asus 7950 overclocking & beta driver issues

[supra21]

I have recently purchased a Asus 7950 DCII v2 TOP graphics card. I have tried to overclock it to 1100 core and 1575 memory. Firstly using ati CCC settings which allows me to apply the settings but all games crash or sit at a blank screen.
I then tried the Asus GPU tweak utility which also does not work, I suspect it had to do with the lack of voltage but Asus GPU tweak does not allow me to increase the voltage any higher than 1.050mv.....

So I then tried MSI afterburner which did allow me to increase voltages further and did work. However after increasing the voltage to 1.160mv and increasing fan speeds to compensate for extra heat my PC would crash after 20 mins of gameplay. After restart I had to remove all drivers and software as the drivers were crashing; after doing this and using ccleaner to remove all reg entries I reinstalled the latest drivers and its now working again.

So is the issue lack of voltage? If so what is the reccomended voltage for a 1100 core and 1575 memory overclock?

Also when trying to install any beta drivers I get a blue screen during the install process, always get drivers no less or equal error. I have searched the net but I cannot find anyone else who has this issue installing beta drivers. I am currently playing far cry 3 and so I would like to see the performance gains these new drivers bring.

 

[supra21]

Managed to get the 12.11 beta drivers installed by editing the InstallManager.cfg file by changing the Workaroundinstall to "true"

Also found a thai website that has a review on the asus 7950 dcuII Top card, they state that the maximum stable overclock on automatic fan speeds are:
- Core: 1100
- Mem: 1300
- Volt: 1.168mv

Which do work but not on automatic fans, card overheats in no time and my whole pc shuts down. So using Sapphire Trixx utility (which seems to be way better than asus gpu tweak crap) i adjusted the fan speeds which keeps the card at around 66 degrees at full load but also sounds like an aircraft is taking off! (fans at 55% are acceptable, but beyond that way too loud)
I have a well ventilated case (corsair 650d, 3x 120mm xigmatek exhaust fans and x1 200mm coolermaser megaflow intake fan) seems its not enough to keep the gpu fans below 60%.

Seems that this card is great at stock settings as its quiet, even when gaming. However as soon as you add extra volts you need to turn the fans up quite a bit just to keep it from overheating......
I'm going to reduce the overclock to 1000mhz on the core and reduce voltage to see if I can get the best oc to fan speed/heat ratio.

 

[Chrisoldinho]

Does the voltage actually change? I recall with my 7970 DCII TOP with voltage changes, when you monitored it with GPU-Z or similar, it actually only increased by a very small %, not what you had assigned, I think stock was something like 1.115v and it only went to 1.125 irrespective of what I set IIRC.

 

[supra21]

Does the voltage actually change? I recall with my 7970 DCII TOP with voltage changes, when you monitored it with GPU-Z or similar, it actually only increased by a very small %, not what you had assigned, I think stock was something like 1.115v and it only went to 1.125 irrespective of what I set IIRC.

Just ran a gpu burn-in test with kombuster utility and you are right, the highest voltage gpu-z read was 1.107......which is good in a sense that the card is stable at 1100mhz with only 1.107mv but not so great when the fans go beyond 55% just to keep the card from overheating at a low voltage increase. Stock voltage is around 0.945mv.

 

[Laher]

I really want to get this card, but have read a lot of horror stories.

Is it possible to OC this card to 1200Mhz with a quiet fan profile or no? I also heard the card was voltage locked :S

I just want a very quiet card with ~1200MHZ capabilities, as I play a lot of games with speakers (single player games)..

Thanks for any replies.

Edit :: Ooo Free shipping soon.

 

[chris-82]

Well if it helps I have a gigabyte windforce 3 7950 and run it at 1150/1450 @1.225v running metro 2033 with everything on max I get 60-63c core max 68-73c on vrm's max fan profile still set to auto so could probably get temps down with a better profile.

 

[Laher]

I wish I could hear some of the cards in peoples machines. I have the asus 6850 and when in-game under load - its pretty loud for my liking.

I've seen youtube videos of fan noise, but that doesn't make much sense to me

The only reason I want to buy the Asus is because of the DCUII Fan which is supposedly the quietest fan going.

Ofcourse logical thing is not to overclock, but if its possible with a quiet fan profile, why not

 

[supra21]

Ok, so after some testing the best OC i can get while using the silent automatic fan profile is:

- Core: 1000
- Mem: 1300
- Volt: 1.050 (Actual 1.035)

I did set the voltage using Trixx utility and when running a gpu burn-in test highest voltage reading i got from gpu-z was 1.035 volts.
With these settings at load temps never exceeded 65 degrees and fans were spinning at around 30% which is totally quiet.

Ran the Hitman benchmark ultra settings - 1920x1080 4x msaa, vsync on and got around 45fps average. Currently playing Far Cry 3 at ultra settings - 1920x1080, 2x msaa and the game runs completely smooth!

 

[Laher]

Would 200mhz make a lot of difference for IN GAME performance?

I'd be willing to sacrifice that for quietness.

I'm a freak when it comes to stuff like this.

Thank you for the reply Supra

 

[supra21]

Would 200mhz make a lot of difference for IN GAME performance?

I'd be willing to sacrifice that for quietness.

I'm a freak when it comes to stuff like this.

Thank you for the reply Supra

Well I did not OC to 1200mhz but at 1100mhz far cry did seem smoother all round. Hitman also was smoother, however after installing the beta drivers (catalyst 12.11) both games performed way better; even at 1000mhz.
So I would estimate around a 5-10 fps boost in most games at 1200mhz core. Again I do not think its worth it due to the heat and sound emitted.

On another note i disabled FXAA and MSAA in Hitman and used SweetFX to inject only SMAA. I set it to SMAA_ULTRA and ran the Hitman benchmark; to my surprise i got an average of 65 fps!! which is amazing as it looks better than using FXAA+MSAA plus got a 20 fps boost. Only downside is that I cannot get this to work with Far Cry 3.

 

[supra21]

Just managed to increase OC a little after installing catalyst 13.2 beta 3 drivers:

- Core: 1050
- Mem: 1350
- Volt: 1.050 (Actual 1.035)

This is great as the card temps are still good (around 50-65 degrees at load), its silent and stable!
Does anyone know if its worth me applying better thermal paste? I have a tube of IC-Diamond and would like to know if it would make much of difference in temps?

 

[chris-82]

Probably not worth it as if you take the cooler off your warranty will probably be voided!!