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7970 Artifacts on low OC?

Soldato
Joined
25 Jun 2011
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16,797
Location
Aberdeen
Just thought I'd check I'm not doing something wrong or overlooking something etc...

Installed my 7970 yesterday, finally got around to trying some mild overclocking with the card, but just about anything over 1000/1400 results in major artifacting in Unigene. Have tried CCC sliders, AB and Trixx, tried slight increase on voltage (highest is around 1180mv) to no avail.

On the 12.4 beta too with power control set to +20% if that helps.

Do I just have an extremely poor clocking card? As an average min I was expecting was 1100/1500 to be fair. But I just have this niggling feeling I've missed something blatant. Could it even be a PSU issue?

Can't RMA as its fine at stock:o

Thanks in advance fellas.
 
You may have yes. The guy I sold my 7970 to can not get it past 1150mhz no matter what and it has a GPU asic of 85%.

Some clock better than others it would seem.
 
You could send back under DSR (?) distance selling regulation... where you have 7-14days to send back an item for what ever reason.

Out of interest, which flavour do you have?
 
Damnit, Asic quality is 81.8% - I have absolutely no idea what it means in the grand scheme of things :p

To get one things straight (I'll be the first to admit I'm a complete novice on the GPU OC side of things), does artifact = hit my clock limit or = more juice and I'll be fine? The reason I ask is I intend to watercool the card in the near future, giving me a larger overhead for a voltage increase while keeping temps in check.

Edit: its a powercolor ref v1 and purchased on the MM unfortunately so no DSR.
 
/snip/ Can't RMA as its fine at stock:o

If it's heavily artifacting at just 75MHz over stock I would sure consider it defective. That's only 8% headroom, I would expect no less than 10%.

And that heaven bench isn't all that demanding. Are you positive it is stable in all conditions at stock, I would think unlikely.

That aside, I know that noisy fan is defective. ;)

You should try the card in a different system, or at least on a fresh OS install and if that doesn't take care of it return it.

Good luck.


BTW, AISC quality doesn't mean squat.
 
If it's heavily artifacting at just 75MHz over stock I would sure consider it defective. That's only 8% headroom, I would expect no less than 10%.

Everyone expects these cards to overclock pretty well, and you'd be disappointed if you got one that didn't.

The fact that it doesn't overclock very well doesn't make it defective though.
 
pgi947, the seller of the card stated "Ever since launch I have been running the card in Portrait Eyefinity at between 925/1375 and 1125/6600".

Perhaps it's worth getting back in touch and asking them how they got it to 1125/6000.

Or perhaps try some older drivers just in case the latest beta is causing a problem.
 
what are the temps like? artifacts usually point to memory,try more core and back off on memory or leave it at stock and push the core freq,i dont know if those cards have memory heatsinks or not?

re apply some quality thermal paste?
 
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Thanks.

pgi947, the seller of the card stated "Ever since launch I have been running the card in Portrait Eyefinity at between 925/1375 and 1125/6600".

Perhaps it's worth getting back in touch and asking them how they got it to 1125/6000.

Or perhaps try some older drivers just in case the latest beta is causing a problem.

Having someone that has already tested the card in another system sure points to problems other than the card. You need to start there.
 
OP...If you haven't installed to a new OS yet you might try this first:

Remove driver from Control Panel, reboot

Reboot again going into safe mode, Run Driver Cleaner, reboot

Remove all old ghost drivers:

1. Type: CMD in start's search box
2. Right click on CMD from the list and Run as Administrator
3. At the dos prompt typed: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 (this will show all hidden devices in Device Manager)
4. Type devmgmt.msc (this will take you to Device Manager). Click on View and select show hidden devices
5. Look in Display Adapter and for any grayed out video cards and uninstall them (or any old video card devices). Then check your Monitors

Reboot, install new driver.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all the replies!

Emailed the seller yesterday to ask what combination they used, just waiting on a reply.

Have tried 12.3 WHQL and 12.4 beta so far.

Its also had an hour or so at stock in heaven, give it longer?

Will try the other suggestions tonight, I have a strange feeling it may be psu related so might even try different cables tonight or see if I can find someone local that can test the card for me.
 
That's what I thought, but the extra 2pins on the 8pin are far from a snug fit, saying that it handled a pair of 6950's no problem.

If none of the above helps I will ask my local repair place if they would mind putting it in a machine to test.
 
Does it do it in anything else or just Heaven? he may have had it running that high but might only have been running FSX or something.

The one I have also has an ASIC of ~80% and does 1070 on stock volts (1112) with the stock reference fan, so I wouldn't read anything into the ASIC quality.

If it's your PSU then setting your CPU back to default clocks should help, also like tribz says leave the memory at stock and just clock the core to start with.
 
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