ASUS 7970 DCII owners - tell me this isn't true

S

Spree

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 20, 2004
Messages
170
Swapped in a 7970 DCII for my 6990 yesterday to power my 5x1P setup. Very happy to see the back of crossfire.

My only issue now is I can't increase the volts on this card at all. Idles at 1.09v and under load drops to 1.06 to 1.03v depending on the load put on it (as measured with GPU-Z and GPU tweak).

GPU tweak has a max setting of 1.18v however setting it to that has no effect, the card still runs at it's stock volts. I can't even get 1050mhz to be stable!

So my question is: DCII owners - have any of you successfully increased your voltages?
 
This isnt the 1st time I've heard about this and I am curious is it true as I'm wondering should I get GTX 670 DCII (already preordered) or 7970 DCII TOP which I can get cheaper here in EU.
 
I cannot say about the 7970, having never worked with it directly, but I do remember that the Direct CU II version of the GTX 570 (100% sure; personally worked with one that I managed with some tweaks to get to a core clock of over 1000 MHz) and IIRC, the AMD 6970 (not 100% on this one) were also overclocked AND undervolted.

It's possible that this generation of DC II cards has also been overclocked and undervolted.




Update:

The 680 Direct CU II is hardware voltage locked.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-gtx-680-directcu-ii-top-2gb-review/15614-3.html

Check to see if the 7970 might be as well.
 
I wish mine was locked at 1.18v. My 1.09v actually droops under load to as low as 1.03v. That is impressive undervolting for a 1ghz core clock, however what is the point when the cooler is so good. Such a waste.
 
Spree said:
I wish mine was locked at 1.18v. My 1.09v actually droops under load to as low as 1.03v. That is impressive undervolting for a 1ghz core clock, however what is the point when the cooler is so good. Such a waste.
Click to expand...

It's very simple actually. So yes, it IS true.

Asus is trying to do 2 things:

1. Keep warranty costs down. Undervolting means that anybody who wants to break it has to hard break the undervolt thus voiding their warranty.

2. Upsell. Sooner or later, there will be a higher end of either the 7970 or 680. It will be known as the "Matrix Platinum". The Matrix Platinum will be the true flagship. It will look like this (unless a new look is made for this gen):

1313312700BDaES25VJw_2_6_l.jpg


I'm waiting to buy. Right now, I'd like to consider when the custom PCB 680s come out. Given the nature of how the 680 works, I suspect that custom PCBs are needed for the full potential overclock of the 680. By contrast, custom PCBs on the 7970 have not been giving much better than reference overclocks, although they still may be worth it. The price premium for the cooler alone is justified - never mind that it does come with a custom PCB.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcfbsy1SKTM
Here is a video posted by ASUS showing the GPU Tweak softaware in action with 7970 card. There you can see clearly that the gpu voltage can be changed up to 1.250v. They dont say in the video which 7970 card is used: reference, DCII or DCII TOP but I'd find it more then odd if the reference design would allow more voltage then DCII models which seem to locked to 1.185v. If there are any actual DCII owners reading this would be nice to get some confirmation about this.

DCII models come with Hot Wire function but increasing voltage that way requires soldering to pcb which removed any warranty.
 
The only wat to unlock voltage with the 7970 dcu II id to have a rampage board with voltage control headers and solder them to the solder points on the card. Ull see them on the back bottom
 
I've personally tried so many different versions of radeon drivers, asus gpu tweak, sapphire trixx, msi afterburner and even did clean install of windows 7 and windows 8 consumer preview but with no affect. I also tried with exactly with the same versions of drivers and gpu tweak as fellow 7970 DCII TOP card owner just to see my voltage still being locked and other card was not. Also one little interesting thing: The cards which are not being voltage locked seem to be able to use msi afterbutner to read and tweak the voltage. Afterburner cant even read the gpu voltage on cards which are voltage locked let alone change the voltage. For non voltage locked cards afterburned works just fine. So clearly there is something different between the cards. It might be only the bios but I guess cards could use even different components. Also seems that there is a lot of different bios versions in the cards based on gpu-z screenshots. I am not familiar with those bios markings so I cant say based on just bios version which cards are locked or not.

Card doesn't need to be "hot wired" to be voltage tweaked. That is only needed if you want to really over volt the card (over 1.25v), change pll voltage or mem voltage.
 
I did put an universal waterblock on my 7970 DCII and getting 1175/1600 on STOCK voltage LOL.
 
loc said:
I've personally tried so many different versions of radeon drivers, asus gpu tweak, sapphire trixx, msi afterburner and even did clean install of windows 7 and windows 8 consumer preview but with no affect. I also tried with exactly with the same versions of drivers and gpu tweak as fellow 7970 DCII TOP card owner just to see my voltage still being locked and other card was not. Also one little interesting thing: The cards which are not being voltage locked seem to be able to use msi afterbutner to read and tweak the voltage. Afterburner cant even read the gpu voltage on cards which are voltage locked let alone change the voltage. For non voltage locked cards afterburned works just fine. So clearly there is something different between the cards. It might be only the bios but I guess cards could use even different components. Also seems that there is a lot of different bios versions in the cards based on gpu-z screenshots. I am not familiar with those bios markings so I cant say based on just bios version which cards are locked or not.

Card doesn't need to be "hot wired" to be voltage tweaked. That is only needed if you want to really over volt the card (over 1.25v), change pll voltage or mem voltage.
Click to expand...
What program are you monitoring your actual voltage in? All the above mentioned programs let me change my voltage and GPU-Z shows the VDDC rising.
 
PersonalJ said:
What program are you monitoring your actual voltage in? All the above mentioned programs let me change my voltage and GPU-Z shows the VDDC rising.
Click to expand...

Only programs that can even read the gpu voltage are gpu-z and asus gpu tweak. I doubt the gpu-z even reads the voltage really as it is just constant 1.170v without any fluctuation under load. Asus gpu tweak shows 1.142v-1-162v under load (furmark). I can lower the voltage from gpu tweak but not increase and the change shows on gpu tweaks monitoring but not in gpu-z. Whats the maximum voltage you can set on our card with gpu tweak?
 
loc said:
Only programs that can even read the gpu voltage are gpu-z and asus gpu tweak. I doubt the gpu-z even reads the voltage really as it is just constant 1.170v without any fluctuation under load. Asus gpu tweak shows 1.142v-1-162v under load (furmark). I can lower the voltage from gpu tweak but not increase and the change shows on gpu tweaks monitoring but not in gpu-z. Whats the maximum voltage you can set on our card with gpu tweak?
Click to expand...

GPU Tweak max voltage was really low, I uncapped afterburner but any voltage above like 1.18 voltage results in artifacting and a crash. I have the Top edition of the 7970 DC II and my voltage does fluctuate, but I can't get the card stable at anything above 1125 mhz core
 
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but can't you flash a non-voltage locked bios to your DCII? Mine isn't voltage locked, I could dump the BIOS?
 
QwaarJet said:
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but can't you flash a non-voltage locked bios to your DCII? Mine isn't voltage locked, I could dump the BIOS?
Click to expand...
I am thinking that there are slight differences on the board itself. Mainly on the controller chip which might be different on voltage locked cards. This would explain why voltage reading or changing it with afterburner doesn't work for these cards. If that's true then different bios wouldn't help.

Whats your default voltage of the card with gpu tweak / afterburner and whats the maximum you can set it to with those programs? I can change it only between 1.100v - 1.182v with 1.175 being the default in gpu tweak and no other program reads the voltage correctly. Example gpu-z shows the voltage bing 1.170v even if I lower it with voltage tweak. So it just basically reads the boards default voltage but not actually monitor it.
 
Frustrating, can anyone contact ASUS rog mods/admins? im user there but i cant log on due to some bug :(
 
I can't even get my 7950s to 950 stable. The higher I raise it, the more often I get "display drivers stopped responding". I would assume raise the volts, but I'm not ready for that just yet. I think the whole expect 1 ghz stable easily is false. I envy you for being able to overclock as much as you are.
 
Vega said:
Wait, so is this working at 1.4v? If so, this may be a better card than the Lightning which is stuck at 1.35v.
Click to expand...

I guess yes, but point is, 2 of the users which unlocked their cards didn't get anything + regarding overclocking even with alot more increased voltage :(
 
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