Is there a way to disable AMD Powertune?

[SickBeast]

Myself and others seem to be hitting artificial overclocking limits with our 7850s. Instead of artifacting, the cards are simply blacking out for a few seconds then coming back on.

I realize that Powertune is there as a safety feature, but I'm wondering if there is a way to get rid of it.

Google turned up something at HardOCP but nothing conclusive and no detailed instructions. There was something about a registry hack.

 

[(sic)Klown12]

I've head of no way to completely disable Powertune. There was some talk when the 6xxx series was released that AIB partners could tweak the limit, but none have seemed to actually come through so it might not be possible.

Might want to ask this over at Beyond3D as they have some AMD engineers who might be able to shed some light on the issue.

 

[SickBeast]

Hmm...

Thanks

 

[3DVagabond]

I know this doesn't help you, but I saw somewhere in one of the 7870 Hawk reviews that it had a switch to disable OVP. I can't find it now, unfortunately. I only mention it so if anyone wants this feature they'll know that there is a card with it.

 

[blastingcap]

set the slider to maximum and it'll be fine for 99% of overclocking needs. 7850 has like a +50% Powertune max which is insane and will let you do pretty much whatever overvolting/clocking you could feasibly do short of liquid nitrogen driven oc'ing.

 

[SickBeast]

I only see a +20% max.

 

[blastingcap]

I only see a +20% max.

What are your stock volts

 

[tigersty1e]

the card blacking out and coming back on is something different from powertune.

powertune would throttle the core clock on your card if it was limiting the card.

if you were to ignore the core throttling and continue to increase the core, then maybe i could see the screen blacking out, but why would you go to that point if the core was throttling to begin with?

 

[blastingcap]

yeah blacking out and coming back on is not powertune, it's instability. usually OS will say that the driver lost control but recovered. unless you were really unstable in which case you'd freeze up entirely.

I've been throttled by Powertune before when I forgot to change settings. It crippled my GPU for a minute or so, even though I caught the problem quickly and changed settings.

 

[3DVagabond]

the card blacking out and coming back on is something different from powertune.

powertune would throttle the core clock on your card if it was limiting the card.

if you were to ignore the core throttling and continue to increase the core, then maybe i could see the screen blacking out, but why would you go to that point if the core was throttling to begin with?

True :thumbsup:

Although it is likely something to do with the power delivery stages of the card that's causing it.

 

[SickBeast]

What are your stock volts

1.21 and it lets me run 1.225 max.

 

[blastingcap]

1.21 and it lets me run 1.225 max.

You are fine. 1.225/1.21, squared, is like 2.5%. So a PowerTune of +20% allows you to go to 1.225V with zero problems. You have like +17.5% to spare.

 

[SickBeast]

You are fine. 1.225/1.21, squared, is like 2.5%. So a PowerTune of +20% allows you to go to 1.225V with zero problems. You have like +17.5% to spare.

Oh ok. If that's how it works I'm fine.

I've had to back down to 1180mhz on the core. Crysis Warhead isn't completely happy at 1200mhz.

 

[tigersty1e]

You are fine. 1.225/1.21, squared, is like 2.5%. So a PowerTune of +20% allows you to go to 1.225V with zero problems. You have like +17.5% to spare.

that's not how powertune works. the percentage is power draw above the stated tdp.

if the card has a stated tdp of 100, then +20% allows the card to draw 120 watts before the core clock throttles.

it has nothing to do with voltage.

 

[SickBeast]

that's not how powertune works. the percentage is power draw above the stated tdp.

if the card has a stated tdp of 100, then +20% allows the card to draw 120 watts before the core clock throttles.

it has nothing to do with voltage.

Yeah that's what I was thinking as well.

With a 40% overclock I'm probably hitting a high TDP.

 

[blastingcap]

that's not how powertune works. the percentage is power draw above the stated tdp.

if the card has a stated tdp of 100, then +20% allows the card to draw 120 watts before the core clock throttles.

it has nothing to do with voltage.

Yeah you are right, I forgot about the big overclock.

But the TDP of a 7850 is 120W. +20% is what, 144W TDP. Even if he increased his voltage to max it would increase power usage by like 2.5%. Going from 860 to 1250Mhz would be +45% and put together that would be about +50% wattage increase. Going by TPU numbers, 87W average load in Crysis 2 x 1.5 = 130.5W average load. Peak loads will be higher but if they are brief spikes they might not matter.

My Sapphire 7850 OC has +50% powertune available so I guess they are telling people to go knock themselves out with oc'ing or something, haha. My Sapphire OC 7970 only has +20% Powertune though.

 

[blackened23]

the card blacking out and coming back on is something different from powertune.

powertune would throttle the core clock on your card if it was limiting the card.

if you were to ignore the core throttling and continue to increase the core, then maybe i could see the screen blacking out, but why would you go to that point if the core was throttling to begin with?

Yeah, thats what I was about to say. Powertune will just lower your clockspeed - Sounds like what you're experiencing is a TDR in progress, I believe. The screen blacks out momentarily. I've gotten them while trying to find a sweet spot for an overclock in quite a few cards in the past.