Furmark and stability

[dipsta]

Hello again peeps, well as some of you will probably know, i upgraded my 5850 to a 6950 Asus Direct cu II. I have manager to unlock shaders and in fact reflash with 6970 bios of the same type card.

Now the problem is once i have overclocked the card.. And im currently sat at 1.2v 940/1400 furmark never can complete a benchmark. Sure it can at 6970 stock speed of 890/1350 at 1.175. Now ive tried beta 12 drivers. Which seem to be a little better and gpuz shows temps on #2 and #3 getting into high 90 degrees..

It completes all futuremark benches without crashin or any artefacting at 940/1400 @1.2v but wont do furmark for long at this!

I have noticed something a little odd, now bacause inhave a non ref card Msi afterburner doesnt recognise the card properly so all voltge alterations need to be done through smart doctor which is buggy and **** and even when u restart your computer sometimes fails to remember settings. Secondly when i do set a voltage here it shows in gpuz but not in furmark or afterburner they show vddc at 1.175 which is currently stock voltage as im using a 6970 bios. Im tempted to alter the bios now to make 1.225 the stock voltge how do i do this in rbe?
Is it just that the card isnt good mates with furmark??

Or is it that my card is a **** clocker.. Btw was identical both pre unlock and bios upgrade so it isnt those which ause the problem! Cheers big ears :0)

 

[xsistor]

You mean you're currently SITTING at 1.2v 940/1400? Furmark causes cards to operate at above TDP so it can be unstable when in other programs it will be stable. That said, you're probably going too far with the OC.

 

[dipsta]

Yes mat sitting, sorry lol! Ermm well.. I didnt think 940/1400 was too high a clock i thought it was relatively low in comparison to other cards i have seen of the same type perhaps i was just a tad unlucky with mine! I have put as5 to replace my tim also to try and reduce temps. Do you know how to change stock voltages in RBE? I want to rule out the smartdoctor bug? Regards

 

[dipsta]

Sorry, could it be my 700w corsair psu? I have 2ssd 2hdd@10krpm [email protected]@1.38v 6 120mm fans 1 210mmfan, 4cc sharkoon lights, mcp655 pump, asrock motherboard, dvd sata drive.. Am i low on power? Hwmonitor shows all voltages to be a touch higher than they should be when pc is under load

 

[drunkenmaster]

THe question you should ask yourself is, why do you care about Furmark, do you want to play furmark, did you write furmark, do you think the benchmark is pretty to watch...... if none of the above, simply ignore furmark and move on with life.

Play games, if they are stable, woo, if they aren't, back off clocks a bit. It's really as simple as that, stability in Furmark means just that, stability in furmark, nothing else, if you never intend to run Furmark, stability in furmark is meaningless to you.

 

[Surveyor]

Just a thought but the VRAM chips on the HD 6950 are different to those on the HD 6970.

The HD 6970 has lower latency and higher voltage GDDR5 chips compared to the HD 6950.

If you've flashed with the HD 6970 BIOS then perhaps the VRAM is struggling to cope with the settings.

A modded HD 6950 BIOS may be a better bet as it unlocks the shaders but keeps the VRAM chips at the appropriate settings for a HD 6950.

 

[xsistor]

Sorry, could it be my 700w corsair psu? I have 2ssd 2hdd@10krpm [email protected]@1.38v 6 120mm fans 1 210mmfan, 4cc sharkoon lights, mcp655 pump, asrock motherboard, dvd sata drive.. Am i low on power? Hwmonitor shows all voltages to be a touch higher than they should be when pc is under load

Your PSU is fine. Try what surveyor suggested above.

Overclocking can lower the life of semiconductors. Running furmark on stock can do the same. Because both result in the chip running out-of-spec and can cause the chip to dissipate power above TDP. Furmark and overvoltaging are worse than just higher frequency because the former causes higher current draw and the latter is higher voltage, and because chip power scales only linearly with frequency but quadratically with current and voltage. Therefore, Furmark on an overclocked card is doubly bad. If I were you I'd stop running furmark on that overclock. To top it off, Furmark isn't the best test of stability on DX11 cards. Benchmarks like heaven are better.

But it does sound like your stability problem is to do with VRAM issues so try what surveyor said.

 

[dipsta]

Thanks guys ur right ya know, well
I have tested with heaven and it can do it all day long at 1900* 1200 temps max at 65 so im gonna leave her be at 1.2v 940/1375 thanks furmarks a killer