AMD - How To Overclock The Official Way Using Afterburner + Step By Step Overclocking Guide + Comple

[Cane316]

I've tried this with a Sapphire 7950 Vapor X. It doesn't work....


I tried from a fresh windows install.



I also attempted to place the dll files in sysWow64 manually, with UAV disabled, but it says I don't have permission. I tried to edit the security tab of sysWOW64 properties, but it simply said access denied. Glad to see win7 hasn't lost Vista charm.

Is there any hope of me unlocking voltage?

I've got the same card and it worked fine.
I had to run the /xcl thing twice. The first time it told me I needed to reset then the second time it said that clocks were unlocked.

Then I had to enable voltage setting in the options of afterburner.

unlocked everything

 

[Cane316]

Whats your default voltage? You're good up to +0.0125mv.

When it loads up at stock the voltage is set at 0975, very low it seems.

Will have another go tonight, you think ramping up the voltage to 1250 and then giving it another go is worth a try? if I use that at voltage should I leave the voltage boost at 0?

On a side note when I booted up this morning afterburner hadn't saved the 2 profiles I set up last night they both had reverted to default 850/1250 with 0975 voltage.

 

[LtMatt]

When it loads up at stock the voltage is set at 0975, very low it seems.

Will have another go tonight, you think ramping up the voltage to 1250 and then giving it another go is worth a try? if I use that at voltage should I leave the voltage boost at 0?

On a side note when I booted up this morning afterburner hadn't saved the 2 profiles I set up last night they both had reverted to default 850/1250 with 0975 voltage.

Can you put a screenshot of afterburner showing your default voltage?

I know on 7970 cards there is a limit on the amount of over voltage you can apply. 0.125+ volts. With my default voltage being 1.112, +0.125 = 1.234. If i go over that voltage there is a chance over current protection will kick in.

You know this has happened as your screen goes black, pc becomes unresponsive and you have to press the reset button to get control back.

I presume its the same for 7950's as well.

 

[benj0145]

I attempted late last night to do this, and once I installed the files and used /xcl it unlocked the ccc limits. I briefly tried to play both gw2 and wow this morning and while my card is clocked at 1000/1500 (this slight oc i had done before trying this) on stock volts still the performance has gone down the pan! only getting 15-17fps when i was getting 50-60 (with vsync on).

I hadnt gotten as far as unlocking the voltage on afterburner yet (and am at work today so cant at the moment) but I really don't know what could have caused that!

I rebooted and followed the guides etc, and ccc showed much increased options for clock and memory + im running the extra 20% power.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I will be uninstalling the lot when i get home and will try again.

 

[LtMatt]

I attempted late last night to do this, and once I installed the files and used /xcl it unlocked the ccc limits. I briefly tried to play both gw2 and wow this morning and while my card is clocked at 1000/1500 (this slight oc i had done before trying this) on stock volts still the performance has gone down the pan! only getting 15-17fps when i was getting 50-60 (with vsync on).

I hadnt gotten as far as unlocking the voltage on afterburner yet (and am at work today so cant at the moment) but I really don't know what could have caused that!

I rebooted and followed the guides etc, and ccc showed much increased options for clock and memory + im running the extra 20% power.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I will be uninstalling the lot when i get home and will try again.

Hmm, this should not have any negative effect on performance though, its likely something else.

What im not sure though.

 

[Cane316]

Can you put a screenshot of afterburner showing your default voltage?

I know on 7970 cards there is a limit on the amount of over voltage you can apply. 0.125+ volts. With my default voltage being 1.112, +0.125 = 1.234. If i go over that voltage there is a chance over current protection will kick in.

You know this has happened as your screen goes black, pc becomes unresponsive and you have to press the reset button to get control back.

I presume its the same for 7950's as well.

Will sort a screenshot tonight. In work for the next 7 hours... waiting to get home and tinker is a ball ache.

I think that the current protection kicked in once then as that sounds pretty familiar. mostly it was just unigine locking up and having to have the process ended in task manager.

Will have a search on the net to try and find out the max voltage. how did you find out the max on yours?

 

[benj0145]

thanks for the quick response, I have also been using a new ssd and have limited experience with them. A setting I had changed with reference to the ssd hugely impacted on performance (similar to this) when i first installed so im not entirely convinced its not that, althought I had wow running brilliantly the night before prior to trying this method of oc'ing.

Great guide by the way, appreciate you doing it - I'm sure i'll suss it out eventually.

Just seemed as if as soon as I did the /xcl things went down the pan! Very strange

 

[LtMatt]

Will sort a screenshot tonight. In work for the next 7 hours... waiting to get home and tinker is a ball ache.

I think that the current protection kicked in once then as that sounds pretty familiar. mostly it was just unigine locking up and having to have the process ended in task manager.

Will have a search on the net to try and find out the max voltage. how did you find out the max on yours?

The uingine thing just sounds like a driver error as a result from overclocking, but yeah you can't mistake the OCP kicking in. Sometimes it might even result in a bsod, or so im told.

thanks for the quick response, I have also been using a new ssd and have limited experience with them. A setting I had changed with reference to the ssd hugely impacted on performance (similar to this) when i first installed so im not entirely convinced its not that, althought I had wow running brilliantly the night before prior to trying this method of oc'ing.

Great guide by the way, appreciate you doing it - I'm sure i'll suss it out eventually.

Just seemed as if as soon as I did the /xcl things went down the pan! Very strange

The /xcl only expands the clock limits of overdrive and afterburner. It doesn't change anything else so it must be something else.

 

[benj0145]

Okedoke - cheers matt, will try again tonight!

 

[LtMatt]

Okedoke - cheers matt, will try again tonight!

Let us know how you get on.

 

[Cane316]

thanks for the quick response, I have also been using a new ssd and have limited experience with them. A setting I had changed with reference to the ssd hugely impacted on performance (similar to this) when i first installed so im not entirely convinced its not that, althought I had wow running brilliantly the night before prior to trying this method of oc'ing.

Great guide by the way, appreciate you doing it - I'm sure i'll suss it out eventually.

Just seemed as if as soon as I did the /xcl things went down the pan! Very strange

good guide for setting up SSD drives here

http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds

used this guide setting up mine and all seems so be working like a dream so far.

 

[benj0145]

Thanks for that Cane, but believe it or not I did the same!!

My drive hated me when I disabled prefetch and superfetch - as Sean said it really did hurt performance on my drive, its an older sandisk ultra sata 2. This was what the similar performance impact was. I will double check it has stayed on etc tonight. If thats ok then it will unboubtably be something I have done wrong with the gfx card!

 

[DRHF]

I managed to open the voltage.

I tried clocking my vapor X 7950 - here are the results,

3d Mark - GRAPHICS SCORE
8663

@ 1100/1400

I also played Planetside at this setting for an hour.

I set the voltage at 1100. I am worried though. The card became quite hot

Although the max afterburner reading was 68, I believe the card ram may have been running much faster. I'm too scared to leave it @ this setting. The card was cool on one side, and very hot on the other when I touched it. I believe this may be the vram side (its the side furthest from the PCI slot).

I placed a fan covering the top of the graphics card to blow some hot air out of the cpu exhaust fan on my watercooler.

The back of the card gets hot, still not hot enough to burn my hand though...

Afterburner will only seems to set the voltage at a constant rate.


I've decided to run the card at stock. It appears heat is not transferring well from the GPU to the heatsink. When I touch the heat sink under load it isn't very hot. I may buy some good thermal paste, remove the fan and reset everything properly....

My old Toxic 6950 was a lot better I think, well, only interms of OCing.

 

[Cane316]

I managed to open the voltage.

I tried clocking my vapor X 7950 - here are the results,

3d Mark - GRAPHICS SCORE
8663

@ 1100/1400

I also played Planetside at this setting for an hour.

I set the voltage at 1100. I am worried though. The card became quite hot

Although the max afterburner reading was 68, I believe the card ram may have been running much faster. I'm too scared to leave it @ this setting. The card was cool on one side, and very hot on the other when I touched it. I believe this may be the vram side (its the side furthest from the PCI slot).

I placed a fan covering the top of the graphics card to blow some hot air out of the cpu exhaust fan on my watercooler.

The back of the card gets hot, still not hot enough to burn my hand though...

Afterburner will only seems to set the voltage at a constant rate.


I've decided to run the card at stock. It appears heat is not transferring well from the GPU to the heatsink. When I touch the heat sink under load it isn't very hot. I may buy some good thermal paste, remove the fan and reset everything properly....

My old Toxic 6950 was a lot better I think, well, only interms of OCing.

Haven't had a feel of mine but getting those same clock speeds on that card too. Can't seem to get over 1100 without artifacts and crashes. Tried lots of different voltages too. Temp never seems to go above 58 though.

 

[DRHF]

Yeah... pretty lame I think...

I'll post my results once I dissemble the card and put it back together. Thermal Paste takes forever to reach me though... Do you have any ideas which I should put on a GPU? So it may be a few days... I also have to take my motorcycle to bits in the next week...............

Don't buy nice things

Cane, can you tell me if you feel heat transferring to the heat sink? I'd be interested to know. Also what voltages do you get off GPU-Z (click sensor) or HWinfo64. Mine goes to 1.056 under load at stock. I've also found OCing without boost more stable, but that may just be my mind tricking me.

 

[benj0145]

Let us know how you get on.

Well.. i've just posted on the customer support bit

Stock or not I cant get this card to behave at all. In despair with it :/

Thanks for your help - i may yet rma and go for the standard oc version

 

[DRHF]

I just finished refitting the heatsink to the card. The problem is the vram. I know it is.

My core temp has dropped to 36 C and 58 under max load.

Pushing volts it reads 68 max.

\@ 1400 is max stable clock with + without voltage increase.

However 1100 can be increased with voltage.

I checked the back of the card underload. Its still hot.

The reason is that the heatsink on the vapor X does not cool the vRam well......

So much for premium. I'm going to put together a budget watercooling system with total component coverage.

I'm sure the clock is failing due to vRam heat.

I'll post my results.


I forgot:

I'll flash the Bios to a 7970 version today whilst I'm waiting for the waterblock.

 

[LtMatt]

I just finished refitting the heatsink to the card. The problem is the vram. I know it is.

My core temp has dropped to 36 C and 58 under max load.

Pushing volts it reads 68 max.

\@ 1400 is max stable clock with + without voltage increase.

However 1100 can be increased with voltage.

I checked the back of the card underload. Its still hot.

The reason is that the heatsink on the vapor X does not cool the vRam well......

So much for premium. I'm going to put together a budget watercooling system with total component coverage.

I'm sure the clock is failing due to vRam heat.

I'll post my results.


I forgot:

I'll flash the Bios to a 7970 version today whilst I'm waiting for the waterblock.

Vrms can handle up to 125c. On my reference 7970 it goes up to about 75c or so when playing games.

 

[benj0145]

Question: once the ccc limits are lifted, is there a way to revert them back to default?

I was under the impression that the /xcl only impacted on the software, yet as far as I can remember and see regardless of format etc the ccc appears the same??

Can anyone explain? Sorry for noob question :/

 

[AlfBaxter]

Question: once the ccc limits are lifted, is there a way to revert them back to default?

I was under the impression that the /xcl only impacted on the software, yet as far as I can remember and see regardless of format etc the ccc appears the same??

Can anyone explain? Sorry for noob question :/

The setting are in the registry I think. They revert back to default when you reinstall drivers, I don't know of another way to reset them.