• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

7970 OC stories...

Dan2kx

Dan2kx

Dan2kx

Associate
Joined
8 Feb 2007
Posts
674
Hi guys, really want to get a new card, got a friend who wants my 6950 but i'm trying to hold off for the non standard coolers, not sure how much longer i can delay him though (or my own impatient-ness).

just wondered how well the 7970 overclock with the stock cooler?
- clocks and temps

You under water chaps can join in too for a comparison.

Would a 7950 with a non standard cooler be a better option for me?
 
Last edited:
My sapphire went straight to the CCC limit of 1125/1575 with power control set to +20. Temps are max 72c with fan at 44% (custom fan profile).
 
My VTX HD 7970 will do 1100/1575 but the temperatures rise to around 82c at 44% fan on default fan profile. At this speed I find the fan noise a bit too loud unless I am playing a noisy game and I end up using default speeds to keep tha fan below 40%. I can get it to 1125 if I up the voltage to 1.19 or use much higher fan speed to keep the GPU cool, but then the fan noise becomes way too loud.

I would say that most will do 1100 on the core easily enough, though as with all things you could end up with a card that can get nowehere near that speed.
 
Update 1200/1600 now stable while benching. Just tried 1210/1610 but it crashed. This is at 1.3V on the core

Its a Powercolour, and its benching so fan cranked up to 50% nice and loud but temps hovering around 66°C doing Heaven 2.5 runs

But temps isn't really comparable unless you standardize the ambient for everyone which is impossible. If I wanted to run that sort of OC 24/7 then I'd get a waterblock.

[update] 1210/1600 works [/update]

Not sure if stability temp related or I've reached the max speed of my memory.
 
Last edited:
Stock fan managed 1125 / 1500 fully stable using CCC - never checked temops
EK-FC7970 waterblock took me to 1125/1575 fully stable using CCC - Idle 28DegreesC Full load 42Degrees C :)

Had a little play with Afterburner - best I could get for the core was [email protected] - can't seem to get to 1.2Ghz no matter what I try :(

Sapphire 7970 btw.
 
Last edited:
its too early to tell yet mate. Some cards don't scale with voltage at all (i.e. mine!) some do.

Apparantly theres a limit of 1.25v on all the cards anyway - so settings 1.3v will not give you that as an end result.

I'm gunna start playing with some different BIOSs soon. Might want to look at the thread on Xtremesystems > ATI > Torture your 7970. ;)
 
Interesting - flashed the 'unlocked BIOS ' today and I can get 1185/1700 benching no problem (3dmark11).

However when trying to play BF3 it crashes within 2>5seconds of loading the map :( :(

Looks like what it can do with benches is not what it can do in real life (i.e. for gaming) poooo.

Still working on it at mo - really tricky these bloomin cards to OC!

Next hurdle is to get an MSI or Asus BIOS onto it.
 
Last edited:
I've got an Asus coming on Friday, along with an EK block for it, so I'll update this thread with my results at the weekend. :)
 
Had mine up to 1300mhz on the core for serious benching, but run at 1150/1650 @ 1.25v as a daily driver, fan to auto, never gets above 69ºc and fan noise is never intrusive when pushing it.
 
Whacked it to 1.3v in Trixx, but I think the 7970's are capped around the 1.25v range, although GPUz has reported 1.27v, might be GPUz reading wrong though?
 
Looks like some good results for the stock cooler then, I'm sure the noise is nothing compared to the H100 at load so I wouldnt notice lol
 
What are we using to stress the cards to get the temperature readings? Are you after a Furmark, or a particular game? If so, what settings and at what res? No point giving figures unless you're comparing apples with apples.

My VTX 7970 is on 1125/1575 on stock volts and fan profile. It's on 27% fan and 59C at idle (multi-monitors mean memory never downclocks, hence high idle temp) and hits about 80C when running Batman AC at 5760x1080 with everything on highest (plus DX11 minus Physx).
 
I leave mine running through Heaven a few times and read the logs from GPUz, afaik, Furmark should be avoided as it unduly stresses the GPU.
 
~1185/1700 (stock volts) furmark gave me a tops of 51Degrees C using an EK FC-7970.

@1125/1575 BF3 (2hours worth) gives me tops of 48Degrees C using the same water block.

Single run of 3dmark at any clock only gets to about 45 Degrees C tops due to its short duration.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom