[H] users 7970 Overclock Results thread

So, computer locked up last night while I was asleep (can't figure out why, kind of bugging me).

When I restarted, Afterburner had the fan spinning at 100% despite the fact that it looked like the manual fan curve was still enabled and the temp was in the low 40C's.

Not entirely sure what to make of that.
 
Shocked said:
So, computer locked up last night while I was asleep (can't figure out why, kind of bugging me).

When I restarted, Afterburner had the fan spinning at 100% despite the fact that it looked like the manual fan curve was still enabled and the temp was in the low 40C's.

Not entirely sure what to make of that.
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I think Afterburner is still bugged with these. I've had the same thing happen, but since only using AMD's Overdrive to overclock, I haven't had an issue. My guess is it's After Burner and PowerPlay not playing nicely because of that new deep sleep (3W) state these cards have.
 
Mr. K6 said:
I think Afterburner is still bugged with these. I've had the same thing happen, but since only using AMD's Overdrive to overclock, I haven't had an issue. My guess is it's After Burner and PowerPlay not playing nicely because of that new deep sleep (3W) state these cards have.
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I might try TriXX, then. Can't do much clocking on a 1.05V VID card without voltage tweaking.

Wonder if' it's related to why my computer locked up. Couldn't have been the temps... all I see in the event log is "previous system shutdown was unexpected".
 
Shocked said:
I might try TriXX, then. Can't do much clocking on a 1.05V VID card without voltage tweaking.

Wonder if' it's related to why my computer locked up. Couldn't have been the temps... all I see in the event log is "previous system shutdown was unexpected".
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Sorry, meant to say that I had the same lock up, not the fans spinning at 100% issue (I'm on water).
 
Ah, ok.

Things that go wrong with my computers that I can't easily identify just kind of bug me. It's one thing if I'm doing something intensive and am not really sure if my overclocks are stable, but just idling overnight...
 
Shocked said:
Ah, ok.

Things that go wrong with my computers that I can't easily identify just kind of bug me. It's one thing if I'm doing something intensive and am not really sure if my overclocks are stable, but just idling overnight...
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I'm very much the same. That's why I started troubleshooting and found it was Afterburner. Power Play still works fine when overclocking in CCC, but for some reason when clocks are set, and even reset, in Afterburner, it freezes on long idle.
 
Still, it's been probably two weeks since I installed the card and several days since I updated both drivers and Afterburner. Wonder why it only happened once.

Could be worse though. Could happen while gaming.

Speaking of water, barring any catastrophes I should have my stuff installed sometime around the end of next week. Can't wait to see what I can do with this card under water.
 
I cant see myself trusting "zip ties" to hold it down. Now that i know it will work, ill get my friend to weld me up a custom mount for it and thread it down.
 
Got my new Sapphire 7970 going. So far, Im up to 1225mhz // 1700mhz stable. Working on getting those numbers up right now. And for comparison, ASIC is 75.1%.

Cant wait to get better cooling for this card. Its so noisy compared to my Thermalright Shaman on my 6970!

Oh, and Im using Sapphire Trixx this time around. Seems to be working well. I load at 72c max with custom fan profile. Scored a 9989 in 3dmark11 w/ a 1250mhz core (1250mhz was stable for 3dmark11, but not BF3, need to work on it with voltages).
 
Yeah. So I just ran 3dmark11 again with a bit higher clocks. 10900 now :D 1275mhz//1750mhz. Will have to drop it down for daily gaming a little though.

Also, I just replaced the TIM with some Shin-Etsu 7783. Dropped my load temps 4c. Loading at 68c w/ 1.3v.
 
doz said:
Yeah. So I just ran 3dmark11 again with a bit higher clocks. 10900 now :D 1275mhz//1750mhz. Will have to drop it down for daily gaming a little though.

Also, I just replaced the TIM with some Shin-Etsu 7783. Dropped my load temps 4c. Loading at 68c w/ 1.3v.
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Did you reuse the thermal pads? I want to change my TIM because my card gets hotter than I expected it to, but I don't want to have to find new thermal pads.

Nice score btw!
 
Yes, thermalpads are reusable. There wasnt anything wrong with them.
 
manofthem said:
Did you reuse the thermal pads? I want to change my TIM because my card gets hotter than I expected it to, but I don't want to have to find new thermal pads.
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I reused the AMD thermal pads for the memory. They seemed better than the ones that came with my block - at least they were sticky - and they seemed just fine. The ones that came with the block wouldn't stick and I feared them not staying in place while I mounted the block.

I used arctic silver for the gpu though.
 
robble said:
I reused the AMD thermal pads for the memory. They seemed better than the ones that came with my block - at least they were sticky - and they seemed just fine. The ones that came with the block wouldn't stick and I feared them not staying in place while I mounted the block.

I used arctic silver for the gpu though.
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You're right. Last time I mounted my blocks, the thermal pads that came with them didn't seem too sticky at all. They did work though.

But tomorrow I'll pull off the cooler; I have extra AS5 lying around, so I'll throw that on the gpu. Hopefully it'll manage to bring down gpu temps. Then I'll have to do it all over when I get my water block...
 
manofthem said:
You're right. Last time I mounted my blocks, the thermal pads that came with them didn't seem too sticky at all. They did work though.

But tomorrow I'll pull off the cooler; I have extra AS5 lying around, so I'll throw that on the gpu. Hopefully it'll manage to bring down gpu temps. Then I'll have to do it all over when I get my water block...
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Don't be surprised if the AS5 doesn't do much: it takes 100's of hours to properly cure. There's much better TIM on the market now like MX-4 (what I use) or some of the more expensive stuff like Shin Etsu, etc.
 
seems my card is pretty limited no matter how much voltage and fan i push onto it. i can max out CCC sliders, but I can't even do 1200mhz @ 1.275v while keeping the card at 70c or below.

my asic score is about 76%
 
Been running for about a week now with the CCC maximum clocks.

1125 GPU
1575 memory
1.175v

I use CCC for the +20 Power tune only and Afterburner to set the voltage to 1.175v for both cards, clocks and a custom fan profile. Got the RC11 drivers installed with 11.12 CAP3. Played BF3 online for about 5 hours straight last night 64MP settings:

all Ultra
MSAA 4x
High post
HBAO
no blur
vsync@1920x1200.

Solid 60fps with absolutely no dippage whatsoever even on the expansion maps in heavy action. GPU usage on #1 maxed at 87%. GPU usage on #2 maxed at 83%. Temps maxed out at 66c and 60c. Fans stayed under 50%. Gotta say, these cards really crank! Gonna play at these settings for a bit longer before I unlock the higher clocks to see where they top out. Honestly, unless some new GPU arse kicking game comes out I probably don't need to OC them any further for my single monitor... and that suits me just fine. I'm currently feeling like I did when I discovered just one of my unlocked 6950's could handle BFBC2 maxxed by mistake when a driver update disabled crossfire. :D
 
How come I get 8500 3dmark 11 with 1200/1650 and around 8900 with max ccc sliders?

Does ccc interfere with clock settings beyond it's sliders?
 
Karolis said:
How come I get 8500 3dmark 11 with 1200/1650 and around 8900 with max ccc sliders?

Does ccc interfere with clock settings beyond it's sliders?
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Probably the +20% Power control setting that's only available in CCC.
 
Just started oc'ing my XFX BEDD beyond the max settings in CC and so far have the card at 1200/1600 with 1.2mV on the core. Seems pretty decent on air to me, and I'm scoring P9842 in 3dmark11. Hopefully I'll be able to break 10k with little extra juice. My card is a 1175mV default voltage core, so apparently one of the low asic %, which apparently means nothing so far.
 
Still trying to hone in on the final clocks but mine seems to be doing well so far. On the reference cooler I could play several hours of Skyrim and run through the STALKER:COP benchmark at 1225/[email protected] (1.1V actual). Extra voltage didn't seem to help much which was probably due to the VRMs getting too hot.

Put an EK block on it last week and so far I've hit 1390/[email protected] (1.28V actual) running two loops through the Metro 2033 benchmark. 1400Mhz and 1.35V locked up so I need to tinker with it a bit more.

Really impressed with the EK block though. GPU temp peaks at 38C and VRMs have hit 45-46C. This a 1.05V card (ASIC = 83%).
 
Karolis said:
How come I get 8500 3dmark 11 with 1200/1650 and around 8900 with max ccc sliders?

Does ccc interfere with clock settings beyond it's sliders?
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Make sure you don't have texture quality set to high quality or AF set to forced x16. Setting texture to the right can dock you 1k points.
 
soldierblue said:
1125/1575: Driver crashes/artifacts in BF3.
1050/1450: Artifacts in BF3.
1000/1400: Seems fine.

Voltages are 1.17v and power draw is at +20%.

I dunno. I'd think I'd have a bit more headroom. But then again, I have generally terrible ambient temps (I idle in the mid-40s C), how much of an impact does heat have? I'm sure it gets up into the 90s.

EDIT: The VDDC readings I got from Furmark were incorrect, the card was running at 1.05v. That explains that.
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Less than 10% OC with added voltage. You can set power tune at 0% that will get you alot better clocks like the rest of the guys here. But that will ultimately throttle the performance and defeat the purpose of overclocking.
 
Finished putting together the new rig (lightning is a bitch):

XFX AMD Radeon 7970 (Reference Card)
1140 MHz Core @ 1.2v
1600 MHz Memory @ Stock
2e10 (72% card)

Starts artifacting at 1150 on games and Heaven, seems that 1140 is the wall for this card.

Used MSI Afterburner 2.2.0b11
 
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What's the best way to get the power control settings of CCC and the voltage control of a third party app? Wouldn't they interfere with each other?
 
soldierblue said:
What's the best way to get the power control settings of CCC and the voltage control of a third party app? Wouldn't they interfere with each other?
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For me it resets powertune when afterburner goes into 2d mode clocks. So im not sure actually i cant find any solution that powertune doesnt reset when gpu goes into 2d mode.
 
Running a Sapphire reference card. Haven't tried adjusting the voltages yet. I am really happy with the performance and temps right now.

1150 MHz Core @ Stock
1650MHz Memory @ Stock
 
soldierblue said:
What's the best way to get the power control settings of CCC and the voltage control of a third party app? Wouldn't they interfere with each other?
Click to expand...

I use Trixx. Powertune never resets to 0%. I found out that the clocks ONLY reset if you run a 3d game and then load a game profile (or even go into CCC) to change any settings. If you don't run a game, you can set clocks in Trixx, change 3D settings, profiles, etc, and the clocks will keep the settings. Powertune always keeps the setting you set.

If the clocks reset, just going into Trixx and loading the profile fixes that.
 
Mr. K6 said:
Don't be surprised if the AS5 doesn't do much: it takes 100's of hours to properly cure. There's much better TIM on the market now like MX-4 (what I use) or some of the more expensive stuff like Shin Etsu, etc.
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I've always had good experiences with it though. I thought of this review the other day when I read your post, but I couldn't find the thread. Now I did and wanted to post it up.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-January-2012/1468/5
 
manofthem said:
I've always had good experiences with it though. I thought of this review the other day when I read your post, but I couldn't find the thread. Now I did and wanted to post it up.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-January-2012/1468/5
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See that's the problem though, you have sites like this that have no idea what they're doing and end up spreading false information around the net. First, by only testing each paste once, they do nothing to minimize their own internal margin of error. Thermal paste is 90% application and by testing each thermal paste once, they're doing an injustice to the entire scientific process. Secondly, they don't even use an equal amount of paste on each test, but eyeball it. Finally, they even admit themselves that there's a +/- 2C degree margin of error, which means most of their results are absolutely useless.

In the end, AS5 was good when it came out, but now there are more advanced thermal compounds on the market that work better and faster. If you want the most insane temps, go with Liquid Metal, but MX-4, TX-3, etc. are all better choices: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3383/arctic_cooling_mx_4_thermal_compound/index4.html . Note in this article they don't mention reapplying, but at least they did multiple runs of each benchmark.
 
robble said:
according to the graph at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-January-2012/1468/5


Shen Etsu ranks equally with mayonaise.

personally I like JB Weld. don't have to worry about stupid clamps either :p
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Oh, I didn't even think about JB Weld! I need to go get some tonight!!! (at Home Depot, not Lowes. When I went to Lowes looking for JB Weld, the 3 idiots there didn't know what I was talking about. At Home Depot, they pointed me immediately in the right direction.)
 
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Got the EK-FC7970 Installed. Getting great temps!

Sapphire HD 7970
Voltage:1.225 (target)
Core:1200
Memory:1600
Idle Temp:28c
Max Temp in Furmark 42c
404694_3282858477042_1434994879_33235952_1943266041_n.jpg

407003_3282858717048_1434994879_33235953_1813059758_n.jpg


Utilities:
3DMark, Furmark, MSI Afterburner
 
JonnySS said:
Got the EK-FC7970 Installed. Getting great temps!
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Looks excellent, nice work!

For those of you so inclined, I've learned you can flash this ASUS BIOS to your reference 7970 and use GPU Tweak 2.03 to get ~1.35V real to your card. My guess is that's probably well beyond "safe" voltage and will do some damage, even under water. I did flash and open up GPU Tweak, but it borked my PowerPlay so I didn't bother keeping it. Anyway, if you wanted more voltage or head room, there it is.
 
PowerColor 7970
GPU @ 1125
mem @1575
stock volts

Just pegged settings in CCC and everything is stable :)
 
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