OC my 7950

[CousinVin]

I have a Sapphire 7950 OC, and oddly enough it was not stable at stock voltages at it's clock of 900 mhz. I lowered it to 825mhz and it runs like a dream. But i would like to go above and beyond that 900mhz, but I have never OC'd a graphics card before. I am wanting to know what increments I should be bumping the voltage up.

As far as memory clocks, well, I have never touched this either. I do not want to dive in head first and learn the hard way. are there any good articles i should read?

 

[dragonstongue]

Well, Sapphire TRIX can help with the overclocking side, or you can use catalyst control center to do this(CCC has an upper limit of allowed clocks for reference cards i.e reference clocked) for voltages that all depends, but seeing as you said it doesnt like its stock clocks, I would get a hold of Sapphire and say "WTH I want my monies back"

Anyways, for voltages a couple bumps to say 1.093 from the stock which might be .993 volts should help alot in this regard
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5476/amd-radeon-7950-review/17
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7950-overclock-guide/2
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/sapphire_hd7950_overclock_edition_review/3

Now I am not sure the maximum power that "should be given" obviously upping the voltage and clocks will create more heat so you want to manually up the fan or keep an eye on the temps to make sure the card is not getting to hot 65-85c is within reason, anything higher then this, well dont go further in my opinion.

To get the most out of the card, go into CCC and put the power control/power tune slider to +20% in the GPU overclocking section. This stops CCC from crashing the card or limiting its power based on TDP, it basically opens it up to allow the card not to throttle etc. for Core clocks and memory clocks, I suppose this depends on voltage and temperatures given, best advice I can say, bump it up 10 Mhz or so at a time with a given voltage and test your favorite game or whatever, do this for Core, back the core down, then do this for memory, back it down, then do this for both. This is the "best" way to test for highest clocks as well as stability with those highest clocks.

First I would just up the votlage to equal other cards reference voltage which seems to be 1.093 volts, see how far this can get you. the core clock seems to be able to push 1.1Ghz+ the memory 1.5Ghz+(or 6Ghz effective memory speed) in other words, your mileage may vary, not all cards can handle the same speeds/volts, so take it slow and easy, and make sure to keep an eye on the temps/fan speeds. I like to put my fans manual, its less bothersome on the ears, and less likely to make the fans wear out 55-75% seems perfect at least with the cards I have used. I use open hardware monitor or hardware monitor or GPU-Z to keep an eye on the temps for everything, I keep it running on my second monitor to see the hottest temps I have gotten, OHM/HM are very resource light, GPU-Z can cause a bit of lag I have noticed.

Best of luck

 

[SonDa5]

Return to vendor or rma.

 

[dragonstongue]

I agree on the RMA side, it should run at its default or it a crappy design but, the other option, bump its core voltage to at least match other 7950s, should be no problem them, course if you do that, well, you would be breaking the warranty

 

[CousinVin]

fuck. well i bought it from someone on here who reviews hardware. I don't think he registered it. I guess i need to contact him first. How is sapphire's RMA procedure? How is their shipping time? Any chance i could send the company money to upgrade it to a 7970?