How to overclock a 7850 past 1050MHz?

[Amatsubu]

Don't worry. I had one that couldn't do 1050MHz, even with 1.3v pumped through it. TBH, the performance difference between 1050MHz and 1200MHz is not noticeable in games anyway.

Really? So there's no point in trying to overclock the card further if I'm not doing some heavy benching? I thought the 7850 at 1200 would be noticeably faster than at 1050, guess I was wrong;p I was hoping to get 7870 performance in games with less heat and power consumption but it seems that 1050/1350 is not enough. However, this might also have something to do with my weak CPU.

 

[NZB]

I think his point was that even at 1050 games run perfectly (1920x1080), barring a few exceptions you'd rarely see the FPS moving from the 60fps vsync camp at that speed. Going beyond that is handy on a handful of games like BF3 but otherwise you won't notice the difference unless you watch your FPS counter instead of playing games

 

[CyberCrow]

Well put Matrix

 

[Amatsubu]

Ah, I see;p TBH, there are quite a few games which dip way below 60 fps for me: Batman AC (can go as low as 30 and stay there for quite some time), Sleeping Dogs (awful drops, often to sub 30 fps), Crysis 1/2 doesn't even reach 60 (obviously;p), Alan Wake, Metro 2033, Witcher 2 (it's very playable though), TDU2 and of course Battlefield 3. The only games which pretty much stay at 60 fps most of the time are Dishonored, Max Payne 3 and Darksiders 2 (well, this stays at 150-200 because v-sync doesn't work;p). However, I only have a measly Phenom II 955 at 3,7 ghz which might be the main hindrance.

 

[555BUK]

Really? So there's no point in trying to overclock the card further if I'm not doing some heavy benching? I thought the 7850 at 1200 would be noticeably faster than at 1050, guess I was wrong;p I was hoping to get 7870 performance in games with less heat and power consumption but it seems that 1050/1350 is not enough. However, this might also have something to do with my weak CPU.

To add to what NZB said.

The differece between 1050 and 1200 is 14%. Making a very broad assumption that GPU perfromance represents two-thirds of the cards overall performance (the other being memory bandwidth), you may gain 9% in real world terms. This 9% will only be noticeable if the game you play dips below 60fps or maybe even 30fps. Most of the games I played at 1920x1200 on my 7850 held 60fps. What I am saying is that ~9% won't really make any difference, unless you are really tight on the 60fps boundary. If this is the case you are better turning AA down a notch or one or two details down. The benefits of overclocking are noticed most within benchmarks. Within games I would struggle to tell the difference between an overclocked and a reference card.

If you are getting drops below 30fps, the only real solutions are to turn the settings down or buy a more expensive card.

 

[Amatsubu]

Thanks, that's what I thought. I'll stick with my 7850 as I'm not a heavy gamer and I'm rather pleased with the overall performance Although I see dips below 60, I've yet to see a game which wouldn't be playable maxed out (if you don't mind some slowdowns here and there;p). Battlefield 3 SP runs like a charm if I ditch MSAAx4 but even when I enable it, the game's still quite playable. MP is noticeably more taxing but also very playable. I'm very happy with 45-55 fps average and most games can reach that maxed. Pretty much the only game I've seen dropping below 30 fps is Sleeping Dogs. My gpu usage in this game fluctuates between 50-70-ish. A lot of people seem to have this problem even with CPU's better than mine.

The card's staying with me for the time being, I hope it'll let me play Far Cry 3 on decent settings;p Besides, I think I should start with upgrading the CPU, mobo and the PSU.

 

[An00bis]

Thanks, that's what I thought. I'll stick with my 7850 as I'm not a heavy gamer and I'm rather pleased with the overall performance Although I see dips below 60, I've yet to see a game which wouldn't be playable maxed out (if you don't mind some slowdowns here and there;p). Battlefield 3 SP runs like a charm if I ditch MSAAx4 but even when I enable it, the game's still quite playable. MP is noticeably more taxing but also very playable. I'm very happy with 45-55 fps average and most games can reach that maxed. Pretty much the only game I've seen dropping below 30 fps is Sleeping Dogs. My gpu usage in this game fluctuates between 50-70-ish. A lot of people seem to have this problem even with CPU's better than mine.

The card's staying with me for the time being, I hope it'll let me play Far Cry 3 on decent settings;p Besides, I think I should start with upgrading the CPU, mobo and the PSU.

Sleeping dogs is a joke. They even promised that the game won't be a half assed console port and it was. GTA IV looks better and was released like... what... 5 years ago? and runs a lot better as well. I can play all games maxed out at 1920x1080 at smooth framerate including BF3 on 64 player maps, and this ****** ass SP game won't even get more than 20-30fps? what a joke.

 

[Amatsubu]

Exactly, they should've put a lot more effort into optimisation. NFS Most Wanted also suffers from this. I can't get my GPU usage above 50-60. It's a joke, I can't see why wouldn't I be able to get 60 fps in a game using a modified HP 2010 engine which ran like a charm.

 

[mrsmr2]

Sleeping Dogs plays fine on mine.

I just need to turn the AA down from Extreme to the middle setting when playing at 1080p. All other settings are at max, and v-synch on.

Car riding can get a bit choppy in the daylight (the game engine runs smoother at night) but it's not terrible.

Metro and Witcher 2 on the other hand...

 

[An00bis]

Sleeping Dogs plays fine on mine.

I just need to turn the AA down from Extreme to the middle setting when playing at 1080p. All other settings are at max, and v-synch on.

Car riding can get a bit choppy in the daylight (the game engine runs smoother at night) but it's not terrible.

Metro and Witcher 2 on the other hand...

I think you enabled ubersampling in witcher 2, disable it and you'll get smooth fps.

 

[Amatsubu]

Sleeping Dogs plays fine on mine.

I just need to turn the AA down from Extreme to the middle setting when playing at 1080p. All other settings are at max, and v-synch on.

Car riding can get a bit choppy in the daylight (the game engine runs smoother at night) but it's not terrible.

Metro and Witcher 2 on the other hand...

Well, Sleeping Dogs runs choppy precisely during driving where I get random drops to as low as 30 fps. I think that an i5 could fix the problem but I'm broke ATM;p When I drive fast my GPU usage drops which indicates a CPU bottleneck. As for your issues with Metro, you most likely have Advanced DOF and Tesselation enabled, turn them off, as they barely make a difference to the image quality, and your fps should skyrocket.

 

[IRLeetly]

Been a while since I posted in this thread.

When I first got my MSI 7850 TFIII 2GD5, I managed to bench it at 1200/1375 @1200mV. This could also play games stable, but I didn't run it at this 24/7.

Now since being on the latest beta drivers, I'm having to restart/rework all my overclocks over again, as the above OC blue screens (even when bumping up the power a couple of units to 1210/1220mV) when running heaven sometimes in the first fews steps sometimes in the last couple of steps.

Can there be such a thing as too much power to the gpu making it BSOD?

At the moment, I've got it up to 1125/1232 on stock volts; driver keeps crashing if I push it any further on stock like that. Still an alright OC for day to day use.
Just my epeen is feeling low not getting my 1200/1375.

 

[555BUK]

Can there be such a thing as too much power to the gpu making it BSOD?

Yes. If the VRM's are pushed hard, power delivery can be inconsistend and cause rippling (high/low swings) which can cause instability. Also, higher volts create more heat, which could push the GPU over the edge of stability.

My very first card (the one I used to start this thread) did not like more than 1.225v on the sefault cooler. Anything over that would result in a crash unless I ran the fan at 100% with the case open. Once I changed the cooler to an Accelero TTII, my card was happy @ >1300MHz 1.3v. Heat (either GPU or VRM's) was definately holding me back on the stock cooler.

 

[IRLeetly]

Yes. If the VRM's are pushed hard, power delivery can be inconsistend and cause rippling (high/low swings) which can cause instability. Also, higher volts create more heat, which could push the GPU over the edge of stability.

My very first card (the one I used to start this thread) did not like more than 1.225v on the sefault cooler. Anything over that would result in a crash unless I ran the fan at 100% with the case open. Once I changed the cooler to an Accelero TTII, my card was happy @ >1300MHz 1.3v. Heat (either GPU or VRM's) was definately holding me back on the stock cooler.

Cheers, heat hasn't been an issue yet, will just have to fiddle around more, maybe it's just the beta drivers.

I did get the 1200/1375 OC to do a run of Heaven then it hung and drivers crashed.

After an hour of attempts, watching the 26 steps of heaven run, gets a lil repetitive, I don't know how you guys can do it for hours and hours.

 

[An00bis]

Yes. If the VRM's are pushed hard, power delivery can be inconsistend and cause rippling (high/low swings) which can cause instability. Also, higher volts create more heat, which could push the GPU over the edge of stability.

My very first card (the one I used to start this thread) did not like more than 1.225v on the sefault cooler. Anything over that would result in a crash unless I ran the fan at 100% with the case open. Once I changed the cooler to an Accelero TTII, my card was happy @ >1300MHz 1.3v. Heat (either GPU or VRM's) was definately holding me back on the stock cooler.

Hey, I've seen that in a post you said that unlocking the bios to allow 1.3v killed your gpu. What exactly was the cause if you found it out? heat, voltage or the bios change itself? I'd like to increase my limit to at least 1.25v or more, since I get low temps at 1.225 and feel like I can easily get above 1300 with this gpu (I get about 60C with 50% fan in furmark while having 1290mhz OC but it's unstable due to low voltage). Also, do you think the card will last at least 1-2 years with 1.225 or 1.3v? at least until the 8XXX amd series comes out or the future 9XXX if they'll name them that way.

 

[555BUK]

Hey, I've seen that in a post you said that unlocking the bios to allow 1.3v killed your gpu. What exactly was the cause if you found it out? heat, voltage or the bios change itself? I'd like to increase my limit to at least 1.25v or more, since I get low temps at 1.225 and feel like I can easily get above 1300 with this gpu (I get about 60C with 50% fan in furmark while having 1290mhz OC but it's unstable due to low voltage). Also, do you think the card will last at least 1-2 years with 1.225 or 1.3v? at least until the 8XXX amd series comes out or the future 9XXX if they'll name them that way.

The GPU was not killed, but something did go wrong and now the card only works properly as the secondary card within Crossfire. For some reason there is no ouput from any of it's display ports, even though everything appears fine from BIOS and Windows. Fortunately, everything works fine within Xfire, when the display connections are hooked up to the other card.

The 1.3v ASUS bios flashed fine and was working for some time. It was when I booted up both GPU-Z and ASUS GPU Tweak, then changed some settings that the screen went blank.

 

[halleck]

the latest version of asus tweak it v 2. 2. 9. 9.

just enter your OS system

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=gpu+tweak&p=9&s=13&os=30&hashedid=n

 

[krabs]

What new features does the newer version give ?
I can't find any changelog.

It's troublesome to reinstall the program and retune the fan profile.

 

[halleck]

Heaven Benchmark with Windows 8 support will be released at the end of this year.

 

[MartynB85]

I'm thinking of selling on my gigabyte 7850 in favour of a reference 670. After playing Planetside 2 i think i need a bit more power. How much of a boost will i see with a 670?