AMD - How To Overclock The Official Way Using Afterburner + Step By Step Overclocking Guide + Comple

[LtMatt]

All the afterburner stuff worked fine for me.

Heaven started glitching out and crashing when I went for anything over 1100 1400 even with voltage upped to 1.174. Is it worth pushing the voltage much more than that?

Sapphire 7950 vapor-x card

3D mark11 score of P9394 on 1100/1400

Whats your default voltage? You're good up to +0.0125mv.

 

[LtMatt]

When it loads up at stock the voltage is set at 0975, very low it seems.

Will have another go tonight, you think ramping up the voltage to 1250 and then giving it another go is worth a try? if I use that at voltage should I leave the voltage boost at 0?

On a side note when I booted up this morning afterburner hadn't saved the 2 profiles I set up last night they both had reverted to default 850/1250 with 0975 voltage.

Can you put a screenshot of afterburner showing your default voltage?

I know on 7970 cards there is a limit on the amount of over voltage you can apply. 0.125+ volts. With my default voltage being 1.112, +0.125 = 1.234. If i go over that voltage there is a chance over current protection will kick in.

You know this has happened as your screen goes black, pc becomes unresponsive and you have to press the reset button to get control back.

I presume its the same for 7950's as well.

 

[LtMatt]

I attempted late last night to do this, and once I installed the files and used /xcl it unlocked the ccc limits. I briefly tried to play both gw2 and wow this morning and while my card is clocked at 1000/1500 (this slight oc i had done before trying this) on stock volts still the performance has gone down the pan! only getting 15-17fps when i was getting 50-60 (with vsync on).

I hadnt gotten as far as unlocking the voltage on afterburner yet (and am at work today so cant at the moment) but I really don't know what could have caused that!

I rebooted and followed the guides etc, and ccc showed much increased options for clock and memory + im running the extra 20% power.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I will be uninstalling the lot when i get home and will try again.

Hmm, this should not have any negative effect on performance though, its likely something else.

What im not sure though.

 

[LtMatt]

Will sort a screenshot tonight. In work for the next 7 hours... waiting to get home and tinker is a ball ache.

I think that the current protection kicked in once then as that sounds pretty familiar. mostly it was just unigine locking up and having to have the process ended in task manager.

Will have a search on the net to try and find out the max voltage. how did you find out the max on yours?

The uingine thing just sounds like a driver error as a result from overclocking, but yeah you can't mistake the OCP kicking in. Sometimes it might even result in a bsod, or so im told.

thanks for the quick response, I have also been using a new ssd and have limited experience with them. A setting I had changed with reference to the ssd hugely impacted on performance (similar to this) when i first installed so im not entirely convinced its not that, althought I had wow running brilliantly the night before prior to trying this method of oc'ing.

Great guide by the way, appreciate you doing it - I'm sure i'll suss it out eventually.

Just seemed as if as soon as I did the /xcl things went down the pan! Very strange

The /xcl only expands the clock limits of overdrive and afterburner. It doesn't change anything else so it must be something else.

 

[LtMatt]

Okedoke - cheers matt, will try again tonight!

Let us know how you get on.

 

[LtMatt]

I just finished refitting the heatsink to the card. The problem is the vram. I know it is.

My core temp has dropped to 36 C and 58 under max load.

Pushing volts it reads 68 max.

\@ 1400 is max stable clock with + without voltage increase.

However 1100 can be increased with voltage.

I checked the back of the card underload. Its still hot.

The reason is that the heatsink on the vapor X does not cool the vRam well......

So much for premium. I'm going to put together a budget watercooling system with total component coverage.

I'm sure the clock is failing due to vRam heat.

I'll post my results.


I forgot:

I'll flash the Bios to a 7970 version today whilst I'm waiting for the waterblock.

Vrms can handle up to 125c. On my reference 7970 it goes up to about 75c or so when playing games.

 

[LtMatt]

Question: once the ccc limits are lifted, is there a way to revert them back to default?

I was under the impression that the /xcl only impacted on the software, yet as far as I can remember and see regardless of format etc the ccc appears the same??

Can anyone explain? Sorry for noob question :/

Yes, instead of /xcl use /rcl.

 

[LtMatt]

Updated the first post, added the latest drivers and caps links.

 

[LtMatt]

do you have to use the beta drivers to get this afterburner sloution to work? or can you use 12.8?

It will work with any drivers official or beta.

 

[LtMatt]

Follow the guide i wrote in the first post chris to unlock the clock limits.

 

[LtMatt]

thanks for the guide mate worked perfectly for me.

Great, thanks for the feedback.

 

[LtMatt]

Hello I was using the un-official way by editing the .cfg file, So I just went and started from .4 on your guide got the CCC limits increased and restarted.
I still have my OC and I can still set the voltage so am guessing it worked? or am I still using un-official method?

Thanks

You need to edit the config back to disable un-official overclocking or reinstall afterburner, (dont keep your user settings though) your choice.

 

[LtMatt]

See how it go's now Because before I did this I had the flicker (this site happens on most) But since doing that Not a single flicker so far maybe I am using official? lol
If I get one flicker I'll delete the .cfg file and try again.

Yep using the official way removes the flicker, plus zero core/ULPS/power play works properly. That means low clock speeds when idle and close to zero power usage while not in use.

In the un-official way the cards never clock down until you've run a 3d app. As soon as you apply a overclock profile clocks stay high.

 

[LtMatt]

Thanks mate so far I not had a single flicker Great work on this guide.

No problem.

 

[LtMatt]

Sounds like an unstable gpu overclock, i get the black screen when my clocks are not stable in other games.

 

[LtMatt]

Nice thread really helpfull!

Great guide, got my 7970 rocking 1200/1600 thanks OP.

Happy to help amd brethren.

 

[LtMatt]

Works fine but the voltage control is blanked out still. I have enabled voltage control in the options but cannot get it to work in afterburner. It works using Trixx though ?

Are you using the latest version of afterburner 2.2.5?

 

[LtMatt]

2.2.5 Beta 1 it says. I have tried the latest on the site and the beta both the same..

Do you have an MSI card by any chance?

One or two other msi 78xx users have complained that they cannot unlock voltage control using msi afterburner.

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=161484.50

 

[LtMatt]

Show me your settings button in afterburner please.

 

[LtMatt]

Is there any benefit to doing this over using ASUS GPU Tweak? I haven't had any flickering with it and it unlocks the limits in CCC when you tick the range enhancement box and then seems to use it for the OC.

If you don't have flickering issues when applying clock changes, and you don't use msi afterburner, then no, not really.

If what you're using now is working as intended, then why change.

For me though afterburner is the best all in one package.