[H] Radeon 7970 Overclocking Results, Review & Performance.

[Grooveriding]

I'm sure I just missed this somewhere, but the OC's operational voltage is 1.3V. What's the stock setting?

The 7970 is like most recent high end GPUs in that they're binned and each one will have a different stock VID. I've seen 1.15 and 1.1 for stock. This review doesn't mention what the stock VID was though.

Good question, think I will ask over there what it was.

 

[IonusX]

hey yo nvidia.. tellegram from tahiti. it reads: YOU CANT SEE ME!!!

 

[Quantos]

Dude, it couldn't be worse than the roar of my 480s @ 85% fan speed to keep them under 90C temps. :ninja: Granted I have 3 sandwiched though.

Still waiting for the Lightning 7970s to come out, as I am so due for using video cards that are quieter than what I'm using now. Also if this is what reference cards are doing, I want to see what a custom PCB built for overclocking with cherry picked cores is going to do :thumbsup:

Ow what! You should get your ears checked out, you probably have permanent damage by now! ^_^

Perhaps I'm not as extreme as you guys, but I couldn't stand having my card always being catch up in my case. Even with proper headphones I couldn't stand the knowing that it's constantly at high fan speeds. My current 5850 was chosen specifically because it wasn't too loud, and I'm not OCing it past the point where it'd be annoying me. Perhaps I won't get a 7970 with the best OC, but I'm quite sure it'd be best to get a custom 7970 that doesn't have to work so hard all the time to keep it's OC going.

 

[Vesku]

With good around the ear headphones and game sounds I don't really mind ~80% fan speed while gaming. While not gaming the vast majority of cards will be very quiet, MSI Afterburner and Sapphire TRIXX are two good custom profile utilities.

Note: Of my personal experience it does seem that the NVIDIA reference designs I've owned seem to have a less irritating near max RPM sound than the AMD reference designs. Not sure if they use different fan OEMs or what. Sound is very subjective though and hard to convey even with a recording.

 

[Grooveriding]

With good around the ear headphones and game sounds I don't really mind ~80% fan speed while gaming. While not gaming the vast majority of cards will be very quiet, MSI Afterburner and Sapphire TRIXX are two good custom profile utilities.

Note: Of my personal experience it does seem that the NVIDIA reference designs I've owned seem to have a less irritating near max RPM sound than the AMD reference designs. Not sure if they use different fan OEMs or what. Sound is very subjective though and hard to convey even with a recording.

I find any blower fan to be noticeable regardless of who makes the card. It just depends on the speed. 60% is generally audible but not bad. After that point it gets quite loud, after 80% it's in your face.

It's been so long that I don't remember what it's like with a single card. Obviously with more than one the noise is much more in your face, but I wouldn't call it tripled as the sound blends together. I will say there is no fan whine of a high speed fan, just the sound of fast moving air.

 

[jackstar7]

I really wish a site would just do a quick update about that driver release. It'd be great to know if it's just what's on the discs shipping with the cards or...

 

[rgallant]

You are very mistaken sir. They definitely do NOT do 950+ easily

You pretty much need something like an MSI lightning or gigabyte SOC to do 950. And even then it is not guaranteed. I had a reference 580 before my lightnings (which I returned to amazon) which couldn't get past 815, even with voltage tweaking. After that I decided it was MSI Lightning or bust.

I know a TON of people and IRL friends that cant' get past 825 with their EVGA reference cards. Its definitely not easy dude Some can, some can't. GTX 580s also get hella hot with voltage increases, especially reference cards.

I don't know the max. clocks on my evga's 1.5's ,no reason to try.
- did 920 once no issues , completed all stress testing ok.

- but 2 weeks ago turned them up for bf3 to 865 @ 1.1v just left it at that profile [sc are 1.088v] pasted all benches and bf3 20 -30hrs stable.
-but they never go over 40c.

-the 580 cards have not got any slower with the release of the 7970's.
-nor do I buy first gen. of cards.

but for those looking \ needing to buy today , the 7970's look like great cards ,
glad ati has again a flag ship product.[drive by them everyday, home team]

 

[Silverforce11]

I will say there is no fan whine of a high speed fan, just the sound of fast moving air.

Yep, blower types get very noisy due to a lot of airflow through a small gap. I use to hate it but with a small case setup, venting all the hot air outside is just the right way to do it.

I'm glad AMD is quick on allowing non-reference designs this time, so users can pick which they prefer.

What i find weird is some games are memory bandwidth limited and OC on the vram scales nicely. It's already got so much BW.

 

[blackened23]

I don't know the max. clocks on my evga's 1.5's ,no reason to try.
- did 920 once no issues , completed all stress testing ok.

- but 2 weeks ago turned them up for bf3 to 865 @ 1.1v just left it at that profile [sc are 1.088v] pasted all benches and bf3 20 -30hrs stable.
-but they never go over 40c.

-the 580 cards have not got any slower with the release of the 7970's.
-nor do I buy first gen. of cards.

but for those looking \ needing to buy today , the 7970's look like great cards ,
glad ati has again a flag ship product.[drive by them everyday, home team]

Am I reading your sig right? water cooling? Point remains thats not a typical or "easy" overclock for a GTX 580. With a ref card they get REALLY hot with voltage tweaks, I need +100mV to get 950 stable on my MSI lightnings. I wasn't able to get anywhere with reference, but the msi lightnings work great.

 

[Grooveriding]

Yep, blower types get very noisy due to a lot of airflow through a small gap. I use to hate it but with a small case setup, venting all the hot air outside is just the right way to do it.

I'm glad AMD is quick on allowing non-reference designs this time, so users can pick which they prefer.

What i find weird is some games are memory bandwidth limited and OC on the vram scales nicely. It's already got so much BW.

Not quick enough though. Hope they are on shelves in under a month.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

In the 580's defence that seems like a fairly low over clock to be honest, after spending some time today reading OCing results for the 580 in preparation for over clocking my own Twin Frozr II, quite a lot of people are seeing something like 950 core with voltage tweaks and decent air cooling.

 

[blackened23]

In the 580's defence that seems like a fairly low over clock to be honest, after spending some time today reading OCing results for the 580 in preparation for over clocking my own Twin Frozr II, quite a lot of people are seeing something like 950 core with voltage tweaks and decent air cooling.

950 is definitely not an easy overclock for the 580. As a former reference board owner, I wasn't able to get past 815 and this is consistent with many users of reference boards i've spoken to -- the reference VRM doesn't allow voltage tweakign without massive increases in temps. It is not a low overclock, it is better than average.

Getting 950 on my lightnings requires +100mV in MSI afterburner. On a reference board, this will murder your 100% gpu load temps, and is usually not feasible (without crashes and artifacts)

 

[PrincessFrosty]

950 is definitely not an easy overclock for the 580. As a former reference board owner, I wasn't able to get past 815 and this is consistent with many users of reference boards i've spoken to -- the reference VRM doesn't allow voltage tweakign without massive increases in temps. It is not a low overclock, it is better than average.

Getting 950 on my lightnings requires +100mV in MSI afterburner. On a reference board, this will murder your 100% gpu load temps, and is usually not feasible (without crashes and artifacts)

I guess you're right about reference boards, the cooling just isn't very good, however the cards with better cooling are dominating the market anyway, I think I picked one of the cheapest 580's available when I did a last minute build for my last upgrade and that was a Twin Frozr II

OCing results are hit and miss anyway, in both camps. 815 seems quite low though, most of the factory overclocked variants are about that kind of speed to start with and they're only pushed a fraction of what the cooling can support.

 

[Will Robinson]

Amazing overclocking results...these new 7970s are the sports cars of the graphics world these days.

 

[Cookie Monster]

950 is definitely not an easy overclock for the 580. As a former reference board owner, I wasn't able to get past 815 and this is consistent with many users of reference boards i've spoken to -- the reference VRM doesn't allow voltage tweakign without massive increases in temps. It is not a low overclock, it is better than average.

Getting 950 on my lightnings requires +100mV in MSI afterburner. On a reference board, this will murder your 100% gpu load temps, and is usually not feasible (without crashes and artifacts)

950MHz is not an easy overclock since only the cherry picked ones will go that high (950~1000MHz). However, 815MHz reference or not shouldn't even require much effort. My GTX480 can run at that speed with ease and the GF110 is a better chip in all aspects so (Plus its already clocked at 772MHz stock) that is a really low overclock. I would say for all intend and purpose that a range of 850~900MHz is whats considered an average overclock on the GTX580.

The reference VRM has nothing to do with massively increasing in temps. Most components found in a VRM can handle up to 125C (and they dont suddenly jump another 20C for example from the extra 20mV). Most of the heat is coming from the GPU chip itself and as with all GPUs, the GPU temp will increase when you increase its core voltage.

Also, the only downside I could think of for the reference VRMs is that to obtain an overclock of 950MHz+, it would require a much higher core voltage and this might or might not push the rated power specification of the reference VRM out of spec. I can't remember where Ive read it but I think its from TiN that the reference VRMs can handle up to 550W (compared to their classified which is rated up to 1000W). In that sense, its still more than enough but the most important part of the overclock equation is the GPU chip itself.. just like with the HD7970s and all other GPUs.