880M unlocked vBIOS released!

The long awaited unlocked vBIOS by svl7 for the 880M that will finally make your 880M work the way it was designed has been released!

nVidia Kepler vBIOS Mods -- TechInferno Forums

You'll need 5 posts or a small one time donation ($5) to download. If you're not a regular over at TI then the $5 is more than worth it for the benefits.

Enjoy!

 

Can't wait to see the results before I flash both my 880's.

 

Someone else be the guinea pig, I don't want to have to put my card in my Alienware ever again XD

 

This has been tested already though of course no warranty is given.

 

Can this be used in em and hm?

 

Can the EM and HM even use the 880M?

 

The restrictions for those machines are in the system bios, no video bios will allow it to operate.

 

if you are still under warranty then always check with your supplier first before flashing as some suppliers will void your warranty.

 

I flashed my 880M last night. It takes a few minutes and the results are excellent. What are you waiting for you girly-men?

 

What does it allow you to do? I mean...what can't we do right now with the stock one?

 

You can't not throttle.

 

Double negative. Need explanation.

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

Exactly a double negative, the stock vbios is designed to throttle.

 

Clevo owners still getting screwed. Upgradable laptops not upgradable.

 

That's where a little Prema magic comes into play...

GTX780M in HM & EM models... - Page 8

 

Good! I will probably want to upgrade to flagship Maxwell at some point down the road.

Sent with love from my Galaxy S4

 

So it can not throttle. Can not not throttling is throttling.

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

Yes he said the original can not, not throttle. That means it will.

You might say it that way to point out no matter what you do with the stock vbios installed short of under clockingIit yourself it will throttle.

 

Okay, I gave this a shot today.

Before: 3DMark 11: P12907 / 3DMark Firestrike: 9252

After: 3DMark 11: P13498 / 3DMark Firestrike: 9533

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4940MX CPU @ 3.10GHz,Notebook P377SM-A
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4940MX CPU @ 3.10GHz,Notebook P377SM-A

I need to get my temps under control though. I have 12 new GPU screws and a 4.5g tube of ICD7 coming. It doesn't like MX-4 for whatever reason. My gaming temps are running in the high 80s and after unlocking the BIOS, my GPU hit 93C which caused the system to kick fans on full blast to bring it back in the 80s. These GPUs are HOT...!

Here's a GPU graphing. I ran both 11 and 13 on the same GPU-Z log (Firestrike was first then 3DMark 11 - 3DMark 11 stresses the computer more than Firestrike does from what it looks like).

Spoiler

As you can see, the GPU is boosting the entire time that the benchmarks are running.

The high temps were present before this, its not a result of the vBIOS and as you can see, once the fan kicks in, the temps drop back down. It is quite likely that, as svl7 suggested, there isn't enough pressure on the GPU die to use MX-4 effectively. I noted that there are complaints about the same heatsink in other models needing to be modified for optimum cooling. ICD7 is thicker and that's what it came with so that's what I'll go back to and temps should fall back down as well.

For comparison on what type of performance this actually is, a desktop 780 Ti Superclocked card from EVGA gets 9304 on Firestrike and a Titan gets 9366: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Superclocked ACX Cooling Video Card Review - Page 11 of 16 - Legit Reviews 3DMark 2013

 

There was a reason for the vbios throttling feature then.

 

No, the card still throttles if the heat gets too high unless you change that cap which I didn't touch. The mod prevents it from throttling in normal usage scenarios. The card would throttle in the 60s and 70s even at stock. This added 1C to my secondary card but its 1C for a split second before the fans kick to maximum and drop it back into the mid to upper 80s.

These cards are just extremely hot. If you go look at the MSI reviews with this card, 90s are par for the course. Its unfortunate but I don't think its easily remedied either unless you can pull off an undervolt, something that I have thought about playing with.

 

Right now, since Im playing mostly dota 2 and diablo 3, I am focused on making things run silent and cool.
With stock vbios (which throttles, as you said) and limited FPS in both games to 50, I get a cool-running and silent machine which Im absolutely loving atm.
My temps are in the 55-70'C range right now.

But, down the road, if I ever need more juice and less throttling, I would give that vbios a try

 

Yeah I'm going to make an Inspector profile to drop the temperature target to 70C and use it for everything but Watch Dogs, which is currently the only game I struggle staying at 60FPS on with ultra settings, I'll set it to 85C for that and see how it throttles. If its unacceptable, I'll set it to 90C for that particular game. These fans are terribly whiny when they're on full blast so I might have to consider dropping Watch Dogs to high until Ubisoft gets the game optimized.

The memory went up 450MHz though which gave a nice boost.

 

Nice to know, keep at it! And fack me, your machine is beyond godlike. Have you OC-ed the CPU?

 

Yes I did. Unfortunately, the temps keep me from being able to get much out of it. It seems to max at 3.79GHz when all four cores are active under stressed load and that's only after a -50mV undervolt. Its a 3.1GHz clock out of the box so 3.79GHz isn't terrible but when you see people with the Ivy Bridge version passing 4.4GHz, its a bit of a slap in the face. Temps when the CPU is maxed out are upper 80s, occasionally it will hit 90C. Disabling 3 cores I was able to bench @ 4.5GHz, 2 cores is stable to 4GHz. I had a heavier -110mv undervolt going on but Watch Dogs freezes the system with anything below -60mV so I keep it at -50mV (everything else is stable with it at -110mV though) - at -110mV, its 3.89GHz under load.

I have found that based on the fan tables of the system and the limits of my chip, if I set nVidia Inspector to +450MHz mem, +0 core, +0 volt (this chip will not undervolt and remain stable at all which sucks because others are getting -50 and I'm not even able to get -12.5mv), and 87C temperature target, I get the best balance of performance, stability, and fan noise. 88C will let the GPUs hit 91C for a split second which activates the fans on max.

Here's some benchmarks:

Catzilla - 15202 (stock was 14320): Catzilla Computer Benchmark - Your Online Result
3DMark Firestrike: 9983 (stock was 9131): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4940MX CPU @ 3.10GHz,Notebook P377SM-A
3DMark 11: P13546 (stock was P12907): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4940MX CPU @ 3.10GHz,Notebook P377SM-A
BioShock Infinite: 116.99FPS average, 14.34FPS min, 430.19FPS max

This is while remaining in stock temps (the modded vbios drops the memory rate to drop temperature when the temperature target is surpassed).

I need to play Watch Dogs and see how that pans out. I don't think its going to be too terrible but I'm going to run a FRAPS benchmark for 30 minutes to an hour of gameplay while also logging the temperature, core speed, memory speed, and voltage in GPU-Z and see what its like. I'm not expecting an issue though.

 

The ivy version shares the 2nd gpu heatsink with the cpu so it can clock the cpu higher but not the gpu.

 

My OC reference was with regards to the Alienware M18xR1 and R2, I don't think the Clevos have the cooling capabilities of the old M18x to be able to achieve it.

I'm plenty happy with my machine, the overclock would just be a nice added bonus. Truth be told, it dusts anything else I've ever used so I can't compare it to anything. That might change if I get a decent 4770k when it comes in today

 

Well with a re paste and repad I had someone happy at 3.9ghz.

 

Does anyone have/seen 3Dmark11 results with the 4960X and 880M's?

 

Will be very similar to the 4930MX and 780m scores.

 

a 4960X will surly outperform a 4940XM in benchmark?

 

An extra 100mhz on an unlocked processor does not mean much.

 

But the 4960X is hex core vs 4940XM quad core, so unless it's a single threaded application the 4960X would be much better no?

 

I meant 4930k sorry lol.

 

then it make sense!

How much can you OC these CPU's?

Would like to get the 4960X over the 4930K because, well... looks better and money is not really an issue.

 

Well, the dude here said he got ~3,79Ghz stable OC on his. Anything above that puts temperatures in the red zone. Undervolting got him at ~60mV before things get unstable. Still, for a laptop - its fast! 90% of the desktop users can't compete with that. Neither do they even imagine the kind of power a laptop nowadays can achieve.

But - are you sure you want to shell out so much more cash just to have those few extra Mhz?
My advice would be to get the best bargain (which is 4810QM) and use Intel XTU to bump it up another 400mhz. This will save you some cash, you will still have lots of speed and can use that thing on battery (not recommended, lol).

But whatever the choice, it will be a hell of a machine. Makes most desktops feel like toys.

 

The extreme core runs higher voltage on default so a CPU with same core count will run higher and with reduced throttle and that for less dough.

 

4960X should make no difference since you can adjust the voltage anyway, it's the same silicon after all.

4.3ghz all day here.

 

I did.

3DMARK VANTAGE
44378 - Stock
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM
46538 - Prema BIOS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM

3DMARK 2011
14803 - Stock
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM
15111 - Prema BIOS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM

ICE STORM
159100 - Stock
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM
168893 - Prema BIOS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM

CLOUD GATE
28606 - Stock
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM
30232 - Prema BIOS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM

SKY DIVER
28386 - Stock
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM
29317 - Prema BIOS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM

FIRE STRIKE
9665 - Stock
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM
9806 - Prema BIOS
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4960X,Notebook P570WM

CATZILLA
22588 - Stock
Catzilla Computer Benchmark - Your Online Result
24218 - Prema BIOS
Catzilla Computer Benchmark - Your Online Result

Unigen Haven 4 - X
1956 - Stock
2011 - Prema BIOS

Unigen Vally - X HD
2892 - Stock
2929 - Prema BIOS

 

Those scores make me want to cry...

 

Too low?
everything on stock.

 

Yeah those scores seem a bit low, I get around the same score in Firestrike with a 4900MQ and 780M OC'd but still below stock 880M speed.

 

Why is that in your opinion?
what can i do to make it better?

 

Well the scores aren't that bad, physics score seems to be where it should be if you're running the 4960X completely stock, but that 880M graphics score could use a slight improvement. I wonder if GPU Boost is working during those benchmarks.

 

How can i tell if the GPU Boost working?
also noticed that the score page in 3dmark shows the GPU mem clocks on 1250mhz.
shouldn't it be on 1500mhz?

 

With the unlocked vbios (basically 993MHz core, stock mem):

23351 Catzilla 720P: Catzilla Computer Benchmark - Your Online Result
Heaven: 1774
Valley: 2750
3DMark 11: P12907: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4940MX CPU @ 3.10GHz,Notebook P377SM-A
Firestrike: 9679 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4940MX CPU @ 3.10GHz,Notebook P377SM-A

Basically, I was stupid to get this machine and not the P570WM. I bet your temps aren't as high either (main GPU hits 87C, secondary 83C at the last test in Valley)

 

Going by the graphics score alone, I think sa7ina's 880Ms are not running boost (993MHz) at all during the benchmark.

@Ethrem: P570WM barebones + 4930K will run you about $1800. Everything else you can just port over from the P377SM-A. You could potentially recoup some of that $1800 if you sold the P377SM-A as barebones. It's an option if you really wanted to go the P570WM path.

 

I think you are right.
core: 954MHz
mem: 1250MHz
during the whole test.
the temps stays under 75c though.

only flashing my cards will help?

 

Yeah possibly so. The 880Ms seem to be very borked for pretty much everyone when running the stock vBIOS. I think part of the reason boost doesn't work is because the 880M is already at its TDP limit even on stock clocks.

 

Ok ill give it a try.
10X

very weird though...like this card was developed on one of the poles.