Buildzoid told me to add more voltage… So I did!

**8830 Fire Strike Score (55th in HWBOT and top 1% on 3DMark leaderboards)**

[3DMark Fire Strike Score – 8830](https://preview.redd.it/dn659g830wrb1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6918e48cc4ecafad4daca5ee04f2bb11dd48113)

[Original Reddit Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/16x3lso/having_fun_with_my_new_evc2_mini_8576_fire_strike/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

Had an absolute blast working with this old ASUS GTX 770 DirectCU II. Pulled from an old machine that has been decommissioned after a heavy-use service life. Found an iBuyPower AIO in the electronics trash that still worked, so with a wood clamp I got a water-cooled GPU.

I went through a few iterations of mods for this card, starting with zip ties to hold the block down, but that was inadequate for cooling at higher voltages. Voltage control was achieved with the ElmorLabs EVC2 Mini interfaced over I2C. Stock VRM controller is the ASP1212, and control is works with the CHL8318 profile in the EVC2 software.

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[VRM controller and I2C connection points](https://preview.redd.it/kiwm04iarvrb1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e90f75e6778a8b0790a935c45dca6456c6fd045a)

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[Version 1 of the liquid cooled GTX 770](https://preview.redd.it/5bb5xjcepvrb1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ff3f78a1c24c7fc60ac179b26e2d78e67e9ad59)

This setup got me an 8576 in 3DMark Fire Strike. I posted this and Buildzoid gave me the simplest advice: add more voltage. Though I wanted to, I was power limited, so time for a shunt mod (yes, I know there are BIOS methods to unlock this GPU, but I wanted to try out hardware mods).

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[Shunt mod to 0.75 mOhm on PCIe 8- and 6-pin power](https://preview.redd.it/vnmnppyypvrb1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a7d3218b62fabebca37d47c0d7bcfb859e92c7b)

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[Shunt mod to 1 mOhm on PCIe slot power](https://preview.redd.it/ruye59q5qvrb1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eee90f73b71a87cf86cf12f0934eb0279a3467fd)

The stock current-sense resistors are 2 mOhm and are some long fellas, so I had to improvise with some wire on the PCIe 8- and 6-pin connectors. I added 4 x 3 mOhm resistors to each connector, dropping the resistance from 2 mOhm to 0.75 mOhm, corresponding to a roughly 2.7x increase in power. For the PCIe slot power, it was only drawing \~30 W under stock conditions, so I went from 2 mOhm to 1 mOhm to double the power here. In total, this gave me >550 W to work with, up from the stock max power limit of 251 W.

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[Die shot and memory heatsinks](https://preview.redd.it/8yww6ytmrvrb1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e252d62bcb92c63a85c01f4e9f89689d8b7cee9e)

I also added some heat sinks to the memory chips, since they had absolutely nothing and I was hoping that this may help reach a slightly higher memory clock. Spoiler, they did not help (or at least I didn’t notice). On the subject of cooling, I had to improve the mounting of the AIO block, so I bought a wood clamp and with a breadboard to distribute the pressure, I mounted the block with more even and central pressure. This helped control temps A LOT!

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[Wood clamp to hold the block](https://preview.redd.it/l1fssw3xrvrb1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7c01c92ecaade932b5994c18be1b829ea126b70)

With that done, it was time to push my old score. I basically just added voltage until I hit a temperature limit, which worked out to 1.519 V idle (1.396-1.400 V under load). I added memory clock until it caused scores to decrease, and then did the same with core clock. I ended up with 1371.8 MHz core clock and 1914.7 MHz memory clock. This setup drew over 590 W according to calculations based on what GPU-Z reported for power draw and then accounting for the shunts, which seems insane. All that work led to me finally hitting my best score:

**8830 Fire Strike Score (55th in HWBOT and top 1% on 3DMark leaderboards)**

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[EVC2 Mini Settings](https://preview.redd.it/d1xqjbpq0wrb1.png?width=1692&format=png&auto=webp&s=94606861c82a2af179578958b4471932d2079903)

[Screen capture](https://preview.redd.it/g60ta3420wrb1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=7bbe739a5fb1c8952ebec7db258f5be79a74ce13)

[HWBOT Submission](https://hwbot.org/submission/5364224_locomoco321_3dmark___fire_strike_geforce_gtx_770_8830_marks)

[3DMark Submission](https://www.3dmark.com/fs/30752680)