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Unlocking the GTX-590 GPU BIOS voltage

Published: April 2, 2012
By: Scott Mikules

Flashing the graphics card BIOS

Now that we have made the voltage adjustment and created the .rom files, we are ready to flash the graphics card(s) BIOS using NVflash. This can be done within Windows – but we caution anyone attempting this. If your system is unstable, randomly crashes or freezes up in some way, we highly recommend doing this next procedure on a more stable system. It is also important to point out that no other applications should be running in the background (especially games of any kind).

With both .rom files created and placed in the “ROMs” folder it is now time to flash the BIOS. First start by placing the “nvflash.exe” into the “ROMs” folder (along with its .sys files) and drag each file onto the “nvflash.exe” file to start the flashing processes for each GPU.

After dragging the .rom file to “nvflash.exe” a DOS window appear asking you for confirmation by pressing “y” to proceed. After pressing “y” NVflash will run through a few processes and automatically close the DOS window. If any errors occur the window will normally stay open – in which case you should trace your steps back and ensure you have done everything accordingly.

After both GPUs are flashed you will then need to reboot the system. Using EVGA Precision we can verify the voltage changes made, and start the Overclocking procedure. (if the graphics card is on a lower power management the voltages will not appear through EVGA Precision. In this case make a small adjustment to the GPU Clock allowing the graphics card to jump into its higher power management mode – you will then be able to quickly verify the voltage adjustments made.)

After several adjustments made to the GPU Clock we were able to push the GTX-590 classified all the way to 725Mhz, but started noticing artifacts after about 30min when game would place loads on the GPU. Bringing it down to 701Mhz removed all artifacts and was stable for several hours while using the cards heatsink and fan.

Memory clock peaked out at 1900Mhz with full stability, as 2000Mhz would not allow the card to remain stable. One final note to mention is heat: the fan speeds on the GTX-590 will need to be increased using PrecisionX (or whichever application you prefer).

With the GTX-590’s fan design most users can set the fan to 100% and tolerate its noise, as Nvidia redesigned the cooling on this particular card with better design and cooling techniques. If increasing the fan to a constant 100% speed is too much noise, you can use EVGA’s PrecisionX application “Automatic fan control properties” setting located within the software’s options and set the fan curve similar to ours shown in the image. Any further voltages used past .963, users should consider leaving the fan at 100% for better protection.