7970 Overclocking with voltage control :o)

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HurleyBird

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2003
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Kippa said:
When the reviews first came out for the 7970 they were good but not earth shattering. Do you think the standard clock rate was undervalued conservatiley and was a rush job to get the cards out as soon as possible? Maybe if they had a bit more time the standard values could have been tweaked a little higher. Perhaps this card is better than expected.
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I think it's part of a new strategy designed to increase ASPs and shorten the upgrade cycle. Release 7970 now priced as if it was a very high performing current gen card since Nvidia has nothing to compete in that space. Then sell the real deal, let's call it "7980" after Kepler is out. Judging how well every 7970 we've seen clocks, AMD could easily have released a higher performing SKU if they wanted to. This isn't about yield, or rushing a product out. It's a business strategy.
 
formulav8

formulav8

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2000
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I think it has quite a bit to do with yields and time to market. They almost hit their year end target.... A week or so late isn't to bad at all!

NVidia most likely will have nothing in the top-top end area for many months to come. So AMD is definitely sitting pretty. All nvidia can do now is lower prices. (Unless they really aren't as far behind on their new release.) I would expect nvidia to do a major price drop to lower the AMD impact boom. But for the most part AMD is going to sell Every Single One of those 7970 cards the 9th. So all nvidia can do is make their cards more attractive to buyers that wait for the smoke to clear.
 
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Arkadrel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2010
3,681
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badb0y said:
Wow I think 1300 core is easy for this card.
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Going by that VR zone article, yeah looks like they more or less can all do 1300mhz with stock cooler.

They just need software to allow them to go higher than 1.25volts (1.15 stock).... Im thinking 1.35 or so volts, and you can probably do 1300-1400mhz.

Want to go higher? probably gonna need watercooling.
 
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VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
6,188
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Arkadrel said:
@Ken

Sapphire is doing a 1335mhz air cooled version, factory overclocked (thats a 44% increase in clock speed).
And I dont think even factory overclocked cards, will be pushing the headroom avalable, so Im pretty sure buy one of these, you probably be able to push them abit higher on air (say 1400-1500).

Also they ll be faster than the 6990 or 590 is.
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There is nothing on those leaked documents that indicates the 1335mhz cards are air cooled. But the WC in the name of the one leads me to believe it's a waterblock, and the RX could possibly be phase change?

Either way expect to shell out the cash for those cards. Probably around $800 bucks.
 
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Arkadrel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2010
3,681
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@VulgarDisplay

VR zone, just overclocked a refernce card, on air, to 1267mhz @1.25volts (0.10 higher than stock). Their card is staying around the 60's degree's celcius, they re claiming (lukewarm).

Its intirely/highly possible those 1335mhz card are air cooled, in fact im assumeing they are.

obviously they have more headroom, and heat isnt a issue for them yet on stock cooler.
Custom coolers and im pretty sure 1335mhz will be on air.
 
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Grooveriding

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
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hdfxst said:
1267 on air http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-voltage-mod--1.26ghz-flying-on-air/14398.html
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The 7970 is simply a beast. Most interesting part I read there was this:
STAY TUNED FOR OUR POTENTIALLY RECORD BREAKING HD7970 4-WAY CROSSFIRE FEATURE THIS UPCOMING WEEK!
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:cool:


An aside, none of the reviews I looked at showed shots that made it evident that the cooling shroud has a glossy black finish, rather than a matte finish. I am a sucker for shinies...

nXUGI.jpg


aTr3e.jpg
 
V

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
6,188
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Arkadrel said:
@VulgarDisplay

VR zone, just overclocked a refernce card, on air, to 1267mhz @1.25volts (0.10 higher than stock). Their card is staying around the 60's degree's celcius, they re claiming (lukewarm).

Its intirely/highly possible those 1335mhz card are air cooled, in fact im assumeing they are.

obviously they have more headroom, and heat isnt a issue for them yet on stock cooler.
Custom coolers and im pretty sure 1335mhz will be on air.
Click to expand...

That was at 100% fan speed which is similar in noise to a vacuum cleaner. So yeah they can probably get that high on air, but who wants that noise.
 
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badb0y

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2010
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VulgarDisplay said:
That was at 100% fan speed which is similar in noise to a vacuum cleaner. So yeah they can probably get that high on air, but who wants that noise.
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You can lower the fan speed then lol. These cards operate fine all the way upto 80 degrees Celsius. Another thing is that was max temperature in FurMark. I never reach those temperatures in real life scenarios.
 
notty22

notty22

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2010
3,375
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badb0y said:
You can lower the fan speed then lol. These cards operate fine all the way upto 80 degrees Celsius. Another thing is that was max temperature in FurMark. I never reach those temperatures in real life scenarios.
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AMD and Nvidia have throttling mechanisms in place for furmark. So it's a little misleading, what we are seeing there.
TPU, has already commented on that :
http://www.techpowerup.com/157850/H...GHz-28-nm-Tech-Really-Stretches-Its-Legs.html
UPDATE: Notice how the Furmark screenshot shows the card achieving a mere 40fps at 1280x720? A card in this performance bracket can obviously do way better than this. This poor framerate will be down to the power throttling circuitry protecting the card under such conditions by slowing down the performance severely. If the throttle was disengaged the card would perform spectacularly for a short while and then likely cook itself to death, especially with this overclock. Thanks to one of our eagle-eyed forum members for spotting this.
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Arkadrel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2010
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3Dmark Vantage score of 98,300 ..... failed! your still 1700 from 100,000 or 100k score :)

Needs drivers or harder push to get beyound the 100k :)
 
K

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
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Arkadrel said:
3Dmark Vantage score of 98,300 ..... failed! your still 1700 from 100,000 or 100k score :)

Needs drivers or harder push to get beyound the 100k :)
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You think he needs more CPU maybe? Wonder what the effect on the GPU score would be with less CPU power? Would be funny if he's CPU bottlenecked :)
 
notty22

notty22

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2010
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Just for comparison of the cpu/gpu numbers with a old record from last year.
3DMark-Vantage-Single-Processors-World-Record-Smashed-4.jpg


He had a system running with the gtx 580's at 1300mhz in Nov,11, but only seems to have run 3dmark 11 for records.
It's interesting the cpu score is similar with the setups. PhysX was disabled from gpu-z shots.
edit : He had the 990x up to 6200mhz
 
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Grooveriding

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
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P32728.JPG


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:thumbsup::thumbsup: Insane. The 3960X overclock is pretty nice as well. But the 7970s are just nuts. Where are you 1325core Sapphire Atomic RX. :cool:
 
K

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
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He'll break 100K if he's gotta fry some chips! At least I know I'd do whatever it takes to get that last little bit....As long as I wasn't paying for the stuff :D
 
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