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.