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AMD - How To Overclock The Official Way Using Afterburner + Step By Step Overclocking Guide + Comple
- Thread starter LtMatt
- Start date
Cheers Matt- you read my mind on that one as bios flashing was me next q.
Done a fair old amount of flashing back in my modding days - not on GPU's though. 'Scuse the ignorance, but flashing the HIS bios (onto bios block 1) will give me a bit more bang for the buck on mhz/v levels and reduce heat? I'm guessing though that if my card can't do 1202mhz on 1.30v flashing this bios won't give me more headroom to make 1202mhz stable as it'll be my chip?
And a final q (promise) - is it worth flashing a 7970 bios to my 7950 as my pcb's a 7970?
Ta again
As you don't have a HIS boost card you'er probably better off asking the OP of this thread to create you one.
All you need to do is give him the bios and tell him the clocks you want and that you want it to be non boost.
Try and find out what you card requires to be stable at 1050/1500 and tell the thread OP and he will create you one. That's where we got the non boost his bios from.
The his bios might not work with yours as you have a msi card and the memory timings might be different. Didn't think of that initially when i made the suggestion.
The bios probably won't make your card a better clocker, but it will bring temps down and take away the annoying boost element and high boost voltage giving you full control, as it should be.
You could try flashing a msi 7970 twin frozr bios to your card, don't know if it will work or not. Just take a backup and reflash the old one if you get problems.
Cheers for that Matt - I used to hex edit .rom files quite a bit, so might have a tinker meself rather than get kahboom to do it for me
Anyhow - thanks again
Furry muff, let us know how you get on.
Yep.
Thank you LtMatt.
Got my Powercolor 7950 PCS+ stable to core : 1200 @ 2.18v and VRAM : 1650 @ 1.613v (seems can go up more but just left it) running at 55C with 85% fan.
However decided to be less aggressive, because the voltage grew by almost 0.70v for the last 100mhz, so settled at 1100 @ 1.150v/1550 1.6v (stock vram voltage) running at 50C / 65% fan under full load.
By the time I finished, BF4 was readyand gave it a spin without trouble (only the HBAO bug - DirectX device removed error, so I deactivate it from BF4)
And because I was getting annoyed that had to restart all the time after awhile, I did the following trick, that might help others to speed up the process a bit.
I put the Valey benchmark, to 1600x900 - window. And used step by step 25mhz intervals until I hit 1225 core. When it was crashing, if I was quick, only the window had to close not the whole PC (happened 5-6 times though).
Windows 8.1 (Enterprise since I have MSDN account) were holding well, restarting the ATI drivers on the crash automatically.
Then when hit the 1200/1650 running fine, I run Valey (and 3dmark) at full screen on extreme, and run perfectly twice
Time today to crack up the new 8350
(under a H50 atm, until I get the AM3 bracket to put the H100)
Thanks for the tip Panos. Nice clocking card you have there.
I will use that at the end of the month, when I have finished selling all the replaced gear
Yes they seem like pretty good cards. Heard good reports about them. Its a shame ocuk don't sell them imo.
Looks good mate. Do you need the voltage that high for 1100 core? Not able to lower it further? I'd back off the vram a bit if i was you. I find higher vram needs more vcore. If i was you id aim for 1500-1575. I use 1500 typically. Its plenty of bandwidth for one 7950. Lowering the vram clock might bring your core voltage down a notch or two and this can help with temps.
I need 1.175v for 1100 core so you're in the right territory. You might be able to bring it down a bit, or you might not but always worth a shot.
I'm on crossfire so i can't clock my cards together that high for 24/7. Plus my cards don't appear to be the best overclockers. 1125/1575 is about the highest i can get in crossfire @1.2v per card with memory at 1.6. The problem i have with 1125 on the core is after temps get past 74c one of my card starts to give off a few little artifacts.
I need 1.175v for 1100 core so you're in the right territory. You might be able to bring it down a bit, or you might not but always worth a shot.
I'm on crossfire so i can't clock my cards together that high for 24/7. Plus my cards don't appear to be the best overclockers. 1125/1575 is about the highest i can get in crossfire @1.2v per card with memory at 1.6. The problem i have with 1125 on the core is after temps get past 74c one of my card starts to give off a few little artifacts.
Thanks for your advice.
Since posting I have tried Far Cry 3 and it crashed after 5 mins, so I put the vram back to 1500 to make sure that wasn't causing it. Just tried again and it lasted longer, like 15 mins before crashing again. What should I do? I guess I need even more core voltage?
edit: I'm wondering whether it's the BIOS. When I flashed it I got this message:
Doesn't look quite right?
edit2: I have bumped the vcore voltage up to 1.231v and still get crashes @ 1.1GHz, so I reverted the clocks to stock and the game crashes even faster, before the game has loaded. So I am concluding that it must be the BIOS, hence why I'm going to post this in the BIOS thread for some help as I have no clue. >.<
I don't know, you used winflash and not atiflash. You should have followed my bios flashing guide here.
Follow that guide and try using this bios if you have a HIS 7950 Ice-Q. If http://www.sendspace.com/file/5mv49f
If you have a different card maybe stick with the bios you've already got.
Try aiming for 1100/1250 using 1.2v vcore. If thats stable then try 1100/1400. If thats ok then move up to 1100/1500. Once you've got that fully game stable for several hours then worry about pushing the core further.
People that are going to use and benefit from this guide should not be putting that much voltage through their card imo.
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Oh ok, I'll try your flashing guide when I get home tonight. Do I need to flash back to the stock BIOS before doing so or is it ok to go ahead with the one I've got? I do have a HIS 7950 Ice-Q, so I'll use that BIOS you posted.
After that I'll go with your advice about memory speed. Thanks
Nah just flash over the bios you're currently using. Its all explained in the guide.
Yes i find 1100/1500 a good balance of noise vs performance. Any faster and you really need to ramp the fan up to keep the gpu's cool.
The bios you want is 925/1250 (this one http://www.sendspace.com/file/5mv49f) and will apply the required amount of voltage depending on your cards asic. In your case it will be 1.175v which is plenty for 925 core. Stock bios voltage is 1.250v, so you can can see how much overkill that is. I can reach 1100/1500 on 1.175v. Your mileage may vary.
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I've flashed the BIOS using your guide and I've set the card to 1100 core with 1.2v and mem @ 1250. Heaven v4 ran the benchmark but crashed shortly after finishing the bench. Far Cry 3 crashes withing minuates. So I bumped the vcore to 1.25v, FC3 crashed after 10-15 mins.
What do you think? Looks like I need to lower the vcore speed? My card can't even handle 1100?
What are the temps getting to? Do you have the power line at +30%? You can always try dialing back the clock to 1050. Probably best to work up in smaller steps.
Did the follow the guide in the OP? What were you last stable clocks?
Yes i always found i needed 1-2 extra notches of voltage to be stable in games vs benchmarks. Leave the memory at stock 1250 first to rule that out as an issue. Only when you're 99% sure the core is stable at 1100 or below try fiddling with the memory. Use 30% just to rule it out as an issue.
Why not?
1.4 volts is not for people who are overclocking newbs. Also what are the chances of them having water cooling?
If you want to play it safe try 1.100mv-1.150mv.