7979 Overclocking

[Godlik3]

Hello, I finally built my first gaming PC about a week ago and I heard that the 7970 is a beast with overclocking. I had no idea how to OC, so I read some things and took some notes and started testing. I got to around 1050 MHz and at that point I got glitches and artifacts. I bumped up my VDDC a little (to about 1150) hoping that would work, but it didn't. I reset and I tried again today but the same thing happened. How much voltage do I need to get a stable overclock and boosts my overall performance by about 15%? If that's possible anyways, thanks

SPECS:
i7 3770 3.4GHz
Corsair CX750
Sapphire 7970 Dual-X
Kingston 2x4GB DDR3
Western Digital 2TB HDD

 

[Durvelle27]

Different cards OC different ways but what are you using to OC. I would recommend Afterburner or Trixx if you not using them. Try 1.175 it would be fine as that's the stock volts for most 7970s. 1100MHz should be very doable. Also remember to increase Power Limit to 20%

 

[Godlik3]

I use both, I use Afterburner to monitor the heat difference and increase, and I use Trixx to actually change the clocks. Where do I put the Power Limit to 20%?

 

[Durvelle27]

I use both, I use Afterburner to monitor the heat difference and increase, and I use Trixx to actually change the clocks. Where do I put the Power Limit to 20%?

Instead just use afterburner to keep it simple

 

[Godlik3]

I do but it won't save the clock speed for some reason...

 

[Shmee]

I would go up to about 1.25V if necessary. That is the stock voltage for the boost cards, so it should be fine.

 

[crashtech]

I looked at my notes, and my 7970 needed to be set to 1250mV to achieve 1160MHz with the stock cooler. From what I gather that would indicate it's not the best overclocker. Temps tend to get a little high at that voltage, but it is safe otherwise.

 

[Godlik3]

Oh I didn't notice the thread typo -.- how do I fix that? Anyways, I have the Sapphire Dual-X and people say the stock cooler is pretty good. Does anyone know about the dual bios that comes with this card? I guess one is OC'd? I could just use that if I need too.

 

[crashtech]

Oh I didn't notice the thread typo -.- how do I fix that? Anyways, I have the Sapphire Dual-X and people say the stock cooler is pretty good. Does anyone know about the dual bios that comes with this card? I guess one is OC'd? I could just use that if I need too.

Edit your post with the "Advanced" option, and the title will become accessible.

As far as the dual BIOS goes, just leave one stock as a fallback in case some setting makes the card unbootable.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Before you go messing with the BIOS there are a couple other steps you might want to try. When you installed the card did you uninstall the old one and clean out drivers using a driver sweeper utility? The reason i ask is I've worked with a couple Radeon cards recently that responded well to clean install techniques.