I switched

[Shamrock]

You will regret buying AMD over NVIDIA (possibly thanks to the AMD bias some of the members on this board throw around). nonetheless congrats on your purchase.

Hmm, I didn't.

I had been NV fan for a while, hadn't bought an ATI car since Rage II. I recently bought a Sapphire OC 7850. I didn't regret one bit for shelving my NV 260.

Drivers are excellent. There are bugs on both teams.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Hmm, I didn't.

I had been NV fan for a while, hadn't bought an ATI car since Rage II. I recently bought a Sapphire OC 8750. I didn't regret one bit for shelving my NV 260.

Drivers are excellent. There are bugs on both teams.

Quick PM me the link to the early release 8750! lol I know you meant 7850.

 

[Shamrock]

No way! It's a prototype card. Faster than Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick.

Dang, sorry...had a few Blue Moons.

 

[sze5003]

Guys I will be happy to report the cards specs and issues. I'm moving this weekend so I just hooked up my pc at the new apartment tonite. I don't have the card or new case yet.
I read a few user reviews on newegg saying it came clocked at 1050. I know there is the GHz edition of this card here in the U.S. The turbo edition or X edition is not available in the U.S.
In terms of seeing how much I can clock it, how would I do that just increase voltage? Sorry I've never overclocked before so its quiet new to me.
The new case is coming from tenessee and the card is coming from NJ so it I bet the card will be here tomorrow. Too bad it will be too big to fit in my Roswill Challenger.

 

[RussianSensation]

To overclock, you can just use the included iTurbo HIS software from the CD or whatever it is called. In there should be a slider for GPU voltage and GPU clocks. You can start off with 1.175V as that is the stock voltage and see how far the card can go. Then increase it to 1.20, 1.225, 1.25V and see if you can get much more out of it.

OR you can download MSI Afterburner and unlock unofficial GPU voltage support via this post. You just have to alter the MSIAfterburner.cfg file in the Program Files/MSI Afterburner and drop those 2 bolded lines in the appropriate location in that file and resave it. You can use GPU-Z or HWInfo64 to monitor your actual voltage since the voltage you set in MSI Afterburner is just your target voltage. Then you can run Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark test at 8xMSAA/ Extreme Tessellation, everything maxed out, some games you play and MSI GPU Burn-in test to test your GPU stability.

The actual voltage in GPU-Z is located in the Sensor tab and called VDDC. Set it to "Show the Highest Reading".

 

[sze5003]

Ok thats informative And how would you know how high to continue with the voltage? I guess how do you know its had enough lol ? Would I see the screen turning off or anything weird? I think I will use iturbo at first.

Do those programs save your tests and graph them too?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

From what I understand 1.25v is the safe limit for AMD graphics cards. More than likely you will reach an OC that will not be stable even if you raise the voltage down to 1.25v. The trick is to find the balance between lower voltage and the highest clock speed you can achieve. There is a lot of trial and error involved in overclocking.

 

[sze5003]

Awesome I wish the case and card would be here already. I'm typing from my phone as the new place does not have internet until tomorrow.

So after setting those voltages one by one am I suppose to run a game for a certain amount of time. I'm really interested in all this now of a sudden. Thanks for all the info I really appreciate the patience.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

You don't even really have to touch voltage to start. Just start raising your clockspeed.

I usually start it 20mhz increments. With these new GPU's you can basically just move the slider all the way right though. Test in a game for a while, and if you get some instability (artifacts or a driver crash) Then you can add voltage if your temperatures are still acceptable.

 

[sze5003]

Acceptable temps are anything below 70 Celsius or what? I have bf3 installed, batman, tom Clancy future soldier. Skyrim is somewhere and so is max payne 3. I will have to find them and try running them.

The nzxt phantom 410 should have better airflow than my current case so I'm hoping I can keep everything properly cooled. I don't have a CPU cooler yet so my i5 2500k is stock.

Seems like the 12.8 drivers are the latest from checking around.

 

[ashenburger]

While I have a card from Sapphire, my temps have never been above 64 degrees celsius at 1200/1550. This was the fuzzy cube in the AtiTool program, during gaming it's typically in the mid-fifties. I am abit unsure if you got the GHz or the vanilla flavored 7970, then again RussianSensation's 7970 is clocked about the same as my GHz(his memory clock is a fair bit higher), so I don't know if there's an actual difference to these cards other than the name.
Maybe other 7970 owners could chime in?

 

[sxegloxx]

ATI/AMD Driver issues pretty much got squashed or on par for performance after the 5xxxx Series.

O and you should see the raging about GUILD Wars 2 and NVIDIA drivers..

LULZ U nvidia fan boys

 

[sze5003]

While I have a card from Sapphire, my temps have never been above 64 degrees celsius at 1200/1550. This was the fuzzy cube in the AtiTool program, during gaming it's typically in the mid-fifties. I am abit unsure if you got the GHz or the vanilla flavored 7970, then again RussianSensation's 7970 is clocked about the same as my GHz(his memory clock is a fair bit higher), so I don't know if there's an actual difference to these cards other than the name.
Maybe other 7970 owners could chime in?

I think its vanilla version. I know they also have the iceq x2 GHz edition but that one is like 6-700 bucks. The original price of the card I bought was $459 but I got a sweet deal on it I think.

 

[RussianSensation]

While I have a card from Sapphire, my temps have never been above 64 degrees celsius at 1200/1550. This was the fuzzy cube in the AtiTool program, during gaming it's typically in the mid-fifties. I am abit unsure if you got the GHz or the vanilla flavored 7970, then again RussianSensation's 7970 is clocked about the same as my GHz(his memory clock is a fair bit higher), so I don't know if there's an actual difference to these cards other than the name.
Maybe other 7970 owners could chime in?

Is that 64*C in games? My card is loaded 99% when I am showing my temperatures. In games it shovers at 62-64*C only but distributed computing such as MilkyWay@Home or bitcoin mining is what I use it for. So the gaming temperatures are not accurate enough for my purposes. But yes, the Sapphire DX cooler is very very impressive.

I think its vanilla version. I know they also have the iceq x2 GHz edition but that one is like 6-700 bucks. The original price of the card I bought was $459 but I got a sweet deal on it I think.

I thought you got the dual-fan HIS IceQ X². The $600 "X" card and your HIS IceQ X² card have identical coolers. Vanilla means reference blower design with 1 loud fan. :\

The card that's on sale for $395 is the HIS IceQ X² with a huuuuuuuuuuge cooling heatsink. It's going to be > 12 inches long from the looks of it.

You don't even really have to touch voltage to start. Just start raising your clockspeed.

I usually start it 20mhz increments. With these new GPU's you can basically just move the slider all the way right though. Test in a game for a while, and if you get some instability (artifacts or a driver crash) Then you can add voltage if your temperatures are still acceptable.

Great advice from you on overclocking but the bolded part, caution! HD7970 unlocked is 1665mhz. You don't want to do that on a 7970!

The sweet spot for a HD7970 is usually 1150-1175mhz on stock VDDC voltage of 1.175V. After that, it's usually 1200mhz on 1.20-1.225V, 1230-1250mhz on 1.25V, 1250-1280mhz on 1.30V. Of course not all chips can do the latter increments so what may happen is some chips won't go above 1150-1175mhz even at 1.30V, that's when you lower the voltage to the least possible value, and maybe back off the overclock another 10-15mhz to stay on the safe side.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

haha no! HD7970 unlocked is 1665mhz. You don't want to do that.

The sweet spot for a HD7970 is usually 1150-1175mhz on stock VDDC voltage of 1.175V. After that, it's usually 1200mhz on 1.20-1.225V, 1230-1250mhz on 1.25V, 1250-1280mhz on 1.30V. Of course not all chips can do the latter increments so what may happen is some chips won't go above 1150-1175mhz even at 1.30V, that's when you lower the voltage to the least possible value, and maybe back off the overclock another 10-15mhz to stay on the safe side.

Most programs are locked at 1125 unless you enable unofficial oc'ing.

 

[sze5003]

Is that 64*C in games? My card is loaded 99% when I am showing my temperatures. In games it shovers at 62-64*C only but distributed computing such as MilkyWay@Home or bitcoin mining is what I use it for. So the gaming temperatures are not accurate enough for my purposes. But yes, the Sapphire DX cooler is very very impressive.



I thought you got the dual-fan HIS IceQ X². The $600 "X" card and your HIS IceQ X² card have identical coolers. Vanilla means reference blower design with 1 loud fan. :\

The card that's on sale for $395 is the HIS IceQ X² with a huuuuuuuuuuge cooling heatsink. It's going to be > 12 inches long from the looks of it.



Great advice from you on overclocking but the bolded part, caution! HD7970 unlocked is 1665mhz. You don't want to do that on a 7970!

The sweet spot for a HD7970 is usually 1150-1175mhz on stock VDDC voltage of 1.175V. After that, it's usually 1200mhz on 1.20-1.225V, 1230-1250mhz on 1.25V, 1250-1280mhz on 1.30V. Of course not all chips can do the latter increments so what may happen is some chips won't go above 1150-1175mhz even at 1.30V, that's when you lower the voltage to the least possible value, and maybe back off the overclock another 10-15mhz to stay on the safe side.

I confused the two cards. It is the dual fan model iceQ X2. Your right the 600 mark model is the X edition.
Yeh its suppose to be 12.3 inches which is why I ordered a new case with it lol sole reason.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u9rv8uo623vfijw/yay.jpg

Looks like the card will be here today! But the case is still in Kentucky..maybe tomorrow?

 

[ashenburger]

Is that 64*C in games? My card is loaded 99% when I am showing my temperatures. In games it shovers at 62-64*C only but distributed computing such as MilkyWay@Home or bitcoin mining is what I use it for. So the gaming temperatures are not accurate enough for my purposes. But yes, the Sapphire DX cooler is very very impressive.

No, I have never seen it go above around 55 degrees celsius in games. The 64 degrees was in the fuzzy square test in AtiTool. I don't do distributed computing or BC mining, so I don't have any numbers to compare with there. I'm also running at ~1,25V (It was set up this way when I got it).

Oh, by vanilla I meant non-GHz 7970, not the reference design, sorry about any confusion.

 

[railven]

No, I have never seen it go above around 55 degrees celsius in games. The 64 degrees was in the fuzzy square test in AtiTool. I don't do distributed computing or BC mining, so I don't have any numbers to compare with there. I'm also running at ~1,25V (It was set up this way when I got it).

Jesus, what clocks you running at? At those volts my card hit 1265/1625, and my temps were in the ~60C (love my cooler ).

If you aren't running some insane clocks, you might want to down the volts a tad. Woof. My everday OC is 1125/1525 @ 1.175v (stock).

 

[96Firebird]

My everday OC is 1125/1525 @ 1.75v (stock).

 

[ashenburger]

Jesus, what clocks you running at? At those volts my card hit 1265/1625, and my temps were in the ~60C (love my cooler ).

If you aren't running some insane clocks, you might want to down the volts a tad. Woof. My everday OC is 1125/1525 @ 1.75v (stock).

1200/1550. I get artifacts at 1225 on the core, but I haven't touched the voltage settings, I could try reducing the Board Power Limit. I assume you mean 1.175V, not 1.75V?

Edit: I did the test with the cube again and this time it seems like it was 1,193-1,197 Volts for most of the time, the highest I saw was 1,240V when I closed the AtiTool.

 

[railven]

1200/1550. I get artifacts at 1225 on the core, but I haven't touched the voltage settings, I could try reducing the Board Power Limit. I assume you mean 1.175V, not 1.75V?

Edit: I did the test with the cube again and this time it seems like it was 1,193-1,197 Volts for most of the time, the highest I saw was 1,240V when I closed the AtiTool.

Haha, yes 1.175, sorry trying to post at work without getting caught :awe:

Have you tried lowering the clocks or are you a heavy BF3 player? I don't think I've ran into a game that my OC hasn't been able to handle "good enough."

 

[sze5003]

I will probably have tons of questions when I get everything set up. Sounds like fun messing with all that stuff

 

[ashenburger]

BF3 runs fine, I've just set it to this because I don't want to go back and forth on OCs, this is my 24/7 clock, that said the cards is at 0.85V when I am not gaming so I am not really concerned about the longevity of the card. I did try reducing the board power limit, but I couldn't really tell a difference when monitoring it in GPU-Z, in afterburner the core voltage is at it's minimum setting. Afterburner is only for monitoring, the actual OC was done in Trixx.

 

[railven]

I will probably have tons of questions when I get everything set up. Sounds like fun messing with all that stuff

I had tons of fun OC'ing my card. Since my previous cards (HD 5870/HD4850) weren't very good OC'ers. This card has gone higher than I expected it to go considering the awful ASIC rating. Wish GPU-Z was broken and would lie to me like it does for our GTX 680 haha.

BF3 runs fine, I've just set it to this because I don't want to go back and forth on OCs, this is my 24/7 clock, that said the cards is at 0.85V when I am not gaming so I am not really concerned about the longevity of the card. I did try reducing the board power limit, but I couldn't really tell a difference when monitoring it in GPU-Z, in afterburner the core voltage is at it's minimum setting. Afterburner is only for monitoring, the actual OC was done in Trixx.

Ah, I didn't know you set it up that way since you said that's how you got it. Since you now all the pitfalls, and the temps aren't an issue. Right on!

 

[RussianSensation]

No, I have never seen it go above around 55 degrees celsius in games. The 64 degrees was in the fuzzy square test in AtiTool. I don't do distributed computing or BC mining, so I don't have any numbers to compare with there. I'm also running at ~1,25V (It was set up this way when I got it).

Oh, by vanilla I meant non-GHz 7970, not the reference design, sorry about any confusion.

:thumbsup: You probably have better case airflow, lower room temperature, running at higher fan speed? The ATi TrayTools cube doesn't take up the full screen I believe. Try loading up MSI Afterburner GPU Burn-in test for 10 min full-screen. Mine stays at 72-74*C in that test at 58-61% fan speed. That test would be far more demanding than a game and if an overclock is unstable it completely locks up in MSI AB.