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[H] users 7970 Overclock Results thread

Druneau said:
I'm running @120hz on desktop and 300mhz clock is a bit low. What's the best program to use to increase idle clocks? (i'm thinking i'd need the same clocks as dual screen setups 2x60hz=120hz)
Click to expand...

I've got a 30" and 2x19" on the sides and it idles at 400mhz. I think its the mem that does the heavy lifting on big desktops.
 
I can crank the sliders up to max on all 3 of mine and they run fine, I assume they are still at stock volts. I guess I got lucky.
 
i dont get any artifacts at 1125/1575 and i can run furmark for an hour no problem

but in 3dmark at 1125/1575 it always makes it through the first test but then crashes on the space ship test and again no artifacts and the card is at stock voltage. could this be my power supply?
 
dikky said:
i dont get any artifacts at 1125/1575 and i can run furmark for an hour no problem

but in 3dmark at 1125/1575 it always makes it through the first test but then crashes on the space ship test and again no artifacts and the card is at stock voltage. could this be my power supply?
Click to expand...


You didn't mention it, but try setting the "Power control settings" slider all the way to the right in (+20%) in Overdrive. I was unstable on my oc until I did this.
 
I get 1070 core 1420 RAM
i can go to 1090 core, but intermittent freezing in 3dmark 11. First run ok, but 3rd sometimes freezes, I think this is due to cooling.
When the card reaches 83 degrees (fan autos up to 49% but no higher??) the card will lock and the driver resets in windows (soft freeze)

Idle temp 60 degrees, 3 monitor 3600x1900
fractal case / 1 intake 140mm and 1 exit fan 140 mm, all other sides have original padding seals on.
I may try installing another 140mm fan and see if the temps come down....

Gigabyte stock.

Ram can go higher stable, but around 1460 the 3dmark score decreases.

card will max around 82-83 degrees in metro, gpu usage showing 100%,
some other games lower temps, many games show around 80% gpu usage, METRO 2033 seems to be able to max the card nicely.
 
Metro 2033 is running very nicely on my 7970. I installed the game just to "see" how it would run...

now I'm like 4 hours in and haven't done half the stuff I wanted to today.
 
Everyone should realize that the VRMs on the 7970s get toasty pretty fast at high voltages and frequency with the stock air cooler.

Waterblocks will make a big difference, and we will see much higher OC with those, since the VRMs temps will be alot lower.
 
Ok seems like 1150/1625 is stable in BF3 at stock voltage, but 1200 needs 1.225v. Tried 1225 @ 1.225v, while it passed 3dmark '11, Battlefield 3 would start randomly drawing weird black lines from the jets' nose or wing when in chase cam view. 1200 core at 1225mv was fine.
 
For those panicking with volatge fluctutating on the 7970, here's your answer.

"Afterburner Beta 11 will be submitted to MSI soon. Changes list includes:

- Added memory voltage control for reference design AMD RADEON 7970 graphics cards with CHL8228 voltage regulators
- Now MSI Afterburner displays target VID instead of real voltage sensor reading on "GPU voltage" graph on graphics cards equipped with CHL8228 voltage regulators. These changes are implemented to avoid confusing the beginners and prevent the hysteria about voltage drop on AMD RADEON 7970 series graphic cards spreading across different discussion forums. Experienced users, understanding the difference between target and real voltages, may still unlock the previous real voltage monitoring mode via editing the hardware profiles
- Core and memory clock limits have been extended to 180% on AMD RADEON 7970 graphics cards in unofficial overclocking mode
- Now MSI Afterburner's startup daemon routine precaches VRM I2C registers state at the first Windows startup. Precached VRM state is being used to detect default voltage instead of hardcoding default voltages into the database. Please take a note that you may forcibly perform precaching later with command line switch or disable the precaching at all via configuration file if necessary and force MSI Afterburner to use the previous hardcoded database based default voltage detection
- MSI On-Screen Display server has been upgraded to version 4.3.1. New version gives you the following improvements:
o Added workaround for AMD OpenGL driver context switching issues causing abnormally low framerate in ID Software Rage when OSD is enabled
o Added workaround for AMD OpenGL driver PBO issues causing the driver to crash or perform abnormally slow during videocapture


The main reason of releasing new version is highlighted in bold. I'm tired of seeing lamers badmouthing current version of MSI Afterburner because of it "incorrect" voltage control causing "voltage drops" in different forums. Now preceise voltage monitoring from real sensor is simply hidden from users's eyes and you see traditional target VID monitoring, which was available in the previous graphics card families.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alexey Nicolaychuk aka Unwinder, RivaTuner creator "
 
Crysis 2 is the bane of my existence. i keep backing down my overclock because of it. BF3 and Metro 2033 are good for hours then Crysis 2 will crash 20-30 minutes in. filthy game.
 
So, looking like 1 of my new sapph's is going to be rma'd because of it's really funky voltage reg. I had been having problems with stability in crossfire with most anything I was doing, and it kept giving weird anomalous issues. I finally had time to test some more this morning, swapped down to 1 card and was still having the same problems.

Then switched to the other and was pleasantly surprised to see that it got up to 1260/1700 at 1.3 (1.2 reported) as long as I kept the fan ramped up, which kept the temp happily in the 60s. The more I play with this one, the more I think it could actually benefit from being thrown on water, as I was getting higher core clock stable until the temp creeped up further. We'll see what happens with the second card now...
 
Tiporaro said:
The more I play with this one, the more I think it could actually benefit from being thrown on water, as I was getting higher core clock stable until the temp creeped up further. We'll see what happens with the second card now...
Click to expand...

that's what a lot of people are speculating over on OCN. people are thinking that overclock potential will go up significantly once water blocks are released for these cards.
 
something interesting to consider:
a member on OCN has suggested there are two different VID's floating around out there, 1.175V and 1.05V. this makes sense since my card reports around 1.05V in Afterburner when i haven't unlocked or touched voltage control. i had just assumed either AB wasn't reporting the correct voltage (since it's in beta status) or that i was seeing a shit ton of voltage drop. now i'm thinking that 1.05V is the VID of my card. in AB when i unlock voltage control it defaults to 1.175V and my temps increase immediately (suggests 1.175V is greater than my VID).

so if this is true, when i'm running in AB or Trixx at 1.175V i'm actually overvolted by 125mV which is a pretty significant increase (similar to going from 1.175V to 1.3V). i'm wondering if i have been unknowingly applying too much voltage to my card? maybe if i use AB to set voltage to a more reasonable level...say 1.1V (+50mV from my supposed VID of 1.05V) if i'll have better overclocking results.
 
Porter_ said:
something interesting to consider:
a member on OCN has suggested there are two different VID's floating around out there, 1.175V and 1.05V. this makes sense since my card reports around 1.05V in Afterburner when i haven't unlocked or touched voltage control. i had just assumed either AB wasn't reporting the correct voltage (since it's in beta status) or that i was seeing a shit ton of voltage drop. now i'm thinking that 1.05V is the VID of my card. in AB when i unlock voltage control it defaults to 1.175V and my temps increase immediately (suggests 1.175V is greater than my VID).

so if this is true, when i'm running in AB or Trixx at 1.175V i'm actually overvolted by 125mV which is a pretty significant increase (similar to going from 1.175V to 1.3V). i'm wondering if i have been unknowingly applying too much voltage to my card? maybe if i use AB to set voltage to a more reasonable level...say 1.1V (+50mV from my supposed VID of 1.05V) if i'll have better overclocking results.
Click to expand...

Eh? What brand card? VID is through Bios....
 
Porter_ said:
Crysis 2 is the bane of my existence. i keep backing down my overclock because of it. BF3 and Metro 2033 are good for hours then Crysis 2 will crash 20-30 minutes in. filthy game.
Click to expand...

Let me guess, 64bit Crysis 2?

Users of 64bit DCS blackshark2 ad A-10C experience the same issue after 10 minutes driver crash. Not related to overclock.
 
ok, in fractal r3 case

1 entry 120mm and 1 exit 120 mm
1080/1420
metro2033
temps 82-83 degrees 49% fan

i have now added a second intake 120mm fan, and temps are now around 79-80 degrees
46%fan

adding a second 120mm intake on fractal r3 reduces noise!
(side is covered and has orginial noise dampener over the slot) nb, also top covered, 120 exit is near cpu
 
currently testing a 1200 core overclock at 1.3v at 100% fan speed(girlfriend is at work for the day :p).

furmark is still going after 10 min with no errors and looks like temps have plateaued at 75c...friggin hot card! i think i may have to invest into a waterblock for this card because it is loud too.

using sapphire trixx with CCC overdrive turned off.


anyone else get artifacts in furmark while scrolling vertically through webpages? im seeing this behavior using both Firefox 9 and IE 9. it does not cause furmark to crash, and the artifacts stop when not scrolling through a webpage...

bouncing off 76c in furmark now.
 
Whats your actual reported voltage under load while running at 1.3v to give you 75C? I'm trying to get a sense of the vdroop on these cards and how much that's playing into load temps vs. other factors, i.e. individual chip characteristics, possible TIM factory application issues, etc.

Haste266 said:
currently testing a 1200 core overclock at 1.3v at 100% fan speed(girlfriend is at work for the day :p).

furmark is still going after 10 min with no errors and looks like temps have plateaued at 75c...friggin hot card! i think i may have to invest into a waterblock for this card because it is loud too.

using sapphire trixx with CCC overdrive turned off.


anyone else get artifacts in furmark while scrolling vertically through webpages? im seeing this behavior using both Firefox 9 and IE 9. it does not cause furmark to crash, and the artifacts stop when not scrolling through a webpage...

bouncing off 76c in furmark now.
Click to expand...
 
Tiporaro said:
Whats your actual reported voltage under load while running at 1.3v to give you 75C? I'm trying to get a sense of the vdroop on these cards and how much that's playing into load temps vs. other factors, i.e. individual chip characteristics, possible TIM factory application issues, etc.
Click to expand...


AB is showing 1203-1209mV for GPU voltage with the card under load with AB set at 1299mV for the core.

without a load at 1299mV AB shows 1271-1275mv.
 
My HIS 7970 wasn't stable at 1125 core stock voltage, so I bumped it up by 0.015 (to 1.131) and it's stable at 1150. I'll see how close I can get to 1200 without increasing the voltage too much.
 
Haste266 said:
AB is showing 1203-1209mV for GPU voltage with the card under load with AB set at 1299mV for the core.

without a load at 1299mV AB shows 1271-1275mv.
Click to expand...

How the heck does your furmark ONLY get to 75C with 1.3v (1209 mv load?)
Mine gets to 90C at just 1175 mv and 1150 core with 60% fan speed (I guess that's about 1121 mv real) and I applied MX4 TIM but that didn't change the temps, hard to say if it went down 1C or not from TIM change).... a 45 minute Heaven at 1150 core 1625 mem, and default volts (1175 mv) run gave me max 76C, and BF3 topped at about 70C.

And Haste, what's your default voltage (before you attempt to change anything?). I think you can find the default voltage by running Afterburner from the command prompt with the /rr174 switch right after a reboot and before applying any voltages, or you can run AB while running a windowed or fullscreen 3d app without touching the clocks, to find the default VID/voltage.

You said that you need 1.3v volts for 1200 mhz on the core, but your furmark only gets to 75C, right? Mine needs 1.225v (1225 mv) for 1200 mhz which is stable in BF3, and droops to about 1.16v load (not going to test furmark though).
 
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Falkentyne said:
How the heck does your furmark ONLY get to 75C with 1.3v (1209 mv load?)
Mine gets to 90C at just 1175 mv and 1150 core with 60% fan speed (and I applied MX4 TIM but that didn't change the temps)....
Click to expand...

mine goes around 75c also with around 50-60% fan speed...
 
How far does your card overclock on stock volts and with a small vcore increase? And is your powertune set to +20%?
 
100% fan speed here keeping it at 75c in furmark at those voltages.

the default for my card is 1.17v it seems.

im not sure if my card is stable at a lower voltage @ 1200 core but i can't do 1225 core at 1.3v without errors.

i've figured out i can do 1150/1550 stable with stock volts and AUTO fan, so i think i'll stick with that until i get this thing under water.
 
Hello to all! I am new to this forum however it has been the most helpful to me in the process of overclocking my 7970. I truly hope others benefit from this post because it has been a long 4 days in figuring this thing out after many failures.

My goal was to achieve the basic max slider that almost everyone seems to be achieving of 1125/1575.

When I first tried to achieve the overclock I started byusing 3dmark 11. When adjusting the sliders all the way I followed what most articles suggested slide core, mem, and power all the way up and let fly. Unfortunately this did not work for my 3dmark 11 froze first thing....damn. Then I tried Trixx, Msi afterburner, and even Gpu sync with little success

I will skip all the boring details of my testing and get to the meat of what works. Start off by doing a clean driver intall after sweeping or using Atiman. Afterburner. This should be where you start and the program you should use (Don't activate GPU overdrive in CCC it gave me nothing but trouble) Install Afterburner go to setting and enable voltage control and force consistent voltage. Adjust your sliders to 1125/1575. Now you may have to play around with your voltage settings but start at 1.05. While testing your voltage settings run 3dmark 11 and raise them by .05 until you pass a test (I passed at 1.112v). When you acheive succesful run in 3d mark save your profile in afterburner and set it to load on startup. Install and load Furmark and run Burn-In test and keep your finger on the esc key. If your fps reads higher than 45 in warmup your card is not power throttling like it should be and will crash. Hit esc fast and restart your computer. If you have this happen, after restart and once Msi has loaded run Furmark Burn-in again. You are looking for around 45 fps. Once you achieve this you are good to go! I passed every benchmark test I could throw at it as long as The card was successfully power throttling. I think this may be a driver issue and may be fixed down the road but until then I hope you find this short guide helpful and wish you much success in your overclocking endevours -JonnySS
 
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What's the point of overclocking your card if it's power throttling? lol...that completely defeats the purpose!

Disable power throttling. Your guide is completely useless...

If you can't overclock, then don't overclock until you find the problem.
If you're not going to overclock, just re-enable power throttling.

And you can use CCC with AFterburner or Trixx, with no problem. Just don't open both at the same time. Just use CCC to set the power to +20% and then just use the direct3d settings and profiles.

BTW, just set the voltage to 1.17v in afterburner. You may have a card that defaults to lower than 1.17v (in 3d clocks), in which case, if you want to use overdrive or whatever, to reach 1125 on the core, you *HAVE* to raise the voltage.
 
Ok just so you know every time I turn power to + 20 in CCC and overclock. When I run Furmark... Freeze. Also fps jumps to 65 and heat jumps straight to 60 from 33 at idle. I completely understand the fact that you have been a member here for a long time and that I'm new. I also understand that a lot of people have had success and a lot of people have not when overclocking this card. This was an attempt to help people that have not. Just sharing my success story. Sorry to have offended you in someway and thanks for making my first experience posting on a forum a bad one.:mad:
 
JonnySS said:
This is where I finally started putting the pieces together.
Look at the UPDATE section.
http://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/1...GHz-28-nm-Tech-Really-Stretches-Its-Legs.html
Click to expand...

I think I understand what you're trying to say... you're saying that if AMD's circuitery protection doesn't kick in then your computer will freeze. And that by playing with voltages back and forth you might trick the driver's protection. So you use furmark to see if it's working or not. (you reboot if it isn't so that the drivers reset/re-enable the function)

I did run furmark last night, I wanted to see my FPS difference between stock clock and overclocked... to my surprise I got the exact same fps... I looked at cpu usage and there was no way it was a bottleneck.

Then I plugged in my amperage meter to get power draw to see if more watts were used. Same power usage in furmark.

But in games I do see the difference between overclocked and stock clocks.
 
Results
1075 Core
1500 RAM
Stock volts

Type Card
XFX reference card

Overclock Tool
Overdrive

Stability Test
3DMark11 & Vantage, Furmark

At stock volts, CTDs at 1100 core and above.

Something curious did happen though. I installed TriXX, did not touch the volts, and the card started overheating like crazy. Went from maxing out at 81C in Furmark @ ~47% fan speed (on auto) to climbing over 90C @ 56% fan speed (both climbing steadily before I shut it down for safety reasons). There was nothing to indicate it was feeding more than stock volts, and the air coming out the exhaust was basically blistering hot.

Uninstalled TriXX, but had to restart the computer before it was back to normal. This was using the newest version of the program on their site.
 
Run MSI Afterburner, enable unofficial overclocking but do not unlock voltage control, only voltage monitoring. Then check what the default voltage is.

You can also run afterburner from the command prompt with the flag /rr174, and it will report two numbers. Please post what it reports. You can type msiafterburner.exe /rr174 in the command prompt.

Since you can't do higher than 1075 mhz on the core, you probably have a card that defaults to a lower voltage. Changing settings in AB, Trixx, etc, forces the voltage to 1175 mv, by the way. You should be able to do 1125 mhz on the core at 1175 mv.
 
Thanks for the info.

"Reg 00000174 :00003700"

That what we're looking for?

EDIT: Also, I should note, it survived Furmark for 18 minutes @ 1125 at stock volts before I shut it down. Couldn't even get 10-20 seconds into 3DMark before crashing to desktop though, until I lowered it to 1075. Thought it was curious it survived in Furmark so easily considering that.

EDIT2: Afterburner reports voltage fluctuating around 980mv under load. I guess that would explain the drastic increase in temps. But it really started to scare me when it was climbing above 90C.
 
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