About the new vbios for GTX580M released by dell.

Drivers and Downloads

I have extracted the rom from iso file and compared this version 70.24.2B.00.06 rom with old version 70.24.2B.00.04.

A new entry was found in the clock domains.

04 vbios only has 3 entries as follow:
---------------
core:50.5MHz
shader:101MHz(bumped shader:270MHz)
memory:67.5MHz
---------------
core:73.5MHz
shader:147MHz(bumped shader:270MHz)
memory:162MHz
---------------
core:620MHz
shader:1240MHz(bumped shader:1289MHz)
memory:750MHz


06 vbios has 4 entries as follow:
---------------
core:50.5MHz
shader:101MHz(bumped shader:270MHz)
memory:67.5MHz
---------------
core:73.5MHz
shader:147MHz(bumped shader:270MHz)
memory:162MHz
---------------
core:475MHz
shader:950MHz(bumped shader:950MHz) <------new entry as the second highest one
memory:750MHz
---------------
core:620MHz
shader:1240MHz(bumped shader:1289MHz)
memory:750MHz

As far as I know, MSI GTX4x0m and GTX5x0m card also have 4 entries in their clock domains.
The second highest one is used by MSI for downclock when the card's power consumption or temperature runs too high.

We already know that AW version 580M throttles.
Maybe dell thought it was better throttling to 475MHz(06 vbios) than to 73.5MHz(04 vbios).

 

Well mine hits those new sets of clocks at random times like when browsing too without much load so hopefully that was not the 'quick fix' solution.