How do you overclock 7950 with msi afterburner ?

[you2]

How do you overclock ? I have msi afterburner; and I set the clock speed to 1150 and memory speed to 1500 and hit apply but the benchmark runs at around the same speed (I'm using 3dmark11@1080p) . Do I need to 'enable' these settings ?
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Also is there a specific memory value that should track the clock speed ?

Last but least is this thing like a cpu that will shutdown if it gets too hot (and what is considered too hot) ?
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The 3dmark numbers I'm seeing are 2433 6338 3380

 

[djsb]

Go into CCC, the overclocking tab, and enable overclocking. Then go back to Afterburner and proceed to set clocks.

If desired, run afterburner with the -xcl option to extend the clocks past CCC's limits. You will have to reboot for this to take effect. You only have to run it with -xcl once (then reboot). You will have to repeat it for each new driver install, though.

 

[you2]

Hum. Should this have been obvious ?

 

[psolord]

I believe you DON'T have to go to CCC and enable overclocking.

MSI Afterburner overclocks my 7950s just fine, without CCC overclocking enabled.

 

[you2]

Maybe in these test gpu+ 15% doesn't mean 15% better frame rate? What sort of scores should I see with default (which is 925/1100 and setting to 1150/1500) ?

When I look at the dashboard after the test the gpu is not exactly pegged at 100% (I have a 2500K that is moderately overclocked).

 

[you2]

Ok thanks. Then maybe I don't need to use CCC; I see the fan increase a little (from 44% to maybe 50% when I go from 925 to 1100) I just didn't see a big boost in performance. Maybe the performance boost is very small and the value of overclocking is not so great. Btw I did try 1200 and the gpu more or less shutdown - it didn't get hot from the dashboard but it didn't really work under load. the system hung and I had to do a power cycle. Does the memory need to be a specific value relative to the core clock or are they async.

Well you have to click "apply" after you set your settings. 1150 Mhz for the core could probably require some additional voltage, but don't go there yet.

If you do things right, after your benchmark run, the OC values should be correctly monitored in MSI AB, so you should see 1150 on the graph for the core. You can also use gpuz's sensors.

All recent GPUs throttle if they overheat. There's also some driver added security where the driver will just drop the clocks to default if the card gets too stressed.

Still some sense on the user's part is required.

 

[MTDEW]

Just open afterburner, at the bottom and select settings, then the monitoring tab and set your clocks,temps and usage to be shown in real-time in the OSD.(onscreen display).
So you can see exactly whats happening while testing onscreen in real time.

Also when overclocking , if you have a boost card, be sure and have the power limit at +20%, so the card doesn't throttle when testing.

EDIT: just to be specific.
1: open afterburner
2: click settings button
3: on GENERAL tab , check boxes unlock voltage control and unlock voltage monitoring. (afterburner will prompt to restart)
4: Now go back to settings again.
5: now select the Monitoring tab
6: now, see the box 3/4 the way down where the first item in the list is GPU1 temperature? put a checkmark by it by selecting it.
7: once it has a checkmark by it, look down below and check the box that says "show in onscreen display"
8: now the GPU1 temperature should have a checkmark and OSD beside it.
9: repeat steps 5 thru 9 for all settings you want displayed onscreen while testing.

 

[psolord]

Ok thanks. Then maybe I don't need to use CCC; I see the fan increase a little (from 44% to maybe 50% when I go from 925 to 1100) I just didn't see a big boost in performance. Maybe the performance boost is very small and the value of overclocking is not so great. Btw I did try 1200 and the gpu more or less shutdown - it didn't get hot from the dashboard but it didn't really work under load. the system hung and I had to do a power cycle. Does the memory need to be a specific value relative to the core clock or are they async.

The fan goes up because the power draw and heat dissipation of the card go up as well.It's normal.

Going from 925 to 1150 is about 25% overclock on the core. If you apply the same percentage on the memory, you should have an almost linear performance increase.

Try something quick, good looking and absolutely gpu limited to test, like Unigine's benchmarks.

The core and ram clock do not have to be in sync per se, but it's good to do so, since you will have made sure than you don't fall into some bandwidth limits. The bandwidth of the Tahitis is plenty, but it does help in some situations (for example Valley benchmark is very sensitive to memory speed). Heck, at 1550Mhz ram clock, the bandwidth of the Tahiti reaches 300GBs/sec which is nice to behold, lol.

 

[you2]

With 3Dmarks I get P7034 6946 7260 7401 @ 1150/1500
The GPU temp never gets above 57 and fan stays below 40%
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However (figure this one out)
With 3Dmarks i get P7884 8098 7246 7400 @ 925:1250
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So overclocking reduces the performance !!!!
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A web serach suggest that might happen if the overclock is unreliable so I tried 2 values bewteen 1150/1500 and 925:1250 and both times it went lower P69xx and P68xx - so things seem to be slower as I step off of 1150/1500.
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Oh who knows. I must be doing something wrong.... right ?