When the GTX580 1.5GB came I bought 2 of them and ran them in SLI. They ran perfect and no game ever crashed.
Then several months ago "Ghost Recon Future Soldier" was released. When this game was released MOST people with GTX 570 or GXT 580 were getting GPU crashes. Of course they all assumed it was the Game or Driver problem.
After a lot of research it was found that this game is using Heavy DX11 instructions. For some reason the default Vcore on the GTX 570/580 was to low for intensive DX11 Games.
Increasing the Vcore by only 25-50 mV Stopped ALL the crashing people were having. This game now runs perfect.
Since then we now have 2 new games which cause the GTX580/570 to Crash when using DX11 intensive modes. Black Op's 2 crashes in the Boat scene and Hitman Absolution crashes when in the Garden scene.
AGAIN, It was found that the default Vcore is too low. Setting Vcore up by 25-50 mV Fixed all the crashes with these games. They now run perfect.
To date these are the only 3 games I know of that cause the GPU to crash in DX11 mode on the GTX 580/570 cards.
The other option to increasing Vcore is to lower the clock speed. I found with Default Vcore I had to drop my GTX 580 OC down to 750 Mhz for these 3 games to run without crashing. Bit sad to have to run an OC card at 750 Mhz just so it doesn't crash in DX11 intensive games.
NOW, I have updated to two GTX680 OC 4GB cards in SLI. I was expecting these cards to have this Vcore bug fixed by now.
To my Surprise the GTX 680 has exactly the same crashing problem in these 3 DX11 games. Other games run perfect, Even Crysis 2 DX11 mode. But Crysis 2 DX11 mode only uses a very low amount of DX11 commands.
To stop the Games crashing I had to lower the Clock Speed to 1006 Mhz Boost mode. Then they ran perfect.
This is NOT a Temperature problem. These GTX680's run very cool. Max Temp is 52 degrees C with Stress testing at 100% load.
Some very interesting information. I over clocked the 680's to 1200 Mhz Boost mode and ran a stress test. They both ran stable for an Hour. Obviously Stress testing is not testing the cards DX11 modes fully. It says the GPU's are stable, but in fact they are not stable with DX11 Intensive games.
If you search the Games Forums for Ghost Recon, Black ops 2 and Hitman absolution you will see how many people with GTX580/570 and GTX680 ALL have exactly the same problem. So its not just some cards.
Although the Zotac 680 has been reported to work fine. I assume Zotac have already increased the Default Vcore for their 680 cards.
The Million dollar question.
I don't like having to lower the clocks on my GTX680 OC 4GB which I have paid for Over clocked cards.
Gigabyte have LOCKED the Vcore on these cards so we can't increase Vcore to stop them crashing on DX11 Intensive games. Some manufacturers of GTX 680 cards have already released a BIOS which unlocks the vcore so this problem can be fixed.
Is Gigabyte willing to release an Unlocked Vcore Bios for their GTX 680 series of cards ?
Their is already people hacking the Bios on GTX 680 cards to unlock the Vcore so they can get their cards tuned correctly. However, I don't want to load an unofficial Bios into my Expensive cards.
Charles
