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How do I overclock GPU in Hybrid crossfire mode?

Scougar

Scougar

Scougar

Soldato
Joined
30 Jan 2007
Posts
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PA, USA (Orig UK)
So.... I saw a 7750 2GB DDR3 and picked it up for 30 dollars, as I remembered I could Hybrid crossfire with my 7850K APU. I know the results were not awesome or anything, but for a little extra I thought why not :) (Almost doubled the benchmark scores... but not sure on gaming results yet).

How do I overclock the GPU so I can match(ish) the APU iGPU speed please? (the overdrive option disappears from the menu for some reason)
 
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It allows me to run dual mode in CCC, and that's what I have selected. I can get it to display the dual mode gfx logo when running that way as well. Seems to work fine, and my frames in benchmarks are close to double (from what I remember from one quick run last night). Also.. looking up info on the AMD website, it's now called 'dual graphics', rather than Hybrid (which is obsolete apparently).


How I can overclock the 7750 though I don't know (maybe with afterburner or something?) but I would prefer to use overdrive if possible that is built into CCC, if I could enable it somehow?
 
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No, the option in CCC for overdrive has disappeared :-( I have downloaded overdrive separately now, and will have a look at that tonight, but I would assume that there is a registry hack for CCC to re-enable the option?

My iGPU is running @ 1028Mhz with 2GB of DDR3 @2400Mhz memory.
The 7750 is something like 800Mhz running 2GB 1300Mhz DDR3. http://xfxforce.com/en-us/products/.../amd-radeon-hd-7750-core-edition-fx-775a-cgfv
 
pandem0nium said:
Could you post a screen of gpu-z showing that crossfire is enabled? It's not officially supported, so I think the 7750 is just running on it's own.

I'd use Msi afterburner to overclock the gpu.
Click to expand...

I'll do that when I get home. And yes, it isn't officially supported, but it does appear to work (as have other cards in the past that weren't officially supported from what I've read.)
 
Thanks gentlemen. I am looking at a destroyed gazebo outside my house, so need to see if I can fix that first before I look at this. I quickly tested the single discrete card overclocked to 900/800 (max limits at present) by itself, and it is slower than dual mode so I can only summize till I prove it, that it's working.

I've just downloaded GPU-z in advance though.

8 pack... it is 'gaining something' in Valley benchmark at least... need to test more though :-)
 
Ok.... taking a look at this now. Disabled overdrive for the standalone (single mode card) 7750. Now installing Afterburner to see how it clocks etc.

Update 1: On a very short test, 1028Ghz is achievable on the 7750 standalone, but memory max is showing as 870mhz in afterburner.. trying to figure out how to increase that limit (I've already raised the limits to unofficial overclocking but that only seemed to increase the GPU mhz limit, but I can't seem to increase the memory limit.)

Update 2: OK.. so I've lowered the GPU to 950Mhz, and finally got the ram showing as 870Mhz. However, the limit is showing as 870, but I want to push it further... how do I unlock more potential please?

Update 3: So I enabled enabled overdrive on the discrete card, and then in the bios set it to be the primary card. Now when selecting dual graphics, overdrive still shows up. Great. Now to see if it works in this configuration.

Ok... so running both iGPU and GPU at 960Mhz, but memory on the GPU is much slower (870 vs 1200Mhz). Benchmarks are definitely improved scores and framerate.

GPU-Z:
HD7750
h5t.png


7850K R7 APU (iGPU)
fy4.png


Note that I'm also running my CPU at 4.4Ghz with throttling disabled, so no dropping to 3Ghz (Do this via software so when the powerstates change, you just keep it at the same overclock).

Update 4: Not really sure if Planetside 2 is the best example to use with crossfire, seemed to do ok though. Heaven 3 scores went from 630 using just the GPU to 1224 to using iGPU and GPU together (1680*1050, 16x AF, no AA, normal tessellation). Will need to fiddle around with it more, really want to get my memory speeds on the GPU up though.

Update 5: You know what I think it is... when in dual graphics mode, I think you have to select the desktop you want to show... and it was on my 2nd monitor which I assume is running from the APU rather than the GPU. When I swapped to the other desktop the overdrive option appeared again.
 
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One thing I noticed last night was there was noticeable stuttering in PS2 last night. It was pausing momentarily every second or so. Extremely annoying. I don't remember it being like that the first time I tried it. I have changed a few things, like manually selecting a planetside2.exe profile, and making the discrete card the primary one rather than the APU.
 
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ALXAndy said:
Can you enable Frame Pacing with that set up? it's critical in some games for preventing stutter.
Click to expand...

Hmm.. it 'was' enabled I'm pretty sure previously.. I wonder if I did something to disable it. Thanks ALXAndy, I'll look tonight.

I will need to work out how to raise my max memory limit for my 7750 though, I'm sure it's holding the discrete card back.
 
pandem0nium said:
Fair play, the 7750 is a faster card than the other cards you can run in dual graphics mode.

Theres a checkbox in afterburner options that should allow you to extend the official overclocking limits. Or you could use vbe7 to edit and re-flash the bios of the card.
Click to expand...

Already tried extending the limits in afterburner, and it only extended the core, not the memory :-( (That was only with a check box though)

I haven't heard of vbe7 before though...

EDIT: Sapphire TRIXX seems to allow me to go beyond 870mhz on the memory :-)

Edit 2: frame pacing was enabled.
 
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After trying for a while... at present (and to be fair I don't know what I'm doing) dual graphics in Planetside 2 is a really bad experience. It just isn't fluid. It actually makes playing the game extremely difficult and not enjoyable. I think the crossfire just isn't working as expected in this game.

I tried out the single 7750 2GB ddr3 overclocked to 960mhz/870 and it was a far more satisfying experience, the FPS was much more steady and the game was relatively fluid. Will try just the APU tomorrow maybe.
 
Makes you wonder what the hell is the point of it, if it's unable to be reasonably playable? The FPS is fine, just totally stuttery. Turning off frame pacing makes it worse, but even with it on it's bad. I have my APU hard set to 4400Mhz, so it isn't the APU clock that is causing it.
 
Reading around, it seems crossfire in general sucks on ps2.

I will try some other games and see if it stutters.
 
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So... I haven't really done any tinkering with this since my disappointment with PS2 (which seems to be for everyone with multi-card setups... not just me), but this morning I quickly tried Defiance MMO just to see how it would run. I was only looking for stuttering and non-smooth frames, but it worked fine from what I saw in a couple of minutes. I will try more later after work.

The graphics settings in that game are very limited it seems, but I would really like to try and up the quality of the graphics to push the crossfire setup a little.
 
I was playing around a little bit with this setup, and used afterburner monitoring to show me the clock speeds and load etc, whilst in game (I was using 'Defiance' MMO).

I found that I was either getting intense flickering, one gpu was not being utilized, even though on, or a combination of both. I tried various setups but I couldn't get it to use the 2nd gpu properly.

I suspect what is happening is that for some reason it doesn't use the 2nd gpu, so it gets confused. When I did get it working (but with unusable flickering), there was around a 20% frame rate increase and it 'seemed' smooth to play. This game is not designed to work with crossfire from what I can tell.

So from that, I'm assuming that planetside 2 does the same sort of thing, and is running the second gpu at a stupidly low freq and it shows up as hitching/stuttering. I will verify this though.
 
Thanks for that info, I have however already read that :)

Was there something you were trying to convey with that info? :)
 
But I just like polishing turds...or at least sprinkling glitter on them.

I know. I only bought it for a laugh, I didn't expect it to work well...but then got caught up in trying to make it work.
 
darket said:
The thing is that it never did work, its not a software problem but a hardware problem. It works in synthetic benchmarks but thats about it. Think of it as trying to make a F1 car faster by pushing it with a ford fiesta.
Click to expand...

To be fair, the APU and GPU were reasonably well matched, not a slow ass apu with a fast as hell GPU.
 
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