.

 

That is so true, and its so easy to use too at first !
If you are looking for great thermal compound ICD7 is a very good choice, heat it up abit by putting it in hot water, then spread it thin like you would TX-4 or Gelid Extreme. (Very very evenly, and very very thin, so you can ALMOST see through it -paper thin)
Do this, and this should last you a year, maybe two. Get really good at applying and balancing a heatsink on the die, and you could easily lower your temps by 15-20 Degree's compared to stock thermal paste that come son a heatsink already applied. My 980M with a 1V modified vBios doesn't go past 55C degree's when I am benching or playing a game. At idle it hovers around 51-52C

It used to, hit 65C, but I only did a decent job of applying thermal paste last time. When done, perfectly, the heatsink gets really hot, as if it is one piece - heatsink and videocard.

 

@Mr. Fox What about Arctic Silver? I am planning on repasting my GPU, , should I get some new thermal pads too?

Also I am planning on overclocking a slight bit so that can I get say 5 fps increase in The Witcher 3, Is that possible easily?

If so could you point me towards the right resources?

I looked at the vBios link that @Robbo99999 posted and found that the download link doesn't work, also not to mention I am not sure why I need to flash my bios? Can you explain?

Looking forward to hearing from you, since I am yearning for at least some ultra settings along with reasonable FPS.

 

Those vBIOS links do work, you need to have made 5 posts before you're allowed to download them, for example the following is a link for the Dell 680M vBIOS with an overvolt to 1.025V:
http://forum.techinferno.com/attach...4.33.00.32__ocedition_revised_00-ov-1025v.zip
Using that vBIOS, if your temperatures are good you should be able to hit 1006Mhz on the core, up from 720Mhz being the stock figure. That's nearly a 40% increase in GPU power, so you should be able to get in the region of 8300 GPU points in 3DMark11 with that overclock. So that makes a big difference in gaming performance. There are also 1V and 1.05V versions of that vBIOS at that website.

 

Is it possible to overclock with significant performance boost without overvolting?

 

It depends on how lucky you are with the chip.

 

Yes, you can overclock without overvolting, and is the best place to start if you're new to it, here's a version of an overclockable vBIOS (+135Mhz limit removed) without any overvolt:
http://forum.techinferno.com/attach...680m-80.04.33.00.32__ocedition_revised_00.zip

Try that one first, then if your temperatures are good & you want more performance try the 1.0V or 1.025V version.

 

No, I haven't used AS5 in ages and no longer recommend it. Once upon a time it was among the best, but it's no longer the best option. For your GPU I would use IC Diamond. For CPU, Liquid Ultra.

 

What do you mean how lucky I am with the chip?

I will try that and let you know. Could you point me towards a decent beginners guide for overclocking that way I don't reduce my GPU life.

Which particular IC Diamond version, 7 or 24? or does it not matter?
By Liquid Ultra do you mean " Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra 100% Metal Thermal Interface Material" ?
Also, should i change my thermal pads?

 

IC Diamond is IC Diamond. The 7 and 24 indicate how much product is in the syringe.

Yes, that is the Liquid Ultra.

If your pads are old it would be a good idea to replace them. They get dried out after an extended period of time, and they can also get dirty from handling them and that makes them less effective. If they are still clean, supple and moist you can reuse them, but have some new sheets of thermal pad handy in case you need them.

 

Alrighty, getting the ICD 7 & Liquid Ultra. And in regards to liquid ultra, would i have to delid the cpu??
Can you please do me two favors, I am going to assume you know a decent bit about overclocking, could you point me towards a decent resource for it?
And also, any specific thermal pad you would recommend?

 

Unless you have a laptop with a desktop CPU, there is no lid. Mobile processors are "lidless" and some desktop processors have the IHS soldered to the core. You can use Liquid Ultra directly on the bare core or a desktop CPU IHS.

If the CPU heat sink doesn't fit correctly, Liquid Ultra will not work well. Not sure what system you have, but I cannot use it on my Clevo P570WM because the heat sink fit is too loose for it to make good contact. If you have an Alienware 18/M18xR1/M18xR2, this probably won't be an issue unless you have a warped heat sink.

I like Fujipoly Extreme and Builder thermal pads the best.

As far as overclocking goes, the only way to do it right is by trial and error. Every CPU and GPU is different. If you copy someone else's settings it might get you into the ballpark, but the results are sometimes not ideal. There are lots of examples in the Alienware 18/M18x threads if you are looking for information to begin the learning process.

 

I have a M17R4, will the headsink be an issue or should it be fine?

 

Should be fine. Alienware generally does an amazing job on their cooling systems. I think maybe I just drew a short straw and got a bad or deformed heat sink on my Clevo.

 

See near bottom of post 64 from Mr Fox. Quite easily explained.

Edit: @Mr Fox Maybe you can customize the heasink ? Use spacers ?

 

Maybe, but it mostly seems like the fit too loose (not enough pressure). The copper heat plate is either warped or mounted crooked in the aluminum housing from the factory, or a combination of more than one of those issues. See the photos I posted over here this morning. I'm not sure if using a copper shim on the IHS will help. It might. If I fill up the gap with IC Diamond it does fairly well, but I have to use AC cooling in situations where I don't need to using Liquid Ultra on the Alienwares (but have to use AC cooling on them using IC Diamond).

 

Is it big variation in the execution of the heatsinks or is it just you who have been unlucky with it? Have others tested heatsink with same bad results?

 

I don't know. Not enough information to determine that. I do know that @Takaezo replaced his Panther/P570WM CPU heat sink before he switched to liquid cooling because his original was warped. If the average user is not trying extreme overclocking it won't make much difference. Stock clocks with IC Diamond runs nice and cool, even if the heat sink doesn't fit well.

 

What could you expect of temp drop with a perfect heatsink and liquid ultra? 5-6 degrees lower or more?

 

(I guess it depends to which worst case you compare the perfect liquid ultra heat sink to....difficult to quantify accurately I imagine - you'd need access to a database of temperature results from a large range of different machines of the same model tested under the same conditions to understand what the possible temperature ranges could be)

 

Yes, at least that much. As you know already, it makes a GIGANTIC difference.

The type of control group you are talking about it the best approach, but even then it's not necessarily meaningful at the point of practical application. There is too much variance between systems and when we factor in sloppy manufacturing the chance of having meaningful and reliable results is fleeting. The best approach is to take time to find and use whatever works best on a given machine, and if nothing works well go get something else if it can't be fixed.

 

11-12 degrees lower temperature than what you have now had been excellent for both idle and load on the processor

 

Just applied IC Diamond, Intial temps were 57 c Idle GPU, now it's 52-54 c. I am using speedfan to check this. Is that a decent gpu temp with ic diamond applied, Or did i apply it wrong? If the GPU temp is too high, what kind of temps should i shoot for? I use U3 Notepal cooler too, so that the temps can be kept low.

 

I would pay more attention to load temps. Those are fine for idle temps and load temps are really what matter in the grand scheme of things. Maybe run wPrime 1024M or Cinebench 11.5 CPU test and let us know what is the maximum load temp, and at what clock speed.

 

I am a bit confused, I am overclocking my GPU, not sure why a processor stress test will help.

My load temp with no clock are around 66-69
Overclocked they are in the 69-73 range.

My speeds are
+135 core
and +700 Memory
I decided to use these because I saw them in a different 680m thread.

I am using Heaven Benchmark, and have no display driver crashes in that.

However, when i do a stress test by playing The Witcher 3, the display driver crashes.

It worked fine for about 15 minutes at max settings and now it crashes within 3-5 minutes.

In terms of drivers I am using version 353.06
And bios and stuff is all latest stock.
I am sure doing that is not a good idea, so could you link me towards the best drivers and so on that will keep game running more stable, not to mention not reduce my GPU lifespan.

Also i am using EVGA PrecisionX 16 to do the overclock itself.


Edit: Restarted Computer, reinstalled Geforce experience.
With everything maxed out on The Witcher 3 besides foliage density and foliage visibility distance which are set at medium and high respectively I get 31-35 fps. With hairworks completely on it's around 25-28.

Now based on previous tests i still believe my clock/drivers aren't completely stable and I would like to stabilize them, so the previous requests still stand.

 

The explanation is simple. I misread your post and saw "CPU" instead of "GPU" so my bad. Sorry for the confusion I created.

Those load temps are fine for GPU also, so you're good to go with thermals.

What you are describing sounds like a messed up Witcher 3 problem to me. I would test other games like you have with Heaven and if everything else checks out fine you can relax knowing your system is fine, but Witcher 3 is just a messed up game. Seems to be a common problem due to incompetent devs. Batman: Arkham Knight is the most messed up game I have seen in years.

 

I tested out Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, and it worked fine. I know there are overclock specific drivers and bios that make it more stable however, Could you please point me towards the best ones?
Thanks.

 

what's people's temps with witcher 3? mine stays below 70 with everything on ultra but playing at 30fps.

 

I don't know of any drivers that are going to help Witcher 3 any more than the latest. I am not sure of your system model or specs, but any of the svl7 or Prema vBIOS mods will be fine.

 

I have 353.30 and I dont have issues running witcher 3. get stedy 50-60 fps on ultra settings with nvidia hairsucks off.

 

Mr. Fox, can you test the new 353.38 hotfix drivers?

 

If you mean overall, I already have and I think you discovered that. But, if you mean testing them on Witcher 3, I cannot. I do not own this game and not planning to buy it any time soon.

 

yeah, this is an old post from when the drivers were released.