GTX 770 MSI N760 TF Gaming 2GD5/OC Always 50 Degrees?

Question

I'm not sure what's going on here. I upgraded from Tri SLI GTX 470 cards with reference coolers to the MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC. My old video cards would always come near 85-90 degrees when overclocked. But this new MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC never gets any hotter than 50 degree even with Boost and a small user overclock. I'm worried something might be wrong here. But if not, why would you make a video card with all that cooling power and not allow higher voltage that +12? It seems like a waste. I feel like I should have just bought the GTX 760 Hawk. At least that one has unlocked voltage for  higher overclocks. There's a huge $110 difference between these two cards.
Do you think maybe one of the 8-pin power connectors is not working? It just doesn't make sense at all to do something like that. Do you think it might have something to do with my ASUS Hero motherboard? That thing sometimes acts retarded with USBs, so maybe it's reporting false temps?
GTX 760 Hawk
GTX 770 Gaming
System Specs:
MAXIMUS VI HERO
Intel i5 4670k
RX-1000AE 1000w ATX Power Supply 80 Plus Gold PSU

Answer 1

Quote from: badboy2k on 09-October-13, 02:24:07
read about nvidia greenlight its NVIDIA that restricts how much voltage can be used or they void the GPU warranty on the core.
older cards had unlocked voltages but not now (some users where applying more voltage then the chip could safely use and it was Vaporising the silicon on the chip killing them over time and they started it with the Nvidia 6xx series cards so its been around for a while as users where overvolting them and causing overvoltage damage to the GPU so they locked it down or no manufacturer cover for the GPU from nvidia if they did not)
with the hawk models they allow you to overvolt them more but pass the lost cover (as no Greenlight) for the GPU onto the end user!
Crap ya I did screw that title up. Like I said, you can't go back and re-edit a post after so many minutes have past.
Anyways, I have the GTX 770. The thing never goes above 50 degrees Celsius. That's extremely cool I know. Every single video card or CPU I've had I've been able to red line to the max temp though, regardless if my voltage is locked or not. There's always seems to be some kind of point you can reach and the damn thing just shuts down. This card is beyond bizarre. Is it possible that I will never ever see 85 degree on this card? If that's the case, why make a video card like this and not even sniff it's critical point? Am I to guess that's what the 780 or Titan would be then?
I've seen nothing online to help me determine if I'm better off getting the GTX 760 Hawk over this GTX 770 Gaming one. My understanding is that the only advantage is maybe a +13 voltage increase and +185% Power Limit over the GTX 770's +12 voltage and 111% Power Limit. I have Svet's Fermi/Kepler VBIOS Tuner, so getting the +185 Power Limit on the GTX 770 Gaming is not a problem. So the GTX 770 Gaming has some room to overclock. I mean the ASUS Maximus VI motherboards and Haswell CPUs were overclocked at like 7GHz and the damn things weren't even released yet, lol. Where are those results for the Hawk and Gaming?
I was also hoping someone might know the difference in the potential of the 760 Hawk and 770 Gaming. I've seen overclocked reviews for the 760 Hawk, but none that talk about the unlocked potential. I know the 760 Hawk can sniff the GTX 770 in performance, but that's using stock overclocking methods. I would like to know if anyone has been able to successfully overclock the 760 Hawk past an overclocked GTX 770.