Nvidia's GeForce Titan X may be the most expensive single-GPU consumer-grade card on the market, but that isn't stopping enthusiasts from pushing it to its limits - as proven by the release of a modified BIOS which increases its power target by 21 per cent.
Released last week, the
Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X is an absolute beast of a card. Based on the company's Maxwell technology, the card - available only in reference designs - packs 3,072 stream processors and 12GB of GDDR5 memory, with base clock of 1,000MHz and boost clock of 1,075MHz. It's the fastest single-GPU card around, and its price reflects that: £879.99.
The sharp end of £900 is a lot of money to risk through experimentation, but for the well-heeled enthusiast a member of the 3DCenter forum has something of interest:
a modified BIOS, which unlocks the potential for major performance gains. Installing the BIOS on the card increases the peak power target by 21 per cent while allowing for a peak power selection of 1.281V - allowing the card to be pushed harder than the stock BIOS at the cost of increased heat and potentially shorter component lifespan.
The gains will, naturally, vary from card to card, but 3DCenter's Ronald Gasch has emailed us to claim the BIOS has been shown to hit 1,550MHz stable clocks - a considerable gain over the stock 1,000MHz/1,075MHz on a card that already tops the charts for its performance. Naturally, using such a BIOS and tweaking the power draw of the card is risky, and not something that should be attempted by anyone who can't afford to replace their shiny new Titan X should something go wrong.
For those willing to risk it, the modified BIOS can be downloaded from
Dropbox.
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