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7970 Artifacts on low OC?

12.3/4 give me artifacts at around 1040/1400, something must have been amiss.

Still not 100% sure the card is ok at stock, but I'm going to give it an hour or so of heaven either tonight or tomorrow just to double check.

One thing that is bugging me, setting the voltage at 1.2v, 1.21v, 1.22v, 1.23v all give me the same voltage readout of around 1.17v, is the card locked to this voltage + require 'unofficial overclocking' to be enabled to bump it higher?

Also been reading an interesting post on OCN stating that powertune +20% + AB/Trixx causes him near instant artifacts even at low clocks, something else to dwell on.

Edit: 1100/1500 with powertune disabled (0%) has an artifact orgy/texture fail in heaven, see below for pics
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43853114/bench/00009.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43853114/bench/00010.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43853114/bench/00011.jpg
 
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pgi947 said:
Also been reading an interesting post on OCN stating that powertune +20% + AB/Trixx causes him near instant artifacts even at low clocks, something else to dwell on.
Click to expand...

Do you mean +20% in power control in CCC?

I use that and TRIXX on a ref 7970 at 1150/1650 with no artifacts at all. I think your GPU is a duffer and needs RMA'ing tba.

pgi947 said:
Edit: 1100/1500 with powertune disabled (0%) has an artifact orgy/texture fail in heaven, see below for pics
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43853114/bench/00009.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43853114/bench/00010.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43853114/bench/00011.jpg
Click to expand...

They don't look like "traditional" artifacts from overly high clocks, which are like flecks of black - That looks like the GPU is faulty.
 
dave_beast said:
Do you mean +20% in power control in CCC?

I use that and TRIXX on a ref 7970 at 1150/1650 with no artifacts at all. I think your GPU is a duffer and needs RMA'ing tba.



They don't look like "traditional" artifacts from overly high clocks, which are like flecks of black - That looks like the GPU is faulty.
Click to expand...

Can you RMA even though it works fine at stock? I have the same issues. 1100/1500 was the most I could manage without artifacts, though Furmark was fine at CCC max limits without any voltage increase or even the power option in CCC.
 
Yes sorry, was meaning the power option in ccc. And as above would an rma not get rejected if the card was fine at stock? It was the black speckles I had before, now the graphical defects are kind of large flashing black textures?

Really need to give this a heavier run on stock.
 
You're only going slightly above stock, and it definitely shouldn't be doing that. Do some extensive testing at stock and see how it goes - If you're happy at stock etc etc. Failing that, read below

Stick the clocks up as high as they go, stick a pen in the cooling fan, open Furmark, leave running ;) RMA borked card
 
dave_beast said:
You're only going slightly above stock, and it definitely shouldn't be doing that. Do some extensive testing at stock and see how it goes - If you're happy at stock etc etc. Failing that, read below

Stick the clocks up as high as they go, stick a pen in the cooling fan, open Furmark, leave running ;) RMA borked card
Click to expand...

I think he got it off the MM, so RMA might be pita.


Try the new MSI afterburner to overclock it, increase the volts to about 1.2 and increase the ram volts to 1.65 and set the clocks to 1125/1575.
 
It is from the MM, but the seller did say he would be happy to assist with warranty returns.

New afterburner as in latest beta or latest stable? Have latest beta installed but don't see an option for memory voltage?
 
Does it do it anything in else except Heaven? I know you've been sold a card that the seller claimed ran at X clocks but a lot of people don't really stress test things properly...

I think you're a victim of the "all 7970's will do 1200mhz easily" brigade, if that was truly the case AMD wouldn't have sold them at a lowly 925mhz.

If it's stable at stock speeds then the card is not faulty. Hell it does 1100mhz from what you've said that's a 175mhz overclock.

What temps do you get whilst running Heaven?
 
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In my case (suffering the same problem), I've only tried Furmark and Heaven at a core over 1100. Seems fine in Furmark at max CCC settings but really struggles with Heaven. Had no issues playing Skyrim at 1100/1500 on stock volts. Temps are kept stable by fan speed increases around 80-85 when running Heaven/Furmark.

Temps are about 20 degrees higher with a second monitor attached (but not in use for anything other than 2D) but that's an entirely different story.

Completely agree that not all should be able to do 1200, just frustrating having paid for a 7970 only to find that 7950s can clock higher than my card in some cases.
 
My heaven temps peak at around 71c. The other testing was kombuster extreme preset but will try furmark and some demanding games once I'm happy its fine at stock. I did get artifacts on 12.4 & 12.3 in kombuster with 1040 core. Its fine with rc11.

I wasn't expecting super high clocks, bit was hopeful I'd at least hit ccc limits.
 
My 7970 won't hit ccc limits on stock volts - I can only get 1100/1575 but I can get 1200/1650 on 1174 volts as long as I keep temps under 60 degrees. I can do this at 50% fan cos I have got good case cooling. When the gpu hits 63 degrees I get artefacts in bf3. I think these cards might be more sensitive to heat than people realise

Tbh I haven't bothered checking on furmark as no game will ever tax the card do much
 
BS Dave said:
My 7970 won't hit ccc limits on stock volts - I can only get 1100/1575 but I can get 1200/1650 on 1174 volts as long as I keep temps under 60 degrees. I can do this at 50% fan cos I have got good case cooling. When the gpu hits 63 degrees I get artefacts in bf3. I think these cards might be more sensitive to heat than people realise

Tbh I haven't bothered checking on furmark as no game will ever tax the card do much
Click to expand...

Thats quite pleasing to know :)

I won't be using furmark on any OC tests, only to push stock, which I'm doing now.
 
BS Dave said:
My 7970 won't hit ccc limits on stock volts - I can only get 1100/1575 but I can get 1200/1650 on 1174 volts as long as I keep temps under 60 degrees. I can do this at 50% fan cos I have got good case cooling. When the gpu hits 63 degrees I get artefacts in bf3. I think these cards might be more sensitive to heat than people realise

Tbh I haven't bothered checking on furmark as no game will ever tax the card do much
Click to expand...

From my own experience, once the GPU hits 50C, it becomes unstable at higher clocks e.g over 1320/1850 keeping the GPU below that figure at all times is the key to higher OC.
 
Locky said:
I think he got it off the MM, so RMA might be pita.


Try the new MSI afterburner to overclock it, increase the volts to about 1.2 and increase the ram volts to 1.65 and set the clocks to 1125/1575.
Click to expand...

Tried this, some quite large improvements tbh, got artifacting, but not until stage 22 of 26 onwards, 'think' its temp related - see below

BS Dave said:
My 7970 won't hit ccc limits on stock volts - I can only get 1100/1575 but I can get 1200/1650 on 1174 volts as long as I keep temps under 60 degrees. I can do this at 50% fan cos I have got good case cooling. When the gpu hits 63 degrees I get artefacts in bf3. I think these cards might be more sensitive to heat than people realise

Tbh I haven't bothered checking on furmark as no game will ever tax the card do much
Click to expand...

Besty said:
From my own experience, once the GPU hits 50C, it becomes unstable at higher clocks e.g over 1320/1850 keeping the GPU below that figure at all times is the key to higher OC.
Click to expand...

I think you guys could be right, everything seems pretty solid until it heads north of 65c with the settings locky posted.

Just mid way through giving it some torture at stock.
 
I'm now satisfied that the card is fine at stock. Unigine run at ocuk forum bench mark specs for 1080. Single run of Kombuster extreme preset, 15min furmark gpu burn in. No artifacts, so I can at least establish that its fine at stock.

Tweaking the memory voltage up to 1.65v seems to have helped with the higher clocks, going to go fire up BF3 for an hour or so at 1110/1500 at 1.2v/1.65v and see how I get on.
 
May now have some major headroom.

Fine at stock
OC's are now fine until the temps pass 65c, set fan to 80% constant and at least for now appears fine. Ran BF3 (operation swordbreaker) at 1110/1500 (would AF in heaven) and its fine, not even breaking sweat!

I also figured out the purple flicker while in windows, it appears AMD have set the idle clock (300mhz) too low for 120hz displays, so it keeps jumping between idle and 2d (500mhz) clocks which is when the flicking happens, set to 60hz not a single thing. Currently looking into setting a custom profile for windows to use a higher idle clock.

In the first instance it would appear I had driver issues, the latter heat issues. A huge sigh of relief for now, I can get stable at clocks I'm going to be more than happy with and can happily void the cards warranty fitting a waterblock :D

Will keep testing over the coming days and keep the thread updated, but all in all I'd just like to say a big thank you to everyone who has posted and helped me out, I'd buy you all a beer but it would be warm by the time it got to you :p
 
Without wishing to start a war, and trying to be helpful, my friend had this issue (the same problem as your pics there) with two 7950s. Both different models, both at different points in time.

Stop running Kombustor on the card. It is nothing but a heat virus and will likely finish it off. It is no way to test the stability of a card, only how to break one.
 
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