Radeon HD 7950 Power consumption - Stock and OC - Single and CFX

[BallaTheFeared]

I'll run my setup at 4.8Ghz and 880? You mean 960? As well, but I can't do 1300 :|

I noticed something with my 6+6 vs 6+8...

My 6+8 doesn't need as much voltage, but it pulls slightly more power than my 6+8 even with it undervolted further at the same clocks.

 

[Elfear]

Congrats F2F. That's a killer setup for the price you paid. You're making me want to try Crysis 3 with the good results you're getting.

 

[Face2Face]

I'll run my setup at 4.8Ghz and 880? You mean 960? As well, but I can't do 1300 :|

I noticed something with my 6+6 vs 6+8...

My 6+8 doesn't need as much voltage, but it pulls slightly more power than my 6+6 even with it undervolted further at the same clocks.

My cards are mid to late 2012 cards, meaning they carry 880Mhz on the core vs. 960Mhz. This was before they introduced the boost 7950's. I'm pretty sure the 7970 PCB cards pull more in general and CAN pull much more when overclocking.

Congrats F2F. That's a killer setup for the price you paid. You're making me want to try Crysis 3 with the good results you're getting.

Thanks bud. However I am thinking about getting another accelero since i can't stand how noisey these TF3 cooler are. That will bring it up to the cost of a 7970. But they are sooo quiet @ 100% and keep things pretty cool.


EDIT:
Just pulled the trigger on another Accelero - ready to game with decent temps and low noise... things are a PITA to install though.... ugh

 

[3DVagabond]

Just pulled the trigger on another Accelero - ready to game with decent temps and low noise... things are a PITA to install though.... ugh

Would love to see a pic with 2x Accelero coolers in a rig, once you get it all up and going.

As far as power consumption I don't think you'll have any issues gaming with that 750w even with everything O/C'd.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

My power usage is pretty dynamic during the test.

This is at 4,877MHz with the 2500MHz ram.

Idle:

During benchmark:

This is at 880/1250.

 

[Face2Face]

^ Is this the 6+6 card? Seems your 7950 along with your haswell setup sips some power.. About 50w less than mine in the same test and clocks with my CPU @ 4.8, i'm sure the Gold PSU helps too.

Would love to see a pic with 2x Accelero coolers in a rig, once you get it all up and going.

As far as power consumption I don't think you'll have any issues gaming with that 750w even with everything O/C'd.

No problem, I will snap a pic when both coolers are crammed in there 😵

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Couple of things might be throwing it off, I'm undervolting... 1v for 880MHz, which is actually higher than I would have thought since 950mv can get me by with 800MHz, doesn't seem 80MHz is worth 50mv but maybe I'm delusional.

Also are you running your monitor through the kill-a-watt? Mine will eat 35-40w more if I do it that way. At least I think it will, that's how I had it setup when I was mining LTC and it was increasing my power consumption which lead me to powering it off instead of letting it sleep. I can't really test it now since it would be impractical as my outlet is below my desk... PETA 😀

 

[tigersty1e]

congrats on the xfire. I'm thinking of doing the same, when the next amd card releases.

I'm just gonna have to keep the overclocks relatively mild considering i'm running a 650 watt psu.

pics of rig?

 

[Borealis7]

thanks for the info. can you run the tests with CPU @ stock?
I knew the AMD 7-series starts hogging the watts once overclocked, i've been saying it ever since launch to anyone who asked me before buying a 79XX card.

 

[Face2Face]

Couple of things might be throwing it off, I'm undervolting... 1v for 880MHz, which is actually higher than I would have thought since 950mv can get me by with 800MHz, doesn't seem 80MHz is worth 50mv but maybe I'm delusional.

Also are you running your monitor through the kill-a-watt? Mine will eat 35-40w more if I do it that way. At least I think it will, that's how I had it setup when I was mining LTC and it was increasing my power consumption which lead me to powering it off instead of letting it sleep. I can't really test it now since it would be impractical as my outlet is below my desk... PETA 😀

Hmm... maybe I should see what the power draw is when undervolted as well? Your right, 80Mhz is not worth the 50mv.

I can run the Vallley benchmark with 919mv @ 950Mhz. I figured this out when I was talking to someone on [H]. His card was a ASIC of 91%, and we were comparing voltages and stuff.

I am not running anything else through the killawatt but the PC.

 

[Face2Face]

congrats on the xfire. I'm thinking of doing the same, when the next amd card releases.

I'm just gonna have to keep the overclocks relatively mild considering i'm running a 650 watt psu.

pics of rig?

Thanks :thumbsup: I thinks it's definitely worth it performance wise. As you know we have very similar cards with the same coolers so you should expect the same consumption as me. You should be perfectly fine with gaming with two cards running CFX at modest clocks with your 650w PSU- Just don't go for extreme clocks when benchmarking 😀 I will take some pics when I get the other cooler installed.

thanks for the info. can you run the tests with CPU @ stock?
I knew the AMD 7-series starts hogging the watts once overclocked, i've been saying it ever since launch to anyone who asked me before buying a 79XX card.

Sure, when I get some time later on this week I can run the cpu at stock. It seems these MSI cards with the 7970 PCB's are a bigger power hogs that most. On Youtube I requested someone with two 7950 in CFX to run Valley with his cards @ 1150mhz with an overclocked 3770K @ 4.6. He is only seeing 500w Peak from the wall, granted he has a Gold PSU.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-mEn57xBq8

 

[Teizo]

So I finally got PC back together after being in parts for awhile. Ran the Valley benchmark again because it seems to really stress the gpu's and get them both @ 99%

Both MSI TF3 7950's at stock clocks 880/1250 with 1.093v core and 1.6v on the memory 0% Power Limit

Max draw of 457w at the wall - = 388w after 85% efficiency.

Raised the clocks to 1150/1650 with 1.150v and a Power Limit of 20% on both cards
Max draw of 693w at the wall = 589w used by the PSU.

Jumped the clocks to 1200/1700 with 1.188v and a power limit of 20% on both cards
Max draw 827w at the wall = 702w used by the PSU.

I haven't seen any other 7950's consume this much power, I am pretty sure with these cards being on the 7970 PCB, they also have the ability to draw the same amount of power as the 7970's. Which may help these cards clock so high. The new card seems to wanna go very high as well, I just cannot keep it cool enough. Pretty sure under water both of these cards could be game stable @ 1300/1800, not happening on air.
I am also reaching the upper limits of my no frills PSU as well. After playing some games with crossfire enabled, even at 1000//1450 on both cards the difference is pretty awesome. Crysis 3 plays great on VHQ and so does Skryim. Very happy I made the move to CFX. Next up some better cooling for the stock card.

Wow. I really need to get one of those meters to check my draw. I've seen two 760's consume 520ish system watts under load, but would be good to know just exactly what mine are.

And yeah, SLI/CFX is definitely nice. This is the first time I've done it, and being an IQ whore it is great to totally max a game out with high levels of AA and be getting 80+ fps. Let's you know there is plenty horsepower for longevity (although everyone knows when the 20 mm cards come out everyone will jump ship lol).

 

[Face2Face]

Wow. I really need to get one of those meters to check my draw. I've seen two 760's consume 520ish system watts under load, but would be good to know just exactly what mine are.

And yeah, SLI/CFX is definitely nice. This is the first time I've done it, and being an IQ whore it is great to totally max a game out with high levels of AA and be getting 80+ fps. Let's you know there is plenty horsepower for longevity (although everyone knows when the 20 mm cards come out everyone will jump ship lol).

For 1080P you can take a lot of games to max and still get great framerates. I may be going to 2560X1440 maybe by the beginning of the next year, so that changes things a little... Like you said, still should be potent enough until the 20nm cards are released. I am hoping to keep this setup for awhile though...

You should get a Killawatt, pretty awesome tool.

 

[Teizo]

You should get a Killawatt, pretty awesome tool.

In the mail already!

😀

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Hmm... maybe I should see what the power draw is when undervolted as well? Your right, 80Mhz is not worth the 50mv.

I can run the Vallley benchmark with 919mv @ 950Mhz. I figured this out when I was talking to someone on [H]. His card was a ASIC of 91%, and we were comparing voltages and stuff.



I am not running anything else through the killawatt but the PC.

What's your power draw at 880 with it undervolted? Can you run 880 with it at 800mv? Whats the highest clock you can run with the 800mv limit, and does yours limit you to 800mv or can you go lower?

That would give us the best look at power scaling from 880 to 1300, which will be ugly no doubt ()🙂

Lovely card though, very impressive undervolt clock.

 

[Face2Face]

What's your power draw at 880 with it undervolted? Can you run 880 with it at 800mv? Whats the highest clock you can run with the 800mv limit, and does yours limit you to 800mv or can you go lower?

That would give us the best look at power scaling from 880 to 1300, which will be ugly no doubt ()🙂

Lovely card though, very impressive undervolt clock.

Many good questions. I will have an answer for all of them when I get some more time this week to play with it. Should have some more time in a couple days.

 

[Face2Face]

Turns out my second card is not as nice of an overclocker as I thought. It will hit 1200/1800 in Valley without artifacting. I can probably push it higher, but it will need more volts and then it gets too hot, even with the Accelero. I did replace the stock vrm thermal pads with Fujipoly and installed additional heat-sinks with thermal tape and they run quite cool now. Bummer 🙁 though, 1200/1800 is no slouch, it's not gonna beat any records. The good thing is gaming is extremely quiet now, even when both cards are at 100% Fan speed... loving it.

Well here are some pictures as requested.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Grats 😉

Looks almost as good as my two TF3s, haha I jest 😀

 

[Rvenger]

Nice f2f! I see you ended up getting another 7950 afterall. 🙂

 

[Sohaltang]

Looking good face. But I have to ask after spending 180$ on coolers, why not just add a 3rd tf3?

 

[Face2Face]

Thanks Guys!

Looking good face. But I have to ask after spending 180$ on coolers, why not just add a 3rd tf3?

It was more like $130. The first one I got on sale for $60. I can't do three cards with this mobo, plus the stock TF3 coolers are really noisy, air cooling three of them would be a disaster. These are soooo much quieter in comparison.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Your board doesn't have a 3.0 x4 slot?

Also my TF3's aren't loud unless I'm pushing them really hard while trying to keep them cool, but then again I can't push mine to use the 350+w~ like you can so I'm sure that makes a big difference :\

 

[Sohaltang]

Thanks Guys!



It was more like $130. The first one I got on sale for $60. I can't do three cards with this mobo, plus the stock TF3 coolers are really noisy, air cooling three of them would be a disaster. These are soooo much quieter in comparison.

Very cool. I dont have noise issues but I also dont OC like the big dogs. I considered adding another one myself just because I see them for 150$ used. Would require a large PSU. Also not sure if I would see much benefit as i think my MB would go to 8x/4x/4x. ?? Its a asrock extreme4

 

[Teizo]

Nice set up. High performance noise free gaming is where it is at.

 

[Face2Face]

Your board doesn't have a 3.0 x4 slot?

Also my TF3's aren't loud unless I'm pushing them really hard while trying to keep them cool, but then again I can't push mine to use the 350+w~ like you can so I'm sure that makes a big difference :\

It does, but it doesn't support Three-way CFX. That slot also shares it's bandwidth with all of the PCI-E 1X slots, which would render my soundcard useless.

Yeah, these high ASIC V2 cards are a beast to cool. The stock TF3 fans just don't cut it. Even at stock speeds you see temps in the low 70's

Very cool. I dont have noise issues but I also dont OC like the big dogs. I considered adding another one myself just because I see them for 150$ used. Would require a large PSU. Also not sure if I would see much benefit as i think my MB would go to 8x/4x/4x. ?? Its a asrock extreme4

Yeah not sure how much 4X would limit your two cards? I think you would see a temp problem with three cards, especially for the second card.

Nice set up. High performance noise free gaming is where it is at.

Thanks, they are quiet but these cards really need to be under water. I am not gonna spend money on it though, might as well sell both of these cards and buy a R9 290X instead 🙂