You're probably just at the limit of one of the cards tbh. One of them is probably holding the other back slightly. Although you won't be topping benchmarks with those clocks you should have more than ample game performance.
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AMD - How To Overclock The Official Way Using Afterburner + Step By Step Overclocking Guide + Comple
- Thread starter LtMatt
- Start date
You're probably just at the limit of one of the cards tbh. One of them is probably holding the other back slightly. Although you won't be topping benchmarks with those clocks you should have more than ample game performance.
Worth a shout. The stronger gpu should always be the first one, in my opinion. How much of a difference, if any, that makes is anyones guess.
I don't recall having problems with idle clocks myself yesterday when i tried these. Currently reinstalling windows but will double check shortly.
What connection are you using to the monitor? Dual link DVI here.
Its probably an issue with the driver thinking you're using a 144hz screen or something. Make sure you post about it and notify Thracks in the AMD drivers thread so it can get fixed. I have my monitor at stock currently so don't have that problem.
It works with my gigabyte HD7770 OC but not with my HIS 7950. Your mileage may vary.
Stick with 1125/1600 if more voltage isn't adding increased stability. Either you've reached the max one or both of your cards can do in crossfire or one of them is just a worse clocker than the other. High temps could cause issues so if both cards are below 70c on the core and 85c on the vrms then you should be ok.
Lt
Been away a couple days doing boring things like living rofl.
PC has settled after the session a couple of days ago - thanks for that
To move on .... I am aware there are many other things I can "tweek" to get the best out of the beast, tried most over the decades, however need to do it in a steady fashion, as you overclock guide rightly emphasises. Two start points....
1. Clean reboot, no tweeks and all at stock, then apply the overclock you took me through.
2. No other settings changed in any way. Runs at:
Core Volts 1213
Power Limit +20
Core Clock 1225
Memory Clock 1675
Fan Speed: auto
Memory & Aux voltage still at Stock (1600 & zero)
Valley Benchmark with those settings is 4070
Any other parts you recommend I tweek/go through ? (need to do the Card Memory and Aux voltage - hand holding appreciated). The beast is set to boot up at 3.9GHz/2133mhz memory. Main Specs:
Core i7-3960X Extreme @ 3.9GHz 2133mhz memory
2 x ATI/AMD Radeon HD 7970 (TAHITI XT) - timing at comment 2, above
16Gb RAM (G.Skill F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH )
Memory timing 10066Mhz @ 9-11-10-28 (G.Skill recommended memory settings)
PCIe v3.0 x16 (8.0 Gb/s) @ x16 (2.5 Gb/s)
1500w Platimax PSU
ASUS RAMPAGE IV EXTREME (Full ROG setup, so have access to any part of the BIOS/Hardware/Motherboard setting)
Consider all at "stock" apart from the tweeks we have done so far on the GPU, and the Mainboard ROG CPU setting of 3.9Ghz/2133Mhz
Looks perfect. Let me tell you, you have a great clocking card. That's low voltage for the clock required. My MSI 7970 OC is very similar, maybe needs a notch or two less voltage than yours but not by much. Treasure it.
I expect it will go further if you can keep it cool enough. 1250 core is a real sweet power spot for 7970's. Gives you like a 40gb pixel fill rate. (titan is like 50) If you can then get the memory stable at 1823 you have 350gb of memory bandwidth as well. You will chew through games. I noticed a big difference between a 7950 @ 1100/1600 compared to a 7970 @1250/1823. I could literally feel the difference in speed as well as see it in the fps counter.
Cooling will not be a problem, they are MSI 7970s, and I use a Corsair water cooler on the CPU
I'll probably leave it at 1225/1675 for now, work on that when I get some more quality idle time...... 1250/1823 is a good o/c .... nicely done
The Aux part of the GPU (aka Afterburner settings) is still at stock 1600/0, leave it that way, or have a go with it? If the latter where do you suggest I start re setting?
That's the memory voltage if im not mistaken. Likely if you breach 1700+ you will need to start upping it. Just do it the same as the core. In my testing i managed to get 1750 out of the memory with stock voltage. For 1823 i need 1.637 voltage. I can go a bit higher but i need silly voltage to get there and personally i wouldn't advocate going over 1.65v on the memory for 24/7 use.
If you have more crashes dial back the speeds to 1093/1563. I find this to be a great balance between good performance and low noise. With these clocks you can likely run lower voltage which will bring the heat, noise and TDP levels down some.
1200/1700.
What are temps like?
One of my 7950's artifacts at anything over 1100, its depressing.
1. Yes.
2. You can if your card supports higher voltage.
3. You can try a special modded version of trixxx which might allow you to increase the voltage further. If not then you're stuck at 1.225v. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ginfyzbap9y616r/Sapphire%20TRIXX%20v4.4.0b%20MOD.exe
4. You there should be a setting in trixxx that allows it to start with windows and apply the overclock at startup.
Cpu bottleneck. Your cpu cannot render enough frames to provide the gpu's with 99% usage.
Arma is very cpu dependant, farcry 3 poorly optimized, will hog 100% usage of a single core.
Sell your i5 and get an i7 2700k (3770k if on Ivy) or faster and clock it to at least 4ghz or faster and you will see 99% pegged usage on both gpu's in most titles.
In the meantime you can help by overclocking your cpu some more.
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Could be an issue with that game then, but regardless your cpu will be bottlenecked by 2x7970's at 1080p. Try the 13.6 beta drivers when you get a chance.
Which version of afterburner are you using? You don't need any patches to stop the flickering any more. Use the latest beta and official overclocking and you won't get any flickering.
Vdroop is normal i get it on my cards as well, nothing to worry about. I have low asic cards like you, they need a lot of voltage. You should be fine up to 1.3v btw. My asic's are 66 & 67% and they top out around 1150 on the core. Luckily for me this only needs 1.2v (lower after vdroop) so its not too bad.
Vdroop is normal i get it on my cards as well, nothing to worry about. I have low asic cards like you, they need a lot of voltage. You should be fine up to 1.3v btw. My asic's are 66 & 67% and they top out around 1150 on the core. Luckily for me this only needs 1.2v (lower after vdroop) so its not too bad.
Cheers for the reply Matt
Afterburners up to date I think - v3.0.0 beta 10, CCC 13.6 (with driver version 9.14.10.0972).
Didn't realise the patch wasn't necessary anymore - might just do a clean reinstall of CCC and Afterburner then. Been tinkering with the memory as well, seems that on stock v it'll do around the 1375 mark.
So the spiking on the VDDC ampage is ok then, or is it just GPU-Z glitching? Reason I ask is I had conflicts with GPU-Z monitoring a couple of days ago with some of the readings being at zero. Also had the clock problem with the GPU not downclocking when idle.
Ta again fella, and as you're from Norwich, a big AH-HA (bet you can't wait for Alpha Papa)
Not sure about the spiking, id image its nothing to worry about. If you use Driver Fusion in the OP it should remove the traces of that old patch file. Make sure you uninstall afterburner and don't keep users settings. Make sure to delete the program folder as well, just in case you installed the old patch files in there.
Gotta love Alan Partridge. I'm not actually from Norwich though (thank god
) just living here. What were the temps like? Artifacts can either be the core/vrm/vram chips getting too hot or the core has just reached its maximum. My 7950's can only do 1150 core before they start to produce artifacts.
*cough* meant to type 1.3v
I presume you both have Boost Bios cards, 7950's?? Well if you do you can always try flashing this bios. Its a non boost bios with a stock voltage of 1.187v and default clocks of 1070/1500. So you will get much lower temps than with the boost bios which is 1.25v.
I just wrote a guide out for someone else in another thread but ill copy it here should you want to try it. If you want lower stock clocks then i can provide different one from the HIS 7950 Bios thread by ICP.
You might want to write this down...
You need to create a bootable usb stick.
1. Download and install the USB disk format tool here.
2. Download the Windows98 system files here.
3. Create a folder called Win98boot on your desktop, extract the files from step 2 into the folder.
4. Plug in your usb stick. Launch the USB disk format tool. Copy these settings, then click format. You need to select quick format, tick dos startup and select the Win98 folder, like ive done below.
5. Click start, then ok and it should do it.
6. Download atiflash. Extract it onto the usb stick.
7. Download the HIS7950.rom bios file. Cut and paste it into the usb stick.
8. If you've done everything correctly your usb stick folder contents should look like this.
9. Make sure all gpu's in your pc are switched onto bios 1.
10. Uninstall gpu drivers and any overclocking apps. Do not keep settings delete everything.
11. Restart your pc. Before you here the beep keep tapping F8. Boot from the usb stick.
12. You should be at dos prompt. Type atiflash -i to get the adapter number for both your gpu's. Typically it will be 0 and 1, unless you have a gpu in a third pci-e slot. You need the adapter number to tell it which gpu to flash.
13. To flash gpu 1 type atiflash -p -f 0 his7950.rom and hit enter.
Wait for it to finish. It will prompt you to restart but before we do that we need to flash the second gpu as well.
Now do the second gpu (if you have one)
Type atiflash -p -f 1 his7950.rom
Once that has completed and you get a notification saying you can restart press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart your pc.
All going well you should get a display and boot back into windows. Now you can reinstall fresh new drivers etc. Boost voltage and boost clock is disabled, your card thinks its a non boost card from now on in and you have the option to select 50% power setting as standard with every driver install.
If something goes wrong and you get no display from the cards after flashing the bios. Turn the pc off and flick both cards bios switch to position 2 to use the stock backup bios. Turn the pc back on and all will be ok.
Good luck.
