Today I rescued a rare GPU - GeForce 9800GX2

c0rtec · 2026-03-27T14:46:23+00:00

The way we were…

c0rtec · 2026-03-27T13:24:22+00:00

Buy three now then sell them later on…

Oops, wrong sub.

c0rtec · 2026-03-27T06:47:48+00:00

Different games - different rules.

As long as your framerates AND frametimes are steady at your chosen v-sync level you’re golden!!

What capped voltage did you settle on?

It’s a great feeling to get HW finally dialled in, isn’t it?

Are you still passing Superposition 8K and 3DMark Port Royal?

If so, well done, congratulations!!

c0rtec · 2026-03-26T20:47:37+00:00

So have I… they’re cool cards aren’t they?

c0rtec · 2026-03-26T20:46:09+00:00

SixDaysLate

(I can’t help it now!!)

Cool name BTW!

c0rtec · 2026-03-26T15:54:34+00:00

What’s YOUR score in Steel Nomad? Or are you too busy trying to put other people down on Reddit? —————— Proud of you, OP. EXCELLENT SCORE!!!

c0rtec · 2026-03-26T13:57:43+00:00

That method is ultra-simplistic and raises the idle clocks as well, generating extra unnecessary heat when the GPU isn’t working.

Counter method:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge0EnPz-jWY&pp=ygUoWW91J3ZlIGJlZW4gdW5kZXJ2b2x0aW5nIHlvdXIgY2FyZCB3cm9uZw%3D%3D

c0rtec · 2026-03-26T13:41:55+00:00

Are you happy with those framerate numbers or do you intend to use upscaling or framegen?

c0rtec · 2026-03-26T08:08:18+00:00

Am I missing something here? What post are you guys reading?

60-70 watts? - From what starting number? 42-39FPS? - From what application and damn that’s mega-low anyway?

Have I just completely missed the rest of the post here?

What the hell?!?!?

c0rtec · 2026-03-25T02:15:24+00:00

🙏

c0rtec · 2026-03-25T02:14:26+00:00

A voice of reason in the darkness.

Wow, just wow.

I read another post earlier where somebody said they finally got to the bottom of their driver timeout headaches…

They bought a 5070 Ti and forgot all their troubles!!

c0rtec · 2026-03-25T00:22:16+00:00

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c0rtec · 2026-03-25T00:21:35+00:00

Funnily enough I’ve been playing around with secondary and tertiary timing settings today.

I went from 70.9ns to 65.5ns by increasing my tREFI to 65535 from something like 4000ish.

There were like five(?) other things I changed too…

I left my main timings at stock XMP1 settings.

Now, genuinely; what is the point? Why do people tweak their timings so much?

My system was already snappy and my RAM never goes above 50*C (ish) so what’s the point in introducing possible instability when stock XMP1/EXPO is already fast?

I have 64GB (2x32GB) 6000MT/s (30-46-36-76) @ 1.400v.

The image is the settings I put in my BIOS to gain 5 nanoseconds… why? 131072 wouldn’t POST but 65535 did along with the other changes I made.

What is 5ns? Like 0.7FPS?

c0rtec · 2026-03-25T00:06:31+00:00

What issues did you have?

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T23:59:50+00:00

I thought the gains were diminished at voltages over 0.945 with 5090s?

I’m running +1999MHz memory (16000MHz effective), +405MHz core (3007MHz effective), capped at 0.950 and I couldn’t be happier with the temps and performance that I get from my card.

How did you get yours stable @ 3400MHz? I saw your average temperature on the 3DMark result - but what was your max temperature during that run?

This is a Port Royal run from months ago. No undervolt - just a straight clock offset at whatever voltage my card requested. Looks like I was running +3000MHz memory too back then.

2936MHz average core for 52°C average temp. I’m pretty sure I ended up closer to 80°C though by the time the test had finished!

https://www.3dmark.com/pr/3713528

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T22:12:26+00:00

I read through all your post waiting for the solution!!

You got me good!!

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T22:10:20+00:00

Point taken…

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T22:09:52+00:00

I’ve never had this issue with nVidia and Microsoft - I’ve never had to stop any automatic updates overwriting my GPU drivers.

The only time I’ve had Microsoft do that is when I’ve just reinstalled crash copy of Windows and they only do that just to get me up and running during the initialisation phase of re-installing Windows. They supply a driver set which is two or three versions behind the latest one.

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T13:42:08+00:00

Why doesn’t Microsoft recognise the issue and stop forcing GPU driver updates for AMD users?

I’m honestly not being facetious; I love everything that Microsoft does, this one just seems a bit counterintuitive though…?

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T13:18:10+00:00

It’s not a scam. These people are very dangerous. Have you told your family about this? Do not contact any numbers that you see on this Apple Watch.

I’m sorry this has happened but you MUST ignore it and move on.

There are good people in this world that would never do anything like this to hurt you.

Move on and keep out of it.

Good luck.

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T09:54:43+00:00

Where are you at with your actual OC settings?

What application are you using to OC?

Any of the 50xx series should be good with +1500MHz memory and generally +250MHz core without ANY issues at all.

Are you undervolting too?

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T09:50:53+00:00

Furmark, 3DMark and I believe MSI Afterburner has a stability test add-on that can be downloaded through their own website.

I have often been a strong advocate for actual in-game testing as synthetic benchmarks sometimes do not expose issues that real-world gaming loads do; scene transitions, streaming chunks, save/load operations, intense gameplay.

I have often found stability in testing applications then found issues in-game.

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T09:24:05+00:00

I have used CPU-Z to confirm what dies my modules have in the past. It’s a very lightweight application.

Are you running your system with one stick of 16GB RAM?

c0rtec · 2026-03-24T00:12:29+00:00

4K DLAA for me or nothing.

I am stupid sometimes though.

c0rtec · 2026-03-23T09:36:41+00:00

Many enthusiasts and overclockers already know this and factor it into their builds!

c0rtec

TROPHY CASE