Clock Rates Tab

On the Clock Rates section, you can edit the card speeds for different modes. Since the Geforce FX series, NVIDIA cards are capable to dynamically change their clock speeds depending on situation. By editing the clock rates in the BIOS, you set new default clocks for the card that the driver will use. Remember that using the driver overclocking feature or other overclocking software will override the clockrates from the BIOS.

Under the Clock Rates tab we find back information on the different operating modes of the video card as follows:

• 3D Info: This will display the 3D operating speed settings of the GPU core and graphics memory.
• Throttling Info: This will display the throttling speed settings of the GPU core and graphics memory.
• 2D Info: This will display the 2D operating speed settings of the GPU core and graphics memory.

The 3D setting is used when running 3D applications or games. The 2D one is used on the Windows desktop and using standard Office programs, and Throttling comes into the picture while switching between 2D/3D or when the card throttles back on speed, e.g. feels it gets to hot. For the memory, the effective speed of the DDR clockrates is also displayed in brackets as a small help.

Geometric Delta Clock is a new feature discovered on the GeForce 7800 GT/GTX cards. There are theories that the different GPU parts are clocked at different speeds, and that the main part gets higher clocked then the rest by this Geometric Delta value. With the current version of RivaTuner, using the monitoring option you can witness this effect.

You can also change from the Clock Rates tab the Performance Levels of the graphics card BIOS. This will help on expanding the Performance Table to disable/enable the voltage entries that are present on the BIOS files. This option is something that is for the more advanced users and therefore you get a selection box before you can change any Performance Levels.

Once you have highlighted it you will get full access to view and change the Performance Levels present on the BIOS. The Performance Levels control the ability to set different clock speeds for 3D, Throttling and 2D settings on the BIOS.

Voltages Tab

The next tab that we can find in NiBiTor are the Voltages that are set within the BIOS. You get a clear view on the actual values of each voltage and also the ability to change those according to your needs.

On most cards you can change the voltages using either the Exact Mode or the VID Mode. It is recommended to use the Exact Mode if or when possible. Depending on the amount of performance modes your card has, you can select the voltage applied to the GPU in each mode. The 3D/Thrtl/2D modes are the same as mentioned with the clockrates.

If you only have one mode to edit e.g. 3D, the voltage set there is always used, regardless if you are running 3D or desktop. When working in Exact Mode, the voltage identifier of one performance table entry is modified, this identifier is used by the driver to find the corresponding VID in the voltage table.

The advantage of this editing this way is that monitoring tools can show the correct voltage, and modified BIOS files can be interpreted correctly to show the right voltage.

The Extend Voltage Table box allows you to automatically extend the voltage table of the BIOS, and tries to give you all voltages for a selection that your BIOS supports. Note that this is based on experience with your cards BIOS, and is not fully sure to be accurate.

In VID Mode, you can change each entry of the voltage table. Each voltage table entry has a voltage identifier, which is shown left, and a VID. You can select the VID assigned to each identifier. Behind each VID its own orginal voltage identifier is displayed as a level of help.

Note that the assignment "Voltage Identifiers <> VID" is only valid when using a BIOS has not been editied using this mode before. When the amount of possible VIDs in your BIOS is bigger than the number of entries in the voltage table, the additional VIDs can be selected but their voltage is labled as "?.?V", because there is no assignment to a voltage identifier for them.

Using Extended Labeling will force the editor to guess the voltages for unknown VID's, based on experience with your BIOS. In the same way like the Extend Voltage Table option, this is not 100% reliable.