EVGA's GPU Voltage Tuner Lets Users Juice Up their Videocards
EVGA's GPU Voltage Tuner Lets Users Juice Up their Videocards
Posted 02/09/2009 at 2:00pm
| by Paul Lilly
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EVGA has to be feeling awfully confident in its videocards. Not only does EVGA allow its registered users to overclock its GPUs without invalidating the lifetime warranty, but its giving owners the tools to do so.
EVGA's Precision overclocking utility already makes it stupid simple to increase the core, memory, and shader clockspeed on its videocards, and now the company has made available its GPU Voltage Tuner utility to registered owners. With it, GTX 295, 280, or 260 graphics card owners can set custom voltage levels, potentially paving the way for greater overclocking headroom. Of course, increasing voltages also increases the risk of killing components, and so far EVGA doesn't allow sliding the tuner into the red zone, a feature which may be unlocked in a future version, EVGA states in its FAQ.
A prerequisite for using the utility is installing GeForce 181.22 drivers or later. EVGA notes that "it is possible to damage your hardware while adjusting your GPU Voltages - use at your own risk." We'd have to agree.
Image Credit: EVGA
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vistageek
February 10, 2009 at 6:48am
Got the hack so it now has no voltage limit and works with my GTX 260 core 216 from XFX.
Keith E. Whisman
February 10, 2009 at 2:12pm
No not really, It looks like they have it locked so that you can't take the GPU out of it's mVoltage tollerance. But I do see people that don't know what they are doing pushing their voltage to the extreme and then screaming when their card is unstable.
Remember people just because some people can push a card to extremes doesn't mean yours will do the same. That's not how it works. You have to be lucky enough to get a card that can handle it and made on a Tuesday. It takes alot of luck because you may have a card that was made on a Friday that won't run stable more than a few mhz passed stock speeds.
So don't scream if you fry your card and don't scream if you can't get the same overclock as others can. Each card is different when it comes to how high it can overclock. That said I want to try to get to 702mhz on my GTX280 but I'm almost certain it's not going to get their even with more voltage.
Keith E. Whisman
February 09, 2009 at 4:11pm
BTW I recently purchased an EVGA GTX280 with the stock factory clocks. It was only $300bucks.
I tried OC'ing it to SCC levels but was unsuccessful as it just couldn't handle it. Perhaps with a few mV's of juice on top of what it's set at will give me an even hotter but stable OC'ed GTX280.
Keith E. Whisman
February 09, 2009 at 4:08pm
So Paul will you or another MPC staffer be overclocking an EVGA card to show us the do's and dont's about overclocking an EVGA video card and working with the voltage settings to try to avoid damaging the GPU? I understand to just go really slow with it but how much is too much mVoltage?
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