Overclocking the Radeon HD 7850!

R

rastaban

Gawd
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Jul 30, 2011
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818
0. XFX R7850 Double Dissipation Black Edition
1. stock VDDC: 1.213V
2. max by TriXX: 1.213V
3. Black Edition stock 975/1250 @ 1.213V.....................................5718 (CCC 12.8)
4. Black Edition OCed 1200/1400 @ 1.213V (+20 powertune)...........6671 (CCC 12.8)
Click to expand...

I just got my XFX R7850 DD BE. It is factory OCed to 975/1300 with a stock voltage of 1.213.

Sapphire TriXX (using v4.3) is the only utility that is able to control my VDDC and reports that 1.213V is the max as it is.

Question 0: What version 7850 do you have?
Question 1: What is your stock voltage?
Question 2: What is your maximum voltage allowable by TriXX? (If you're using another utility, please tell)

I don't play games often (have a short list waiting to be installed) and I run dual 1280x1024 for normal usage. I currently have the card downclocked to 430/625 @ 839 mV. I am actually waiting on HandBrake to finalize its implementation of OpenCL transcoding to put this card to work.

I briefly ran 3DMark11 (basic). The following are Graphic Scores only:
Black Edition stock 975/1250 @ 1.213V.....................................5718
Black Edition OCed 1200/1400 @ 1.213V (+20 powertune)............6671. As you can see, 3DMark11 does not accurately report clockspeeds yet.
---This is a full 45% improvement over my old HD5870 OCed @ 900/1300!! (was never able to try TriXX on it before selling, so don't know the max voltage).

Question 3: What is your 7850 scoring on 3DMark11 at stock speed, factory OCed or otherwise?
Question 4: What is your 7850 scoring on 3DMark11 at max OC? and how far have you been able to push it?

I'm going to see if I can push the card to 1250 or 1300C later this week but I'm looking for some reasonable target figures before I try it. I consciously spent too much for this card so I'm hoping it is binned well. I've seen other threads on OCing the 7850 on other forums, but they are rather long and tedious to follow. I didn't see one on [H]F so I hope we can start one here. I'm hoping to compile a list of realistic target speeds.

If you can answer Questions 0-4 already, please list them first to make things easier to read.

(full specs in sig)
 
Last edited:
0:MSI Twin Frozr III R7850 (non power edition)
1:1.038v
2:1.225v Asus GPU Tweak (I hate trixx because it uses constant voltages... asus gpu tweak lowers it to 0.825 in idle)
3: Around 5000... 5400 I think... the stupid 3dmark11 website removed ALL my results, every single on of them except my latest... good thing I never bought their crap lol
4:http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4354358 P6847 at 1250mhz core 1375mhz (5500) memory and 1.225v perfectly stable, I think I could reach even 1300mhz or more but I'm OK at 1200mhz
this is what I use 24/7 almost: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4279973
1.160v 1200mhz core 1375mzh memory (I heard 1375 is the best OC for the memory, I can attest this as well, no increase in fps after 1375)

BTW, I recommend Xilisoft's video converter. It already has support for AMD stream processing and converts movies for me extremely fast, faster than my i5 2400. i5 20-30mins, GPU under 5 mins. I'm not sure if it uses cpu too... I'd like to find a converter that uses both cpu and gpu 100%.
 
I tried Xilisoft 1 or 2 years ago but found it didn't handle subtitles very well and the conversion speed on my i7-960 was more or less the same as my previous HD5870, but I may give it another shot. So far, I read that Handbrake's beta version was looking very promising for the Radeon 7000 series in both speed and quality.

Your card is definitely better than mine. I did some extensive testing and found that my clocks max out at 1204/1505 or 1208/1359......I came up with those clocks based on VRAM/Core ratio of 1.25 and 1.125. I found those ratios to be more stable than the other ones I tried. However, I am making a very arbitrary assumption that the clocks are coupled in some way. I forget what my scores were but I'll post them up when I get back from work.

I didn't know TriXX kept the voltages constant. Mine is undervolted and underclocked most of the time so it fortunately doesn't really bother me. I haven't tried GPU Tweak as I read only TriXX works on XFX cards. I'm curious what your ASIC quality score is? Mine is 71% (I read the score is inaccurate and meaningless, but would like to investigate it a little myself)
 
wow, your guys overclocked 7850s are around my MSI 7970 did with no overclocking...
 
buttons said:
wow, your guys overclocked 7850s are around my MSI 7970 did with no overclocking...
Click to expand...

1250 core is close to stock 7950's so yeah, you'll still gain 200-300 points more in Heaven with a 7950/70 though.


As for the topic of 7850 oc'ing My VisionTek would do 1200/5800 @ 1.2mv using Trixx.
 
Updated numbers:
0. XFX R7850 Double Dissipation Black Edition
1. stock VDDC: 1.213V
2. max by TriXX: 1.213V
3. Black Edition stock 975/1250 @ 1.213V.....................................5718 (CCC 12.8)
4. Black Edition OCed 1204/1505 @ 1.213V (+20 powertune)...........6852 (CCC 12.8)
Click to expand...

I arrived at 1204/1505 assuming a mem/clock ratio of 1.25 would be more stable (just guessing they may be coupled).
This guess was made after finding that my card scored higher running at 1200/1350 than 1200/1400 (scores were 6744 vs. 6674 respectively).

Sodapopjones said:
As for the topic of 7850 oc'ing My VisionTek would do 1200/5800 @ 1.2mv using Trixx.
Click to expand...
What is your ASIC quality?
 
rastaban said:
I tried Xilisoft 1 or 2 years ago but found it didn't handle subtitles very well and the conversion speed on my i7-960 was more or less the same as my previous HD5870, but I may give it another shot. So far, I read that Handbrake's beta version was looking very promising for the Radeon 7000 series in both speed and quality.

Your card is definitely better than mine. I did some extensive testing and found that my clocks max out at 1204/1505 or 1208/1359......I came up with those clocks based on VRAM/Core ratio of 1.25 and 1.125. I found those ratios to be more stable than the other ones I tried. However, I am making a very arbitrary assumption that the clocks are coupled in some way. I forget what my scores were but I'll post them up when I get back from work.

I didn't know TriXX kept the voltages constant. Mine is undervolted and underclocked most of the time so it fortunately doesn't really bother me. I haven't tried GPU Tweak as I read only TriXX works on XFX cards. I'm curious what your ASIC quality score is? Mine is 71% (I read the score is inaccurate and meaningless, but would like to investigate it a little myself)
Click to expand...
it's 88.4% but I heard that it doesn't really matter. Had a gts450 that overclocked from 783mhz to 1ghz+ at stock voltage, and It had a pretty low ASIC quality. Trixx was too the only OC software that worked for me, but then I tried GpuTweak and it worked as well, you just have to enable a setting that's stupidly hidden. Go to settings, tuning, tune setting and tick the box next to "overclocking range enhancement". I think it does a registry edit since even CCC allows you to overclock past 1050 then. After this, all overclocking software lets you overclock to like 1400mhz core, 6000+ memory but only a few let you edit voltage, trixx and gputweak.

Only bad thing about gputweak is that the fan profiles get deleted after a while and they're pretty weird even when they do work. If you set the fan to turn on to 100% at 60C, at 59C it's still running at low speed. It goes up suddenly, It doesn't climb gradually. That's kinda annoying, but luckily my gpu is perfectly silent at 60%, and oddly a bit more than that and it gets annoyingly loud so I just set it at 60% always.
 
Sodapopjones said:
The ASIC quality on that card was 82.2% The cooler was pretty bad, it had plenty of room to go, but it wouldn't stay under 85c at 1.2mv.
Click to expand...

Guys what are your opinions on the maximum safe voltage? this card has no cooling for the VRMs or memory chips. Even though the gpu runs at like 60C how do we know that the vrms aren't running at 100+, slowly dying?
My card only has 1.038 stock voltage, even lower is stable, wouldn't stuff like 1.2v kill it? most people seem to manage at 1.2v but other 7850 start at 1.1v+ so I'm not sure if this is safe.
 
An00bis said:
Guys what are your opinions on the maximum safe voltage? this card has no cooling for the VRMs or memory chips. Even though the gpu runs at like 60C how do we know that the vrms aren't running at 100+, slowly dying?
My card only has 1.038 stock voltage, even lower is stable, wouldn't stuff like 1.2v kill it? most people seem to manage at 1.2v but other 7850 start at 1.1v+ so I'm not sure if this is safe.
Click to expand...

A Sapphire tech stated that 1.25mv was the maximum safe 24/7 voltage.

Cards like the 7850 Hawk and Double D have vram cooling... I'm not sure if the revised Sapphire Dual X does or not.

I've said it before, I really miss tweaking my 7850, its just too bad I had so many problems with it.
 
Sodapopjones said:
A Sapphire tech stated that 1.25mv was the maximum safe 24/7 voltage.

Cards like the 7850 Hawk and Double D have vram cooling... I'm not sure if the revised Sapphire Dual X does or not.

I've said it before, I really miss tweaking my 7850, its just too bad I had so many problems with it.
Click to expand...
I think it was because of the drivers. I had some bad experiences with it at first, black screens, overheating, vram bsods (I don't know the technical term for this, but the screen was filled with gray lines and I heard this is because of the vram) and other stuff. But now with 12.8 everything seems perfectly fine. No more stuttering too (I had that in BF3 and the witcher 2)
 
An00bis said:
I think it was because of the drivers. I had some bad experiences with it at first, black screens, overheating, vram bsods (I don't know the technical term for this, but the screen was filled with gray lines and I heard this is because of the vram) and other stuff. But now with 12.8 everything seems perfectly fine. No more stuttering too (I had that in BF3 and the witcher 2)
Click to expand...

Well that's good, I was at 12.7 beta's when I finally had enough and RMA'ed the card, I was also having issues with the fan... VisionTek just sucks lol.

My 660Ti is solid, but I would have really liked to pick up a 7850 Hawk to mess around with.
 
An00bis said:
it's 88.4% but I heard that it doesn't really matter. Had a gts450 that overclocked from 783mhz to 1ghz+ at stock voltage, and It had a pretty low ASIC quality. Trixx was too the only OC software that worked for me, but then I tried GpuTweak and it worked as well, you just have to enable a setting that's stupidly hidden. Go to settings, tuning, tune setting and tick the box next to "overclocking range enhancement". I think it does a registry edit since even CCC allows you to overclock past 1050 then. After this, all overclocking software lets you overclock to like 1400mhz core, 6000+ memory but only a few let you edit voltage, trixx and gputweak.

Only bad thing about gputweak is that the fan profiles get deleted after a while and they're pretty weird even when they do work. If you set the fan to turn on to 100% at 60C, at 59C it's still running at low speed. It goes up suddenly, It doesn't climb gradually. That's kinda annoying, but luckily my gpu is perfectly silent at 60%, and oddly a bit more than that and it gets annoyingly loud so I just set it at 60% always.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I'll give GPU Tweak a shot. I wonder which program claims priority.

Blkout said:
ASIC quality is useless, no sense in even asking that question.
Click to expand...

You obviously did not read what I said: I read the score is inaccurate and meaningless, but would like to investigate it a little myself
 
rastaban said:
Interesting, I'll give GPU Tweak a shot. I wonder which program claims priority.



You obviously did not read what I said: I read the score is inaccurate and meaningless, but would like to investigate it a little myself
Click to expand...

I read where you asked another member the ASIC quality of his card? Did you not? If so then I read exactly what you said. And then I replied that its meaningless so there's no sense even asking about it. I don't know how to make it any more clear.
 
another update

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4804102
P8086

My max overclock seems to be about 1290mhz at 1.225 (max voltage without installing custom BIOS which I won't, heard a lot of people permanently bricked their gpus that way, either immediately or in a few days after they did that)
temps are under 60 with that OC, fan about 80%, at 50% they climb a little to 60 and a bit.
I also did some tests and it seems that 1375 (5500mhz) seems to be the best frequency for my gpu's memory in terms of performance. I think this is the case for a lot of people, so I suggest you test it like I did below to find out whats the best memory OC for you.

1200mhz core/1400mhz memory=> P7597
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4804047

1200mhz core/1375mhz memory=> P7650
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4804021

1200mhz core/1350mhz memory=> P7629
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4804070
 
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