The 7970 Thread. Post your overclocks and experiences here:

Thanks,

Coil whine seems to be an issue with some of these cards and am
very familiar with the cause of it.
Have had issues in the past all the way from PS's-Vid cards, Sound cards,
and even fan controllers.

Most of the time changing the frequency-Voltage ect, to them will eliminate
it.
Its a resonance factor in the cans, Chokes, Caps ect.
If I can get a reasonable OC and stay cool I'm there.
I run 3 Rads at 600.5 and (IF) can run this card on air without a block will
be all the better.

Later

 

Played around some more on the weekend, seems I really do have a lame overclocking card.

1.175 v = 1070
1.250 v = 1175

If I try anymore than 1.25 V the power limiting (allready adjusted the +20%) comes into play and the GPU clocks are reduced. If I clock it up to 1180Mhz @ 1.25 it gets limited back to 1152 and fluctuates between 1152 and 1180mhz.

I was using some software I found (HWinfo64) to monitor the VRM temps, they dont move at all with my watercooling block 25deg no mater what load is applied, either the block works really well (which I hope it is) or the sensor for the VRM temp isnt working. you can see the GPU wattage with it and this definately moves with load.

Cant run 1175 at anything less than 1.25v (reminds me of my lame 920 that will do 3.8 easy, then needs heaps more volts for 4Ghz)

I messed around with some underclocking whilst playing LoL, I had the volts down to 1.1v and clocks down to 800, only used 40w (reading from HWinfo64 on the VRM for the GPU, 40W more for the ram) at load

Just figured out how to check ASIC quality, Mine is 57.3% !!!!!! thats the lowest I have seen reported anywhere, most are around 60-80%

 

I got 58.1% ASIC and it also meh. Reading about people who run 1200 Mhz on stock clocks makes me want to cry a little inside.

1.200 v with 1100 core causes driver crashes randomly, 1.25 is stable.

 

Yeah I feel the same, oh well, next time I will be doing a whole lot more testing with the card on air before blocking it.

I tried flashing my GPU's second bios with an asus one last night, I had read in the techpowerup forums some people had luck with this as it seemed make overclocking more successful. I couldnt get the Bios to go onto my card.

Anyone had any experience with changeing the BIOS on a HIS to an Asus one?

EDIT: I now understand what was going wrong, I was trying to flash Bios 2 (Protected) I should have been trying on Bios 1 (unprotected) lets hope I can get this happening tonight!

EDIT: And FAIL, subsystemID missmatch on Bios 1

 

Yeah thats pretty low ASIC quality, i was maybe somewhat lucky i guess, first card i got was 85.4% and the second i got was 79.4% still i should have tested the limit of the second card (79.4%) before i slap'd it in....I have managed to do a run with both cards at 1265/1700 nthat was a while ago now i forget what voltage i used to get to it, so far i tried 1.25v and halfway through 3dmark11 black screened me so ill guess ill try lower volts.....sometimes im not a huge fan of the OCP/OVP protection but then again i guess it probably has saved a few people from frying their cards

EDIT P16795 http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3370463;jsessionid=1ror45k5rt591630yw3v4jwka
not the highest o/c i had on the cards, need play around a bit more, had 4.6ghz on the cpu

 

Regarding the ASIC quality.

My first 7970 a Gigabyte Windforce had 84%,
at 1.25v anything above 1255mhz before I saw any artifacts in Unigine.


My current 7970 a Sapphire reference ASIC 74% (with Accelero Xtreme) can do 1265+mhz on 1.25v without any artifacts, i havent tested higher as im happy running at 1250mhz.


So the 74% ASIC card oc's better than the 84% card.
Strange hey ???

 

I don't get why guru3d is making the geforce cards look better while a 7970oc vs gtx680oc fight is won by the hd7970...even when the geforce gets a higher clocked core i7 it looses:


Vantage / 3D'11 results of max oc'ed 680 + i7 3930@5.0ghz: P41574 / P11304

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2628...ew-overklokken


Vantage / 3D'11 results max oc'ed 7970 + i7 3930@4.8ghz: P43286/P12112

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2510...al-dissipation

Sorry to say but this thought crosses my mind: Maybe nvidia spends a little sponsoringmoney on guru3d? How silly because the guru3d crowd will know there's something not right as soon as the charts appear...what's up with that guys?

 

Im confused. You have linked stuff from another website, but say Guru3d is doing this?

 

Also, you need an add on pack to be able to play Vantage and 3DMark 11.
Its called Phantom Mark.

 

well guru says

7970 oc + 17 965 @ 3.75 is p9207 (other site: P12112)

http://guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-radeon-hd-7970-oc-windforce-review/23

gtx680 oc + i7 965 @ 3.75 is P10438 (other site: P11304)

http://guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-680-oc-edition-review/25

He tested several radeons and gf's with all similar results It just looks like he doesn't give the cards a fair chance. I'm a person who reminds almost all digit's that I run into when I'm interested in them, dunno why. I think he has altered the benchmarkresults or he has a faulty configuration of the AMD system.

Or I am just fed up with mis-communication lately and it needs to be explained why the results are weird. no offense intended, just looking for info.

 

1250/1700 @ 1.20v here.. for some reason if i do 1.25 i get stupid artifacting.. even at 1250/1700... at 1.2 everything is gravy

my ASIC is 78.9%

 

ASIC 82% on my Asus 7970. Running 1125/1625 as below. No problems with artifacts in benchmarks or gaming.

 

my 7950 had asic quality of like 58% or so and clocks to 1200 / 1600 atleast np

 

Nice, much better than my dud

 

Only two ATI cards I have had have been Sapphire and they have been perfectly fine.

I have the same exact 7970 and the custom cooler is so much better than the reference cooler. Mine overclocks pretty well too. I have it at 1210/1620 @ 1.2v (I'm not pushing the clocks or voltage any further but it could definitely keep going)

 

Heaven X bench mark X5105.92
http://hwbot.org/submission/2283004_


Thought I'd post my set up for reference:
Asus Rampage IV Extreme i7 3930K @5020 water cooled
16GB Gskill ripjaw X 2133@2008
two Intel Cherryhill Sata III Raid O
2 X HD 7970 CF Visiontec @1133/1536 1.185 v

I do get hard locks when over clocking too high in Sapphire trixx(with work around). I think anything past 1.2v on the GPU locks it right up.

 

Got up to 1250/1700 now. I could bump my processor past 3.65 but I don't really feel the need. Plus, I'm on air even though its a Coolermaster V8 and might be able to give 3.8

 

What voltage do you need for those settings?

 

For 7970 it's at 1.23v and my i7 940 is at 1.218 for 3630mhz w/ ram at auto voltage because it is only at 1654

Thought it was 3650 just 20mhz lower almost right haha

@1.23 I had some artifacting in BF3 (I know BF3 is buggy but I never used to get anything like that with my old standard stock voltage oc) No artifacting in Crysis 2 and Skyrim. I might try Metro in a bit. Also look a couple of cycles of heaven, benching the 2nd cycle, didn't crash or anything but the temps got up to around 80 and the fan was around 85-90. Not surprised at the temps though considering my ac isn't hooked up yet and it's in the 80's and humid. Great benchmarking weather...

On a side note, I did the Heaven loop with 1.242v.

 

Im having issues trying to Flash my HIS to as Asus to see if it will help.

How did you flash yours?

Also FFFUUUUUU !!!!