Overclocking with Adrenalin sucks!

Nebell

Nebell

2[H]4U
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Jul 20, 2015
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My 7900 XTX showed real crappy performance. It was a bit below reference. In Borderlands 3 reference is about 103 fps and Nitro+ 107 fps. I was like wtf, I'm getting less than reference (102 fps).
So I tried Asus GPU Tweak (and Afterburner, but prefer Asus UI better). My best score in Borderlands 3 is a bit over 130 fps, which is almost in stock 4090 territory (136 fps).
How can AMD mess up that badly?
 
Nebell said:
My 7900 XTX showed real crappy performance. It was a bit below reference. In Borderlands 3 reference is about 103 fps and Nitro+ 107 fps. I was like wtf, I'm getting less than reference (102 fps).
So I tried Asus GPU Tweak (and Afterburner, but prefer Asus UI better). My best score in Borderlands 3 is a bit over 130 fps, which is almost in stock 4090 territory (136 fps).
How can AMD mess up that badly?
Click to expand...
Maybe AMD doesnt want to smoke their own hardware?
 
Nebell said:
My 7900 XTX showed real crappy performance. It was a bit below reference. In Borderlands 3 reference is about 103 fps and Nitro+ 107 fps. I was like wtf, I'm getting less than reference (102 fps).
So I tried Asus GPU Tweak (and Afterburner, but prefer Asus UI better). My best score in Borderlands 3 is a bit over 130 fps, which is almost in stock 4090 territory (136 fps).
How can AMD mess up that badly?
Click to expand...
You didn't even describe how you overclocked it....did you just hit the button that says "overclock"? If so, yeah, its not great. Works just fine for manual tweaking which is what people should be doing anyways.
 
The manual settings let you go pretty far into crazy. I was able to push mine pretty far before it started crashing, although my memory wouldnt go very much higher than stock.
 
Starfalcon said:
The manual settings let you go pretty far into crazy. I was able to push mine pretty far before it started crashing, although my memory wouldnt go very much higher than stock.
Click to expand...
NightReaver said:
You didn't even describe how you overclocked it....did you just hit the button that says "overclock"? If so, yeah, its not great. Works just fine for manual tweaking which is what people should be doing anyways.
Click to expand...

I set 3400mhz GPU clock and 5500mhz vram clock in Asus GPU tweak. 1090mv voltage. Doesn't crash, it works fine and completes both TimeSpy and Port Royal without problems.
But it doesn't really boost high. It stays in 2750-2850 range with 68-70C (158F) gpu and about 92C (198F) hotspot temps. Fans at around 50%.

Before when I was overclocking with Adrenalin my TimeSpy score was 22k and Port Royal 14.5k.
After I uninstalled it and tried Asus GPU Tweak and went for a higher overclock on both gpu and vram I got 28k TimeSpy and 17k Port Royal, and Borderlands went from 102 fps to 128-130 fps (built in benchmark). That's a huge difference and I wasn't doing anything different with Adrenalin compared to Asus GPU Tweak. It was basically set vram clock, gpu clock, power limit, undervolt and change fan speed.

What's weird is that it actually was boosting higher with Adrenalin overclock, but the performance was abyssal. I'm not alone with this, other people have reported the same issue with Adrenalin, it must be some weird bug.
Coming from Nvidia I'm not disappointed with AMD drivers, I actually prefer the interface, but the shit doesn't seem to be stable.
 
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Nebell said:
What do you mean? My GPU doesn't go above 70 degrees Celsius (158F for the Americans) and that's with ~50% fan speed.
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I mean their software might be playing it safe
Overclocking and most specifically over volting can smoke a chip without exceeding temperature limits. In your case you're likely ok to push it some without much worry. But if you think you cannot destroy a chip without overheating it, you are wrong.
 
Nebell said:
It's probably a bug. I reinstalled the drivers and now overclocking with Adrenalin works normally.
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Do you have 2 rigs? One with XTX gpu, the other is using Z690 with bent cpu socket pin?
 
I tried Asus GPU Tweak (and Afterburner, but prefer Asus UI better). My best score in Borderlands 3 is a bit over 130 fps, which is almost in stock 4090 territory (136 fps).
 
Today I decided to play GTA IV and I put the Adrenaline software metrics display up and I saw something I have until now not seen. My XFX 7900 XT (not the merc, just the regular old reference looking version) was boosting all the way to 3118mhz. It did this repeatedly during gameplay, while my 7800X3D never went over 4.7ghz. I thought people said these GPUs couldn’t boost over 3ghz? I was playing it maxed out at 4K. FPS varied from as low as 112 up to 300ish depending on what was happening.
 
FiveDollarBill said:
Today I decided to play GTA IV and I put the Adrenaline software metrics display up and I saw something I have until now not seen. My XFX 7900 XT (not the merc, just the regular old reference looking version) was boosting all the way to 3118mhz. It did this repeatedly during gameplay, while my 7800X3D never went over 4.7ghz. I thought people said these GPUs couldn’t boost over 3ghz? I was playing it maxed out at 4K. FPS varied from as low as 112 up to 300ish depending on what was happening.
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Because of you CPU, allows the card to flex more. Many are CPU limited and thus no need for the card to go higher while not being fully used. I've seen over 3000mhz as well, seldom but it does happen and that is with a 5800X3D and a 7900XTX Merc in this case.
 
My PowerColor 7900 XTX Red Devil is about 2700mhz +-50mhz in games. I wish it boosted above 3ghz...
I honestly think that I should've bought a 4080. I have nothing against AI and on the opposite think that's the future. So DLSS and Frame Generation etc are great additions. Nvidia is pushing AI really hard.
Shame about the prices, but yeah, I might just buy a very powerful laptop next gen with RTX 5090.
 
Nebell said:
My PowerColor 7900 XTX Red Devil is about 2700mhz +-50mhz in games. I wish it boosted above 3ghz...
I honestly think that I should've bought a 4080. I have nothing against AI and on the opposite think that's the future. So DLSS and Frame Generation etc are great additions. Nvidia is pushing AI really hard.
Shame about the prices, but yeah, I might just buy a very powerful laptop next gen with RTX 5090.
Click to expand...
How do you overclock it? I undervolted mine a little lower than the auto undervolt Adrenaline gave me, increased total power to 115%, left the base GPU clock alone and pushed the max to 3333. It depends on the software but my 7900 XT boosts to 3.2ghz but it depends on the game and the settings I use. With older titles like Farcry 5 and GTA IV it boosts and sustains speeds above 3ghz but MW2 and 3D Mark it runs closer to 2.7-2.8.

What kind of CPU/motherboard do you run your XTX with?
 
FiveDollarBill said:
How do you overclock it? I undervolted mine a little lower than the auto undervolt Adrenaline gave me, increased total power to 115%, left the base GPU clock alone and pushed the max to 3333. It depends on the software but my 7900 XT boosts to 3.2ghz but it depends on the game and the settings I use. With older titles like Farcry 5 and GTA IV it boosts and sustains speeds above 3ghz but MW2 and 3D Mark it runs closer to 2.7-2.8.

What kind of CPU/motherboard do you run your XTX with?
Click to expand...

I have this:

Min Frequency: 500
Max Frequency: 2850 (I tried 3+ghz but it made no difference)
Vram Frequency: 2650 (2750 works as well)
Power Target +15%
Voltage: 1110mv (1105mv works but a bit unstable)
Fan Speed 0-75%

13900k and Asus Rog Maximus z690 Formula

It's a Red Devil Limited Edition. Terrible silicon lottery?
 
Nebell said:
I have this:

Min Frequency: 500
Max Frequency: 2850 (I tried 3+ghz but it made no difference)
Vram Frequency: 2650 (2750 works as well)
Power Target +15%
Voltage: 1110mv (1105mv works but a bit unstable)
Fan Speed 0-75%

13900k and Asus Rog Maximus z690 Formula

It's a Red Devil Limited Edition. Terrible silicon lottery?
Click to expand...
The gpu boosts depending on how much it’s being driven, perhaps it’s being held back by your CPU?
 
FiveDollarBill said:
Perhaps, don’t know since I have no idea what game, what refresh rate, etc. Are you locking it to 60hz? My 7900 XT doesn’t boost as hard when I lock vsync.
Click to expand...

No, I don't lock fps. I'm running 4k/120hz so 13900k is probably not used more than 30%.
I increased fan speed to 100% (used to be 75%) and set clock to 3200mhz and vram to 2750mhz and now it's boosting about 100-150mhz more in Fortnite, between 2700-2800mhz.
But my voltage is at 1110mv which I think is a lot higher than what other people get. Anything below that is unstable.
 
Overclocking isn't really a thing anymore. Those glorious overclocking days of the early late 90s / 2000's are long gone.

Have you tried using MSI Afterburner instead?
 
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