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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Fri Sep 26, 2014 7:12 am

geekl33tgamer wrote:
Can't find any 970's listed that have the Titan style cooler on them yet, but I'm in no hurry...

...As for the throttling - I was just using my PC as normal. Gaming mostly, any game, at my native res of 5760 x 1080. Takes usually 1-2 minutes only, then MSI Afterburner starts showing core fluctuations. :o


I wouldn't call this cooler "Titan Style," but it will blow all of the hot air out of the rear of the case and is selling for a very reasonable $329.

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video ... 4gp41970kr

Or for $20 more, a superclocked model.

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video ... 4gp41972kr

But I have heard of some coil whine complaints with EVGA GTX 970s, which made me order the Asus Strix instead.
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geekl33tgamer
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Sep 27, 2014 10:27 am

I've tried everything guys. I've moved fans all over, forced airflow in one direction, and tried having highest speed exhausts over the GPU area. Nothing stops even one of these overheating. Sure, I saw a small decrease in temps initially, but all it's done is delay the point where it will overheat by a few minutes.

Then, I stumbled across this last night. They have the exact same issue, and get the same clock speeds I was seeing. The card is the non-x version of what I have, so I assume they are pretty much identical physically.

I have no idea how TR kept their single card sub 60C, but mine don't even come close, and neither did theirs. I can't just throw a random fan in there like they have done, so I'm open to suggestions...
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Sep 27, 2014 10:51 am

geekl33tgamer wrote:
I've tried everything guys. I've moved fans all over, forced airflow in one direction, and tried having highest speed exhausts over the GPU area. Nothing stops even one of these overheating. Sure, I saw a small decrease in temps initially, but all it's done is delay the point where it will overheat by a few minutes.

Then, I stumbled across this last night. They have the exact same issue, and get the same clock speeds I was seeing. The card is the non-x version of what I have, so I assume they are pretty much identical physically.

I have no idea how TR kept their single card sub 60C, but mine don't even come close, and neither did theirs. I can't just throw a random fan in there like they have done, so I'm open to suggestions...


all i can think of is switch to a different third party cooler for the GPU
http://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/produ ... g/vga.html
something from them perhaps
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Sep 27, 2014 11:07 am

geekl33tgamer wrote:
A quick Google of the problem reveals it's fairly common, and workarounds all involve water.


The answer is at hand. ;)
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:50 pm

geekl33tgamer wrote:
I've tried everything guys. I've moved fans all over, forced airflow in one direction, and tried having highest speed exhausts over the GPU area. Nothing stops even one of these overheating. Sure, I saw a small decrease in temps initially, but all it's done is delay the point where it will overheat by a few minutes.

Then, I stumbled across this last night. They have the exact same issue, and get the same clock speeds I was seeing. The card is the non-x version of what I have, so I assume they are pretty much identical physically.


Open Catalyst control center and force the fan to 80% or something like that. It appears that the XFX card has good cooling for the GPU but not good enough for the VRMs. You may also try and play a little with PowerTune, like give an extra 5%, without touching the max frequency. This allows the card to use more power if necessary before throttling.

Finally, you could check whether you can simply add (bigger?) heatsinks to the VRMs. This may or may not be possible, depending on the XFX cooler dimensions.

As always, try all that with a single card. Try first with a cold then with a hot card (after 15' gaming, for example), to see whether this is temperature or power related.
Image
 
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Sep 27, 2014 6:40 pm

I may be onto something here with just 2 cards. I made a custom fan profile in Afterburner (seeing as the Overdrive utility seemed to fix the speed regardless of temp), and I idle at 40C:

Image Image

I then ran Valley Benchmark at Extreme HD (1080p, Ultra Tessellation, 8xAA). The core speed didn't fluctuate after 3 loops, and temp peaked at 90C:

Image

Image

Does the benchmark score fall where is expected for this system now (Straight from the XML)?

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
106.5
Score:
4620
Min FPS:
45.5
Max FPS:
236.7

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor (4720MHz) x4
GPU model:
AMD Radeon R9 200 Series 14.200.1004.0 (4095MB) x2

Render:
Direct3D11

Mode:
1920x1800 fullscreen
Preset
Extreme HD
Quality
Ultra
Last edited by geekl33tgamer on Sun Nov 30, 2014 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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CeeGee
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sun Sep 28, 2014 2:42 am

Well it seems like you've found the problem, hot VRM's! And it looks like your custom fan profile has worked wonders.

geekl33tgamer wrote:
Does the benchmark score fall where is expected for this system now (Straight from the XML)?

I've ran Valley on my single R9 290 (non-x) to give you a rough idea of what one card does but I think you're right about where you should be now.

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0
FPS: 61.4
Score: 2568
Min FPS: 30.7
Max FPS: 116.5

System
Platform: Windows 8.1
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz (3499MHz) x4 (4100MHz actual)
GPU model: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series 14.100.0.0 (4095MB) x1

Settings
Render: Direct3D11
Mode: 1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset: Extreme HD

Here's what MSI Afterburner was set to. (I copied your settings as best I could.)
Image

This guy on Youtube has two 290X's in Crossfire and gets about the same score as you do. Valley Benchmark R9-290x Crossfire

I think you might find it interesting tinkering with the Powertune setting. You can take some of the load off of the VRM's pretty easily by lowering the power limit and even under volting a little. I've also found that there's not much of a performance boost overclocking the cards memory probably because it already has a crazy amount of bandwidth so there's a few more watt's saved putting that back to default.

Here's an example of what I mean.
Image
Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0
FPS: 60.8
Score: 2543
Min FPS: 31.9
Max FPS: 114.6

As you can see there's not much difference between the scores.

Anyway have a play around and see what you think. As an experiment maybe try setting the power limit to -20%. ;)
 
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sun Sep 28, 2014 8:33 am

geekl33tgamer wrote:
I may be onto something here with just 2 cards. I made a custom fan profile in Afterburner (seeing as the Overdrive utility seemed to fix the speed regardless of temp), and I idle at 40C:


So, accelerating the fan seems to practically fix the problem.

As I said in the beginning of this thread, if you do manage to undervolt your cards you could get a huge difference in temperature. I don't see voltage on the screenshots you provided, but try something like 1.15 V and see what happens. Maybe you'll need a more recent version of MSI afterburner or some other utility like Sapphire Trixx. I am afraid XFX cards have the reputation of being voltage locked. If that is indeed the case, it should be possible to undervolt by BIOS flashing using VBE and atiflash.

ONLY DO THIS IF YOUR BOARD HAS DUAL BIOS. Read this article for more info (http://www.cryptobadger.com/2013/10/und ... fied-bios/).
Image
 
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sun Sep 28, 2014 11:25 am

Yep - I hadn't even realised, but it appears that whatever it ships with "stock" will only run the fan at 40-45% max. That's what appears to be causing me the problems, so what's up with that? I run the fan to 100% and yeah it's a little loud, but not to bad. Small price to pay for the drastic difference it makes to performance.

I can't seem to change voltage though. In my screenshots of Afterburner, there's no value shown for voltage unlike in CeeGee's. I ticked the button to expose voltage control in Afterburner, but it still can't get a reading. I assume it's locked?

My card has dual BIOS chips - It's a feature mentioned on the box (There's a Uber mode, and Normal - I change them with a switch). It's in Uber by default. Shall I flash one and see what happens???
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sun Sep 28, 2014 12:09 pm

Honestly I don't think I would, not without knowing if the voltage controller is even the same model as the reference one. Techpowerup strip the cards down and look at this stuff but they haven't reviewed an EVGA one yet.

You've fixed the fan profile issue and you can play with the power limit in Afterburner to shave off a few watts at peak power draw, I think I'd be happy with that unless some other problem turns up.
 
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sun Sep 28, 2014 2:05 pm

geekl33tgamer wrote:
My card has dual BIOS chips - It's a feature mentioned on the box (There's a Uber mode, and Normal - I change them with a switch). It's in Uber by default. Shall I flash one and see what happens???


You should first download both BIOSes to the disk as backup and modify one of them to slightly lower the voltage. Then you change the switch to normal and flash it with the new BIOS. If something goes wrong you can go back to the original "Uber" BIOS. You should not flash both BIOSes, always keep the original one in either the normal or "Uber" position.

Read the article I linked before. Do note that the article refers to older cards, so your voltage ranges might be different. Start by reducing 20mV at a time or something under the "Performance" state, most importantly . You can also modify the fan profile in the BIOS.

I have circled the most important value in red, corresponding to the highest voltage in the "performance" state. In my case, I went from 1200mV (1.2V) to 1.081mV.

Image

As always, there is a risk of bricking the card, but with 2 BIOSes it shouldn't be too dangerous. Be careful.
Image
 
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:46 pm

Yeah I had a similar problem with my 7950 boost, it wouldn't overclock without serious instability and ran very hot on top of that. After some checking, it turns out the fan was set to run at 30% and didn't crank itself up at all under load. After a quick boost up to 80% and still really cant hear the fan, it runs great and has a good OC. No idea why they set these fans so low, the difference in fan speed is barely any louder on top of making the card run cooler. They may just want the card to overheat and die so you go out and buy another one sooner....I know the last 3 cards I owned all died from heat related issues.
 
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:34 am

Starfalcon wrote:
I know the last 3 cards I owned all died from heat related issues.

I'm not sure the life expectancy of my "middle" card looks good anymore. That one is suffocated top and bottom and spends most of it's life just shy of 100C.
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Oct 04, 2014 4:05 pm

Now it's all working properly, here's the 3 (yes, I added a 3rd) R9 290X from XFX seated in the system. The case has also been changed to a Corsair Obsidian 750D - Behold:

Image

Note the improvised spacer I shoved between cards #2 and #3, as the boards seem to bend when you put the case upright.

/pcporn :wink:
Last edited by geekl33tgamer on Tue Nov 11, 2014 6:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Oct 04, 2014 4:19 pm

Very nice!

I still think you're a bit mad going for three though. :lol: Cramming in potentially 900 watts of graphics hardware with no spaces between them!
 
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Oct 04, 2014 4:24 pm

CeeGee wrote:
Very nice!

I still think you're a bit mad going for three though. :lol: Cramming in potentially 900 watts of graphics hardware with no spaces between them!

This site says "PC Hardware Explored" on every page - I think I've defiantly done that and then some! I started this build 6 weeks back now, changed the GPU's, had to change the CPU cooler and also swapped out the case because of various issues I have run into.

Also, all that heat given off is a testament to just *how* good these XFX Double Dissipation coolers are at shifting some serious heat. Shame they don't ship the cards BIOS with custom fan settings to properly use it (but that's easily sorted).

Works fine now though, finally. Did I mention it's fast, and heats the room pretty efficiently to? Thankfully winter is coming up here... :lol:
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Re: The Piledriver Beast - Pics, Etc...

Sat Oct 04, 2014 4:34 pm

geekl33tgamer wrote:
Works fine now though, finally. Did I mention it's fast, and heats the room pretty efficiently to? Thankfully winter is coming up here... :lol:


:lol: Us PC enthusiasts seem to enjoy unconventional room heaters! I'm glad you got it all working well in the end, I've enjoyed reading your posts over the course of your build, thanks for sharing.

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