Can I get more out of my 7950?

Jonny Chee

Jonny Chee

Jonny Chee

Associate
Joined
24 Jun 2011
Posts
344
Location
Nuneaton, Warks
Hey 8 Pack!

I have a HIS 7950 Ice Q Boost and have it overclocked to 1100 / 1500 without touching voltage settings.

I am using MSI Afterburner and have unlocked the voltage as per Lt Matt's thread.

I cannot get the card to be stable at 1150 Core in Heaven, even when increasing the voltage slider in AB.

Is my card voltage locked somehow?
 
Jonny Chee said:
Hey 8 Pack!

I have a HIS 7950 Ice Q Boost and have it overclocked to 1100 / 1500 without touching voltage settings.

I am using MSI Afterburner and have unlocked the voltage as per Lt Matt's thread.

I cannot get the card to be stable at 1150 Core in Heaven, even when increasing the voltage slider in AB.

Is my card voltage locked somehow?
Click to expand...

Unlucky, I can get my Sapphire 7950 Vapor-X to 1150/1500 stable with a voltage of 1.137v this runs all benchmarks and BF3 stable as far as I am aware.

and I thought 1150 was pretty low for a 7950!
 
Unlucky niel I can get my 7970 stable at over 1550mhz with 1900+ memory for everything!!!

That was not too helpful to Jonny was it!!!

Maybe the voltage is not being applied correctly as you suggest. Use GPU-Z monitoring tool which is the second tab in GPU-Z. Apply the voltage run a 3D app and with GPU-Z open it should monitor whats going on with voltage when you run the 3D.

This will tell you if the voltage is being applied or not. It will also monitor temps as maybe these are becoming an issue although I doubt that very much, but its worth investigating.
 
8 Pack said:
Unlucky niel I can get my 7970 stable at over 1550mhz with 1900+ memory for everything!!!

That was not too helpful to Jonny was it!!!

Maybe the voltage is not being applied correctly as you suggest. Use GPU-Z monitoring tool which is the second tab in GPU-Z. Apply the voltage run a 3D app and with GPU-Z open it should monitor whats going on with voltage when you run the 3D.

This will tell you if the voltage is being applied or not. It will also monitor temps as maybe these are becoming an issue although I doubt that very much, but its worth investigating.
Click to expand...

I would assume if you set the voltage in AB then it would stick. As far as I am aware the voltage I have set in triXX is sticking. From what I can understand I don't think the problem Jonny is having is with the voltage sticking in AB ie it actually says its running at the voltage he sets.

Correct me if I am wrong.
 
8 Pack said:
It all depends on the Voltage controller chips and compatability with Afterburner. Not all are. Thats why he needs to test.
Click to expand...

Ah OK. Fair enough your da man! I don't doubt your knowledge when it comes to overclocking these things judging by the clocks you have achieved!
 
Is it the VDDC reading I should be looking at?

If so, then it's not really changing when I increase volts in Afterburner.... It stays around 1.1v.

Temps are definitely not an issue.

EDIT: It seems to apply when I select 'Force Constant Voltage'. Should I be using this setting?
 
Last edited:
Yeah Vddc for gpu, Mvddc for mem.

Just to check, your clicking "apply" after changing the voltage? If you are applying it and its not going up in GPU-z your voltage might be locked, mine was locked to 1.15 ish.
 
The IceQ boost bios sets 1.25V for its boost clocks (it ramps up) and AB doesn't set the voltage properly. the only way to overclock it with AB is to force constant voltage (tick box in the settings page), which makes it idle hotter, but you'll actually be running the voltage you set.

Alternatively, you can flash the BIOS with a gigabyte 7970 BIOS (there's a recent thread in the gfx forum somewhere if you search for it) to allow you to overclock it like a normal card. Stupid Boost BIOS makes things a bit fiddly for this card, but you'll get 1150 out of it. I run 1150 at a touch under 1.2V at which point it starts getting a bit warm in some games if I go higher. Memory, I haven't played with much, but 1350MHz is easy on stock volts.
 
Got a weird problem or issue, when i run heaven its core is 900mhz but msi afterburner says 1000mhz, which one is right? its windforce 7950.
 
Yeah was showing 900mhz as i didn't have over drive on in CCC, im trying to overclock to around 1100 at stock volts, is this possible? Anyway when i do try and overclock and then close CCC it returns to stock clocks..How do i save it?
 
Devrij said:
The IceQ boost bios sets 1.25V for its boost clocks (it ramps up) and AB doesn't set the voltage properly. the only way to overclock it with AB is to force constant voltage (tick box in the settings page), which makes it idle hotter, but you'll actually be running the voltage you set.

Alternatively, you can flash the BIOS with a gigabyte 7970 BIOS (there's a recent thread in the gfx forum somewhere if you search for it) to allow you to overclock it like a normal card. Stupid Boost BIOS makes things a bit fiddly for this card, but you'll get 1150 out of it. I run 1150 at a touch under 1.2V at which point it starts getting a bit warm in some games if I go higher. Memory, I haven't played with much, but 1350MHz is easy on stock volts.
Click to expand...

Flashing the BIOS sounds scary! If I mess up, will I have a dead card on my hands? :D
 
BriT said:
Yeah was showing 900mhz as i didn't have over drive on in CCC, im trying to overclock to around 1100 at stock volts, is this possible? Anyway when i do try and overclock and then close CCC it returns to stock clocks..How do i save it?
Click to expand...

At stock volts, unlikely. If you have a good chip, maybe. You want to disable CCC overdrive and just use afterburner. Set force constant voltage (if you're using the HIS Boost card, otherwise don't) and use the /xcl add-on (all detailed in Lt Matts guide on overclocking with afterburner in the GFX section) to extend your clock limits. Then set your clocks and volts, apply them, and save them to a profile. Set this is as your 3d profile and it'll ramp up to this when you run a 3d application. Powerplay should still work, but your volts will be fixed at the 3d setting so idle temps will be a bit warmer than usual.


Jonny Chee said:
Flashing the BIOS sounds scary! If I mess up, will I have a dead card on my hands? :D
Click to expand...

The boost card should have a dual bios switch, so you can just flick it back to the other bios and use that if it goes pear-shaped. Check that first though. Google it to see what you're looking for. I haven't looked into it enough, but there are a few others on here that are using it succesfully so ask them for advice. There's a thread in the gfx section discussing the boost bios and flashing over to the windforce bios.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom