The 7970 Thread. Post your overclocks and experiences here:

1.024

Here is a pic, 1200max :O :


BTW, what voltage for 4.4GHZ on CPU?:nerd:

 

Xzibit,

I may be missing something here, but your voltage setting in AB is too low isn't it ????

Iirc the default target 3d voltage of the 7970 is 1.174 (some may be a little lower depending on ASIC)
Yours is showing 1.024 which is a big underclock.

So either something is not quite right, or you have one golden golden chip to hit 1200mhz on such an underclock.

My 7970 Windforce did 1250mhz at 1.250v
My current Sapphire does 1250mhz at 1.245v
At stock 1.174v they both did about 1000mhz

Stable to me is passing a few hours on Heaven Bench looping and also several hours of BF3 with no crash.

oh, my CPU is with offset of -0.05v, everything on auto except LLC on 3.

 

slickric21
Thanks for reply
I think it's new BIOS from Gigabyte. I'll wait for new revision.
Anyway I'm using 7970 at stock clocks, just wanted to know what it can do in 3DMark 11 overclocked to 1300

 

1250/1650 settings and bench.



Later

 

so whats a good 7980 card to buy if i want high clocks any better then the rest?
have not looked much into the amd cards since i got rid of my his card i had.
lightning dcii or what?

 

Really hit and miss with either, but id probably say DCII if u can get past the bulky cooler that is, although EK now has a full cover water block for these babies. Guess it depends on the ASICs quality not sure if MSI and ASUS are hand picked chips just think the boards VRM management is bit better than reference. Just wish someone had setup a webpage that 7970 owners could enter Make/Model/ASIC/Default Voltage/Clocks/Max overclocks GPU/MEM.
Least that would give us a bit of a trend on overclocks etc.

 

1300s going to be a high number to do unless you have a good chip.

I can run 1275 on mine, On air, But it pushes 78C in benching although only
68C on the hardest maps in my games.

Pretty sure if I put a block on mine can hit 1300+ stable but I bought this card
for the good air cooling and 1250 works great for me.

Can Max the Mem, But absolutely no benefit past 1600.
Although if running multi monitors and high Rez probably use it.

Only problem I have is an occasional black screen when in 2D, and surfing certain sites.
Never under load.

Drivers I think.

JMHO!

Later

 

Well, I got 2 NSI 7970 OC's at a very decent price, so I thought I'd give em a go. Should be here Monday. What are the max safe voltages on these cards? Will be on air the first couple of weeks but have a pair of EK blocks to fit when I get chance!

 

so no card really stands out...i might as well get a cheaper one then.

Hey mike
i had a card that would take no more then 1.23v without blackscreen and shut down no matter the temps,while the others at the time were using up to 1.30 without issues.

 

Thanks Cowie, just wanted an idea of what I should be aiming at. Lookin forward to the new cards and getting back into some overclocking. Not had much chance the last few months.

 

Question to the 7900 oc's, does anyone have or have a seen the below?

Every time the sys boots/wakes the overclock is applied as normal but not the voltage, that returns to stock (same behaviour with AB and Trixx) and I havent seen anyone else mention this and its kinda annoying (when i forget to reapply)

 

I wanted to bump this thread up for people thinking about picking up a 7970 over the holiday season. I'll try to post my overclock results once I start tweaking. It's an my MSI 7970 OC with 75% ASIC quality and stock voltage of 1.12v, so should be good to around 1.25v, assuming I can keep the temps down.


Stock clock (1010/1375) bench results using the latest catalyst 12.11 beta drivers.

Unigine Heaven 3.0

Spoiler

3dmark 11 - Default settings

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3dmark 11 - HWBot (Modified tessellation)

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3dmark Vantage

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3dmark 06

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3dmark 05

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3dmark 03

Spoiler

 

Bumping this up with the final set of data.


Second set of benchmarks, this time at CCC max limits (1125/1575).

Unigine Heaven 3.0

Spoiler

http://s5.postimage.org/vjbt3pvo7/heaven_3_0_extreme_1125_1575.jpg

3dmark 11 - Default settings

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http://s5.postimage.org/u0geyqp3r/3d11_default_10937.jpg

3dmark 11 - HWBot (Modified tessellation)

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http://s5.postimage.org/icmd46zyv/3dmark11_hwbot_12602.jpg

3dmark Vantage

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http://s5.postimage.org/l7zgb23yv/3dvantage_39391.jpg

3dmark 06

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http://s5.postimage.org/lgx10zgrb/3d06_35771.jpg

3dmark 05

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http://s5.postimage.org/bic2ei7br/3d05_45362.jpg

3dmark 03

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http://s5.postimage.org/6iem6k1p3/3d03_145687.jpg

Compare Links

3dmark 11
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5264431

3dmark Vantage
http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/4461039

3dmark 06
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/17041311

3dmark 05
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm05/5473972

3dmark 03
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm03/6487577


Third set of benchmarks, this time at stock cooling limits (1300/1600). Not pushing memory much and heavily CPU bottlenecked in 3dmark11.

Unigine Heaven 3.0

Spoiler

3dmark 11 - Default settings

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3dmark 11 - HWBot (Modified tessellation)

Spoiler

3dmark Vantage

Spoiler

3dmark 06

Spoiler

3dmark 05

Spoiler

3dmark 03

Spoiler

Compare Links

3dmark 11
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5334243

3dmark Vantage
http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/4472908

3dmark 06
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/17051992

3dmark 05
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm05/5474791

3dmark 03
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm03/6488090


Also, an overclock data table I have put together. Not fully complete but adequate. This will be useful for those looking to buy this graphics card as there are no reviews as far as I can tell.

MSI 7970 OC Edition (R7970-2PMD3GD5-OC)
http://www.msi.com/product/vga/R7970-2PMD3GD5-OC.html




Notes:

1. Fan noise measured at a distance of roughly two feet with an open case.
2. At a core clock of 1225MHz and above the fan was set manually.
3. Power measured during a run of Unigine Heaven DX11 Benchmark 3.0

 

Hey Blackzero thanks for the table, i'm not sure what you are testing with to stress the video cards. That could be usefull information for people referencing the table.

Whilst not tabled data , my own results with 7970 lightnings in crossfire are :

With air and factory HSF , very poor , would not recommend these cards on air cooling. I hit up to 95c on gpu cores with 98% utilisation and mild (1.2v) voltage overclocks using heaven benchmark regardless of fan speed. I think possibly bad mounts on my HSFs , and although open case possibly not giving the best case air flow. I don't think i could run any more than 1150 mhz without artifacting due to the very poor temperatures.

On ambient cooling (EK 7970 blocks) water up to 34c liquid ~ 52c core temps in games with low utilisation (~ 50 %) in games i could get up to 1300 mhz with up to 1.3v. 1250 at 1.25v was better. This was at a lan so no synthetic benchmarks ran to get higher utilisation. Remember these are all crossfire figures. Single card could be better was not tested.

Chilled liquid (down to -28c). GPU temps up to 5c with games up to 98 % utilisation (sleeping dogs , all options on maximum) i can run 1400mhz/1850 at 1.375v with stability. Crossfired figures again. Single card 1420mhz at 1.4v.

I think top end asics can get to 1300mhz on air like yours at the limit of air cooling. My asics were rates 78 and 81 for reference (under the cold which may make a difference).

 

Thanks for the info, Orthello. Those are some very nice cards you have there and the ASIC quality seems to be about right for water cooling and maybe a little cooler. They seem to respond quite similarly to voltage when compared to the card I am using, of course they all seem to have very similar ASIC quality so that probably explains it.

I have yet to put my card under water, but on stock air the furthest I would be comfortable running without manually adjusting the fan would be around 1150MHz, at that point the heat and noise is bearable though still too loud for my liking as I am currently running it at 1100/1500 at near enough stock voltage and relatively low noise levels. The rest of my system is water cooled with fans all set to relatively low rpm levels, noise is of course important to me.

I was able to go up to about 1200MHz with auto fan settings before the card/vreg got way too hot and of course the stock fan was already getting too loud. Any higher and it's manual fan settings to keep the vreg below 100c. I'm guessing it'll be good for at least 1300MHz at around 1.3v, once I do get a water block put on.

I've been looking at the heatkiller blocks and the koolance 7970 looks pretty decent as well, though the latter is a little pricey in relation. I'm going to avoid EK blocks this time around as I was until recently using an EK FC6970 block and unfortunately I didn't have the best experience with the supplied chrome standoffs easily and consistently breaking off inside the block. It was quite a common occurrence with those blocks and there was a thread on XtremeSystems forums regarding the matter.

About the table, it's mostly based on max temp and noise readings when running heaven 3.0, I did mention it for the power usage figures as they were specifically recorded while running heaven, though, the max temp/noise figures also include some gaming but they were all very similar for the most part so didn't feel the need to mention any other software used. though, something like furmark was used then I would probably be forced to mention it as it seems to stress cards more than most other software.

 

I just ordered another 7980,this time a powercolor pcs 1100 stock.
Out of the first two i got still only around 1250 stock air benches max from either....hope 3rd times a charm for 1300

 

I was looking at that card on newegg, how do the 7970 run in crossfire?

 

cowie

That looks like a pretty decent card, it's all luck of the draw of course, but I would be surprised if it can't do 1300MHz on stock air. I think the ASIC quality might also be important as most of the cards that overclock well on good air or water seem to sit around 70 or 80 ASIC quality.

 

they are not Geforce 680 ... bad air clocker still do excellent and offtly / sometimes golden cards for LN2 or even water ....

Most excellent air / stock 7970 dont do good overclocking LN2 cards ( not enough leakage for allow good effects of subzero temps )..

Now, Low Asic quality are good too on air if you work with "chilled " or refreshed air... They will need more voltage for go over 1400mhz ( or with air over 1300mhz ), but the leakage allow them to keep voltage scaling with subzero temps.
( The best way is to go Shamino road, mod the cards and voltage, cut off all voltage limits, OCP, TPE variation and use brute force with thoses cards under LN2 )

 

If i remember right like crap in games upon launches but i got it to try and get 200k in 03 or other newer benches.
i have no games on my amd hd's

Whats your ASIC quality at?

I just hope its not the slowest one on air,1250 i will be happy.
I got a bios for my matrix that opens it up unlimited with gputweak so i wnt to try that to,before hit 1420 @1.41v at -48c for benching but only 1240 air.
I have two core spacers so i will mount two h70s on them first thing.