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7990 Custom Bios - Remove Throttling

Flashed it, seems good. Had a run on Arma3 with 1100 / 1600 @ 1.22V
It munched 2500x1600 with all settings up high for breakfast ;)

Thanks LtMatt!
 
LtMatt said:
Yeah share that bios so we can all get memory voltage control. Will be interesting to see if anything else has been tweaked on it like TDP etc.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know where I can download the HD7990 bios with the memory voltage control?

Thanks

Simon
 
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I use AB to specify 20% power and set the clocks to 1100/1650 on default 1.2 volts. I see the clocks on the KB LCD panel and they stay fixed at those values. When I run @ stock I see the 950 and lower clocks on occasion ..

Just wondering if I am missing something here wrt throttling as I would say my card is not throttling because I use AB ?
 
blackninja said:
I use AB to specify 20% power and set the clocks to 1100/1650 on default 1.2 volts. I see the clocks on the KB LCD panel and they stay fixed at those values. When I run @ stock I see the 950 and lower clocks on occasion ..

Just wondering if I am missing something here wrt throttling as I would say my card is not throttling because I use AB ?
Click to expand...

I also use AB, had a run through Arma3 today at 1100/1600 @ 1.22v experienced small periods where the card would throttle to 950 (&500) before ramping up to 1100 again. The GPU usage would also drop from 90% usage to 30%. GPU voltage would drop from 1.22 to 0.95.
Temps just cresting 50 during the whole run.

CPU usage stayed in the 60 - 80 % region the whole way.

I dont know how the voltage of the PSU faired during the run, but might be something I need to look at in the next run through.
Edit: seems like it drops a little bit below 12 (11.968) at some point

Edit2:
Tried it in BF4 and no drops there (1100/1600 @ 1.20 ) :)
 
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Hi Matt, what 7950's did /have you got? I have two MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost Edition 1 8& 6 1 8&8 which I belive is a 7970 PCB. Is it worth upgrading to a 7990? they will do 1150mhz!
 
Great post from the LT. I had this same issue with serious GPU usage fluctuation in graphic heavy games like BF3 and BF4. It is noticeably smoother as well and after watching afterburner graphs it was indeed switching between boost modes and flashing the BIOs fixed it.

Also anyone having weird usage or stuttering, try closing your internet browsers when playing (regardless of which one).
 
Matt,

Does this BIOS flash involve tweaking voltage post flashing to make it stable or should everything run fine afterwards?

I haven't flashed it yet so not having problems just asking all the questions before I do it instead of after.

Thanks in advance

Woodsta
 
Woodsta888 said:
Matt,

Does this BIOS flash involve tweaking voltage post flashing to make it stable or should everything run fine afterwards?

I haven't flashed it yet so not having problems just asking all the questions before I do it instead of after.

Thanks in advance

Woodsta
Click to expand...

The stock voltage remains unchanged as tweaking it seemed to lock voltage on certain brands of cards. All that is changed is ive removed the throttling issue and increased the TDP and power tune and ccc overclock limits to 1200/1700.
 
i wouldnt have thought there would be much between 950/1500 & 1000/1500? at least not enough to justify voiding your warranty.

does flashing the bios actually void ur warranty?
 
mjenabi2 said:
i wouldnt have thought there would be much between 950/1500 & 1000/1500? at least not enough to justify voiding your warranty.

does flashing the bios actually void ur warranty?
Click to expand...

The problem is the switching between clock states and voltage as the card throttles under intense load means you lose performance and smoothness.

Flashing the bios does not lose your warranty. The card has a backup bios on switch 2 so you have a fail safe if anything goes wrong, which it won't. You can always flash the backup bios back to switch one if desired. Once you've tried it though you'll never go back.
 
chipachap said:
Great post from the LT. I had this same issue with serious GPU usage fluctuation in graphic heavy games like BF3 and BF4. It is noticeably smoother as well and after watching afterburner graphs it was indeed switching between boost modes and flashing the BIOs fixed it.

Also anyone having weird usage or stuttering, try closing your internet browsers when playing (regardless of which one).
Click to expand...

Flashed mine - (((thanks again LTMatt)))) - and yes mine did stutter. I thought it was server lag so tried more. The fps fluctuated wildlt too, like when BF4 was in the beta. Minimising browser did get rid of this but I also did turn back on ULPS. Now it is smooth again albeit lower fps.

What I have noticed since flashing is my fps has dropped from what it was with stock BIOS. Under stock I left ULPS on (just installed 13.11 bv9.2 with no changes) and the only thing I could notice was GPU-Z saying one was running at 99%. But it was smooth and I have notice it throttling between 950-1000Mhz as with all drivers previous.

Since flashing and closing browsers it is smooth but with a reduced fps. PAracel Storm I was in the 80 fps range. Before flashing my avearge GPU % usage was in the 50% range And now it is above 70% and avearging high 80's. CPU (i5 2500k @ 4.4Ghz) running high 90%'s

So I'm getting less fps and more GPU usage.

My Q's,

Does does disabling ULPS just get rid of the GPU-z sensor @99% or is that core 'actually' running at 99%. Is disabling ULPS required predominantly for OC'ing. With a 7990 I'm not that bothered about OC'ing at the moment as it's not needed.

Another p[roblem I have is flickering of textures in BF4. One of my freinds says this is a characteristic of dual GPU cards. Anyone else suffer this or know of fixes what to look at.

Sorry for questions I'm a bit of a noob at the 'real' techie stuff.

Thnaks in advance for any replies.
 
First of all your cpu will be bottlenecking your 7990. Overclock it as much as you can or ideally get rid and get a 2600k minimum. This will allow your 7990 to stretch its legs and enable both 7990 cores to work at 99%. Your fps are being held back by your cpu. Your 7990 was throttling before the bios, that probably relieved some of the strain on your cpu. My advice is to keep ULPS off. Probably even more important being cpu bottlenecked. With ULPS on one gpu works a bit harder than the other. Its great for power saving but its better to keep it off in your instance and get marginally better performance. Flickering textures is a bug im afraid and happens to me as well. Need Dice to fix that one i expect as its been in there since the beta. Doesn't happen all the time though.
 
Thanks Matt,

Whilst I knew my CPU was bottlenecking the GPU still delivers +60fps minimum for my 60hz monitor. I have considered an i7/8core AMD but I'm going to wait for
1) DICE to actually fix BF4
2) AMD to produce a driver which I dont think they will until after DICE fixed the game.
3) Mantle is released which should optimise CPU use in BF4 as BF4 is the main game I play.

Flickering = bug - I'll stop worrying about that then thinking it's my setup.

Thanks
 
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