Anything I can do voltage wise to help with overclocking a Gigabyte GV-R797OC-3GD?

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon' started by MrBucket, Mar 31, 2013.

  1. MrBucket

    MrBucket Guest

    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    2 Gigabyte 7970 Crossfire
    I just decided this past month to upgrade my computer that I built just about 1 year ago to one with two Gigabyte GV-R797OC-3GD in crossfire. My original card that is a year old is a hardware revision 1.0 while the new card is revision 2.1. These cards are not reference AMD design and have their own Gigabyte Windforce 3X "Triangle Cool" Technology instead of the reference blower.

    You can even see that Guru3D did a review of the revision 1.0 card just like mine back in February 2012 right here
    http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_radeon_hd_7970_oc_windforce_review,1.html

    My old GV-R797OC-3GD could overclock to 1200mhz core and 1650-1700mhz on the ram no problem with some extra voltage that I had changed through MSI Afterburner. I figured that with a year to have perfected the 7970 fabrication process and that they would easily overclock higher than older ones. I hadn't read up on the fact that the cards these days are almost all voltage control locked. I have the new rev 2.1 card in the primary slot with my 1.0 card in one of the lower slots. With this setup right now, its pretty unstable at almost anything above the stock factory overclock of 1,000mhz on the core with reference speeds on the ram at 1,375mhz. Would swapping their places make any difference in the overclockability of the cards? Is there any kind of bios that you can flash to the rev 2.1 card that would allow voltage control? Having 2 bios and a switch to select between them makes updating or editing the bios seem like such a mundane act these days compared to when you only had 1 bios chip and only one AGP slot on your motherboard for which to hook up a video card.

    MSI Afterburner mentions some stuff about extending official amd overclocking limits, disabling ULPS, entering unofficial overclocking modes with or without PowerPlay support (and also disabled?), and the ability to reset the display mode on applying unofficial overclocking.


    What does all that crap mean and what should they all be set to? Also what should I be using for my layout in the case? Should the rev 1.0 go back to where it was when it was my only card and the rev 2.1 be the secondary card? It would be incredibly easy for me to swap their places and I might do it just as a test. Using mini displayport plugs is far less annoying than unscrewing a DVI cable every time I wanted to move the computer around.

    Heres what the current setup looks like with the rev 2.1 on top vs the rev 1.0 on the bottom. You can clearly see a lot of hardware differences with one of the most obvious being an extra metal heatspreader on the back of the card over some of the voltage regulation chips. There's also just a lot more little components on the surface of the PCB from what I can see. Maybe they were on the top side in the earlier models and moved to the other side now but who knows.

    [​IMG]


    The cards run awesome together pumping out amazing looking scenes in 2560x1440 with everything in games turned to max as well as 16x af and a little bit of various types of FSAA to go with it. Every once in a while I can notice some slowdowns but they are so minor that I don't think most people would notice that much but if I could overclock them both I know it would just be that little bit better that could make all the difference. The single 7970 was sufficient for running games at 1920x1200 most of the time but when I upgraded from my Dell 2405FPW (now my secondary monitor having replaced the 2001FP that used to fill that role) to a Dell U2711 that has a native resolution of 2560x1440 you could tell that it was struggling with all those extra pixels and even needed settings turned down a bit in a bunch of games to get an acceptable frame rate. Not so now with the 7970 crossfire setup now though.


    So basically can anyone help me get this extra speed out of my rev 2.1 GV-R797OC-3GD so that it can run along well with my rev 1.0?
     
  2. teleguy

    teleguy Maha Guru

    Messages:
    1,363
    Likes Received:
    221
    GPU:
    GTX 1070/Vega 56
    AFAIK there's no way to unlock voltage control on the new Gigabyte cards. However their GHz edition comes with a higher stock voltage of 1,256 so you could try flashing your card with the GHz Bios to improve overclockabilty.

    http://dfiles.eu/files/a0u1ot6p6
     
  3. MrBucket

    MrBucket Guest

    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    2 Gigabyte 7970 Crossfire
    How possible/safe is it to flash the GHZ ed bios onto the rev 2.1 card? Would it attempt to do that boosting of the gpu speed like the GTX680 and 7970ghz cards do? Does that require hardware on the card that the non ghz ed would have?

    I know the cards have 2 bios that you can switch between quite easily but I still don't want to mess one of them up.
     
  4. teleguy

    teleguy Maha Guru

    Messages:
    1,363
    Likes Received:
    221
    GPU:
    GTX 1070/Vega 56
    No, the Boost feature doesn't require special hardware.
     

  5. Deathchild

    Deathchild Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    3,969
    Likes Received:
    2
    GPU:
    -
    Sure.. check out this thread. Post #6.
     
  6. MrBucket

    MrBucket Guest

    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    2 Gigabyte 7970 Crossfire
    what thread?
     
  7. MrBucket

    MrBucket Guest

    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    2 Gigabyte 7970 Crossfire
    I was able to play some Tomb Raider tonight with 1050mhz core and 1475mhz ram using the overclocking ability of the catalyst control center, best overclock I've managed with the rev 2.1 card in my system, seemed to help a little bit with frame rates.
     
  8. MrBucket

    MrBucket Guest

    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    2 Gigabyte 7970 Crossfire
    Still waiting on this reply.
     
  9. IcE

    IcE Don Snow

    Messages:
    10,693
    Likes Received:
    79
    GPU:
    3070Ti FE
    I owned a 2.1 of this card for a bit, basically you have one shot, and that's flashing a GHz edition BIOS and hoping it works. In my case, it did not and I would get a random crash at idle clocks.

    Download this https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B5XoDQ-AQHOdN0Z0VkpoUXhraUk/edit

    And google "atiflash". Create a bootable USB stick (Google if unsure how, the most common method is to use an old HP utility). boot with atiflash and the bios file on the root of the bootable drive. Type: atiflash -p 0 biosfilename -fs -fp

    Then you're done. Make sure the card's switch is on position 2 when you do this, so you can revert if something messes up. Make sure to thoroughly test at the "stock" GHz edition clocks before trying to overclock. Make sure idle clocks work and such. From what I've seen (and personally) this flashing trick rarely works for 2.1 model cards properly.
     
  10. Deathchild

    Deathchild Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    3,969
    Likes Received:
    2
    GPU:
    -

  11. I am using latest TO Ghz version bios also, and... unfortunately my max OC I can reach 1050Mhz :/ a bit sucks... I have a 2.1V version as the OP has.

    Gigabyte sucks although their cooler is nice...
     
  12. kakarot

    kakarot Maha Guru

    Messages:
    1,134
    Likes Received:
    20
    GPU:
    pny rtx 4090
    Sucks they are locking these now as they definitely lost a good edge they had on the 680. But mine is unfortunately the same way, locked at 1.175 with +20 powerlimit. Best I can do is 1100/1525. Sucks but not worth being without a pc or the bad karma for returning it.
     
  13. MrBucket

    MrBucket Guest

    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    2 Gigabyte 7970 Crossfire
    I'm really starting to get fed up with Gigabyte these days. I had some issues with my old x58-ud5 with a bios update that completely changed the way the vcore was set and it degraded my i920 that was capable of 4.6ghz at its peak and reduced the max speed to only a little bit over 3ghz and I had to go out and get an i950 to replace it.

    Then when I was building my current X79 system last year I bought a GA-X79-UD5 from microcenter and I got home and built the computer and the thing would just spin the fans up for a split second and then just not do anything else until you switched the psu power off/on and then it would just do the pathetic fan spin again. So I had to get that swapped out at microcenter and they had only one more of them so I got it home and built again and then this time it wouldnt even do the pathetic fan spin up. Went online asking for help with it and tons of people were trying to blame it on me saying it was user error or that my psu (nearly brand new AX850) and/or tons of other components were broken and to blame. I was able to throw together my old x58 build with everything hooked up to it that I'd be using in the new x79 build and the thing worked perfectly. Went back to microcenter and told them that I'm done with this particular model and that I had to switch to the Asus Sabertooth X79 as it was one of the few x79 boards that met all the particular criteria that I absolutely needed to have. Got it home and built the computer all over once again, but this time it actually worked perfectly the first time I hit the power button. Its amazing how "user error" can manifest itself as two dead on arrival motherboards in a row these days. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

    I'm super happy with my rev 1.0 7970OC but this new rev 2.1 card really is pissing me off.


    Just too many things that gigabyte has dropped the ball on these days for me to continue buying their products for the foreseeable future. That's how I felt about Asus after having some horrible interactions with them back in 2005 with broken parts and extremely poor customer service. It took me about 7 years to give them another shot with their current products and it was the Xonar Essence ST/X line of sound cards they have that lured me back in to give them another shot and I've been very happy with them, enough to give them another shot on a motherboard as well after the gigabyte debacle. I'm quite glad I did give them that new chance as the Sabertooth X79 is an excellent motherboard and their Xonar Essence ST/X being the very best in category.
     
  14. MrBucket

    MrBucket Guest

    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    2 Gigabyte 7970 Crossfire
    With this not working too well on rev 2.1 cards I think I'll just deal with being able to just do a minor overclock on the 2.1 card and keep my rev 1.0 card overclocked real high. Its not like my computer is lacking in any area without having that overclock on the rev 2.1 card.
     

Share This Page