7970 dilemma

Nicodemonizer · 21 Mar 2013 at 17:02

Ok so i gave in and bought a 7970 vapour-x last week(not from ocuk),but when i got it i noticed it had coil whine,so i asked for a replacement which i received today

it seems to have quite similar levels of coil whine

,
The thing is i can hit 1200/1500 (not touched memory yet) with the new card without touching voltages,but the old card can only get to about 1180 before i start having problems.
Here's the problem though,the new card is reading a max voltage of 1.438v in gpuz while the old card has a reading of 1.256v.........BUT in hwINFO64 they both have max readings of 1.256 :confused:

is this a maybe a glitch in gpuz as obviously i would like to keep the better clocker,but i dont want that kinda voltage running through it all the time,
any advice would be great thanks,and btw i still have both cards here at the moment,as i have to send one back obviously.

Drangueos · 21 Mar 2013 at 17:20

I think maybe is a problem with gpuz... try to check with afterburner, trixx or something like that.

Nicodemonizer · 21 Mar 2013 at 17:50

ok,i dont know why i didn't already think of that ,i hear a lot of stuff isnt reading voltages properly on these cards,but in afterburner it seems to max out at 1.256,and same in trixx, so it must be something to do with gpuz,still a wee bit worrying in the back of my mind lol,but it looks like i'll stick with the new card

cheers m8

spoffle · 21 Mar 2013 at 17:58

You can be sure that 1.4+ isn't gong through your chip.

Nicodemonizer · 21 Mar 2013 at 18:10

spoffle said:
You can be sure that 1.4+ isn't gong through your chip.

yeh it did seem way high,but hey i'm already paranoid so it will still lurk in the depths of my fevered mind

Btw running 3dmark with the core at 1200 and memory at default(1500mhz) i got a 3dmark score of P10447
but with 1200/1600 ,100mhz more on the memory i get a worse score,is this normal? as i thought there would be at least some gains even if negligible.

Drangueos · 21 Mar 2013 at 18:44

Nicodemonizer said:
yeh it did seem way high,but hey i'm already paranoid so it will still lurk in the depths of my fevered mind

Btw running 3dmark with the core at 1200 and memory at default(1500mhz) i got a 3dmark score of P10447
but with 1200/1600 ,100mhz more on the memory i get a worse score,is this normal? as i thought there would be at least some gains even if negligible.

if you are getting worse score with higher clock on the memories is because the memories are getting errors, but they are ECC, so it will correct the errors but your performance will drop

1200/1600 is great... actually i want a card that can do that.

Gregster · 21 Mar 2013 at 19:58

So many 7970's and 7950's have coil whine

That would drive me insane.

spoffle · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:02

Gregster said:
So many cards have coil whine That would drive me insane.

FIXED

Gregster · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:06

spoffle said:
FIXED

Nice use of capitals. It wasn't a dig but I have seen so many threads recently of coil whine and they have all generaly been AMD. Fine if you want to change it though

LtMatt · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:08

Gregster said:
So many 7970's and 7950's have coil whine That would drive me insane.

spoffle said:
FIXED

Gregster said:
Nice use of capitals. It wasn't a dig but I have seen so many threads recently of coil whine and they have all generaly been AMD. Fine if you want to change it though

That's because more people here own 7970/50's.

Gregster · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:10

LtMatt said:
That's because more people here own 7970/50's.

This is very true.

spoffle · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:10

Gregster said:
Nice use of capitals. It wasn't a dig but I have seen so many threads recently of coil whine and they have all generaly been AMD. Fine if you want to change it though

As well as what Matt said, you had coilwhine on your old GTX680s, so it seemed like an odd thing to say.

dave_beast · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:11

Op, it could be your psu causing the whine.

Gregster · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:19

spoffle said:
As well as what Matt said, you had coilwhine on your old GTX680s, so it seemed like an odd thing to say.

Yer I did for about 2 hours. Some decent benching soon put pay to that and it sounded more like the phase capacitors switching than coil whine. The strange thing was, I never had it till putting them under water and straight away heard it.

spoffle · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:22

Gregster said:
Yer I did for about 2 hours. Some decent benching soon put pay to that and it sounded more like the phase capacitors switching than coil whine. The strange thing was, I never had it till putting them under water and straight away heard it.

Sometimes the sound of the fans, or the fans themselves mask any sound.

Uncle Petey · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:22

Never had coil whine on either of my 79's - Apart from a little screech on the Heaven exit screen

Yay me

Nicodemonizer · 21 Mar 2013 at 20:31

dave_beast said:
Op, it could be your psu causing the whine.

I hope not

not long upgraded the psu to an XFX Pro 850W XXX Edition silver

tribz · 21 Mar 2013 at 22:13

It was the psu that was the source of my coil whine (ocz 1000). Replaced it and coil whine went. Same psu was fine with previous card.

Drangueos · 21 Mar 2013 at 23:11

just get a reference 7970 or 7950 and you will not be bothered about the coil whine... the fan noise will bother you

IxD3ViiLx · 21 Mar 2013 at 23:17

Just returned my Vapor-X 7970 for the Vapor-X 7950.

I could OC with stock volts (1.256v) to 1200/1600 however you can get the same score on benchmarks and game performance with the 7950 version..

Safe yourself £120 and buy the 7950, perhaps save up for crossfire in the future when the cards prices come down even more??