Yes my friends, there is no longer danger to plug two monitors on a GeForce GTX 480!
In idle mode with one monitor plugged to the GTX 480, the clock speeds are:
– GPU: 50MHz
– Memory: 67.5MHz
Now if you plug a second monitor to the GTX 480, the clocks jump to (we are still in idle mode):
– GPU: 405MHz
– Memory: 924MHz
Direct consequence: more power consumption just because you have plugged a second monitor!
But don’t panic, this way of working is not reserved to GTX 480. GTX 200 do the same thing as well as ATI’s Radeons…
According to NVIDIA, the clocks are increased to prevent screen flickering.
But the problem with GTX 480 comes from the first version of the BIOS: 70.00.10.00.01. This BIOS has a nice bug: with a second monitor, the clocks are increased but not the fan speed. I let you imagine the problem: the GTX 480 becomes quickly very hot!!!
No need to FurMark to burn your GTX 480, just plug a second screen 😀
NVIDIA has just released a new BIOS, version 70.00.19.00.02, that solves the problem: now the fan speed is also increased and the GPU is correctly cooled. But at the price of an additional noise (54dB)!
