Which is the better 7970?

Frenzy · 14 Feb 2013 at 15:04

So I bought an MSI 7970 OC, despite the low temps the core needs a lot of juice. It also starts falling over way below 1200MHz.
I started benching a second reference 7970 and the clocks went much higher at a much lower vcore but the temps were also much higher. In fact in gpuz I couldn't even see the vcore go above 1.11v where as the MSI went all the way to 1.263v when using 1250mv in afterburner.

Apologies for the very small and messy spread sheet but what do you guys think? Which is the better card?
edit: the blanked out row with numbers is a random game bench i used for easy comparison.

tommybhoy · 14 Feb 2013 at 15:35

The best one is the best clocker.

tommybhoy said:
If you look at how voltage is applied to the 79 range, low Asic=high stock [email protected] Asic=lower stock [email protected].

Which leaves you at the reason behind 'Asic Quality' information, low Asic=high maximum voltage, which requires more cooling like water/high end air cooling v's the higher Asic=lower maximum voltage that can be kept in check via a cooler like yours hamish(iirc) on the DCUII.

The new 'secret' power circuitry(Thraks called it secret, not me) inbuilt to the gcn architecture was in part to enable more gpus were available instead of throwing out a lot more.

The lower clock speeds at launch were put in place in part for the same reason, to get more out the door quicker on an early new process enabling them a few months extra sales over Nvidia.

Asic quality is not an indication of how good your gpu clocks, that goes down to the individual chip and the components built around it.

[snip]

Give me a low Asic every time and I would be happy though.

Suarez7 · 14 Feb 2013 at 15:38

It's all luck, you could buy the cheapest one and the most expensive one at the same time and the cheaper one might clock better or vice versa. Cooling helps but it won't make it overclock past what it can physically achieve.

Frenzy · 14 Feb 2013 at 15:44

Meh, I guess there's so little difference I'll stick with the MSI.

LtMatt · 14 Feb 2013 at 19:49

Keep the lower Asic one would be my advice. Will allow you to pump more voltage up. Your results back up my theory that really low asic cards run cooler than most typical cards because of the excess amount of leakage. Below 75% =1.175 stock volts but asic can go much lower than 75% as you've seen with your card. The lower it is, the more leakage there is, the cooler they run.

Frenzy · 14 Feb 2013 at 20:04

I came to the same conclusion as you. Going from stock voltage 1175 to 1300 made roughly 2-3 degrees difference on the low asic card! The generic temps just sky rocketed though.

I couldn't seem to get past 1141mhz on my MSI, unigen 4 wouldn't really crash when I tried but I would see flashes of green light here and there.
Because of the info in the other thread about low asic cards performing better at low temps I came to the conclusion that I should be able to clock higher once I get the arctic cooler on despite it only hitting a max temp of 77. Sound right?

pgi947 · 14 Feb 2013 at 20:46

Needs more volts

Try trixx, should get you 1.38v on the MSI OC and probably the standard ref card too, failing that try flashing the 'Test OC' vBios, which should let you bang it all the way to 1.4v*

*Would only recommend this if you have balls and good cooling i.e. water.

Asic doesn't tend to mean squat, though of the 5 7970's I've had, the highest asic was the worst clocker, 62.4% was the best so far though I've yet to let my two OC's stretch

Competitor rules

Which is the better 7970?

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LtMatt

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