TheOverclocker Issue 36 | Page 22

not only save on LN2, but make sure your card lasts for as many sessions as possible. In the testing performed, it was interesting to note that this GPU, will above all others consume LN2 at a ridiculous rate. It is not uncommon to find - depending on the benchmark and settings - that you’re constantly pouring LN2 in an attempt to keep the GPU temperatures stable enough to complete a benchmark. This is particularly true of those long and intensive benchmarks such as 3DMark FireStrike Ultra and perhaps HWBOT Unigine Heaven Xtreme, if only because of just how long the benchmark is. Our particular GPU and combination of hardware led us to a maximum GPU clock of 1932MHz. A mighty fine cock speed, even though it is a good 200MHz lower than what we have seen other KPE cards achieve. There could be a number of reasons for this, but it could be the GPU container, the thermal interface material, the quality of the 22 The OverClocker Issue 36 | 2015 mounting or familiarity with the GPU. This is where the difference is going to be mostly, because it is not unrealistic to expect this very sample to reach 2050MHz, under more capable hands and with better equipment. What was made evident with this review is that even the more amateurish overclocker can reach competitive clock speeds, with the 980Ti KEP. The limitation is not the hardware but rather the rest of the gear used and the overclocker. Unlike with other graphics cards, the minimum clock speed attainable regardless of all these secondary factors is quite high. In fact, it is unlikely that there’s a single GTX 980 Ti KPE card that will not reach at the very least 1900MHz. something that can’t be said for all 980 Ti cards. Most importantly, once you’ve managed to reach these clock speeds and beyond, you may still use this graphics card for gaming and in a regular high end computing environment. You need not make any permanent changes to the card at all and it is as well adapted inside a computer case as it is operating at 2GHz+ at the most extreme temperatures. This is in essence what you are paying for as the end user. The card will scale according to the environment and that is by far the most impressive aspect of the K|NGP|N edition card, it just works. EQUAL ACCESS There was a time when, EVGA was selling the EVBOT GPU tuning tool. This tool is obviously not for sale any more, but as you may expect, it works with all the EVGA classified and KPE cards to date. With this tool you can set all kinds of voltages and behaviour. It’s an essential tool for LN2 overclocking. However what does one do without the tool? Well, you may use the software via the classified tool or even better yet use a Raspberry Pi, to configure the card just as you would with the EVBOT. The instructions on how to do with are again available at kingpincooling.