It seems you have a poor overclocker then. I had one exactly the same, but even at 1000MHz these cards are great.
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How to overclock a 7850 past 1050MHz?
- Thread starter 555BUK
- Start date
Somewhere between 1050-1100core / 1200mem should do it.
Here you go. 7870 @ Stock 1000/1200, 1200/1375 and 1340/1500.
Scaling is awesome for 7800 series cards.
Stock 1000/1200
1200/1375 - 20% GPU oc & 15% VRAM oc yields 17.5% fps boost.
1340/1500 - 34% GPU oc & 25% VRAM oc yields 28% fps boost.
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Your plan looks good. For memory, leave it at stock setting until you are sure of your stable GPU overclocks/volts. Once the GPU is sorted, start with 1375MHz (5500MHz) VRAM. This level is stable for the vast majority of 7800's. Assuming 1375MHz is stable, up the VRAM by 25MHz at a time until you notice crashes, artifacts, or Heaven scores begin to decrease (indicating too much error correction). Once you have found your stable VRAM clock, back it off by 50 MHz for 24/7 clocks.
As a very rough guide, your card should reach around 1050MHz-1100MHz GPU / 1400-1450MHz VRAM on default voltages.
Don't worry. I had one that couldn't do 1050MHz, even with 1.3v pumped through it. TBH, the performance difference between 1050MHz and 1200MHz is not noticeable in games anyway.Just tried 1175/5600 on 1210mv. BSOD as soon as Heaven started to go full screenSo took it back to 1050/5500 and that works fine. Guess voltage was too low. Will leave it for now, getting good performance anyway soo
Thanks guys,
Cam.
To add to what NZB said.
The differece between 1050 and 1200 is 14%. Making a very broad assumption that GPU perfromance represents two-thirds of the cards overall performance (the other being memory bandwidth), you may gain 9% in real world terms. This 9% will only be noticeable if the game you play dips below 60fps or maybe even 30fps. Most of the games I played at 1920x1200 on my 7850 held 60fps. What I am saying is that ~9% won't really make any difference, unless you are really tight on the 60fps boundary. If this is the case you are better turning AA down a notch or one or two details down. The benefits of overclocking are noticed most within benchmarks. Within games I would struggle to tell the difference between an overclocked and a reference card.
If you are getting drops below 30fps, the only real solutions are to turn the settings down or buy a more expensive card.
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Yes. If the VRM's are pushed hard, power delivery can be inconsistend and cause rippling (high/low swings) which can cause instability. Also, higher volts create more heat, which could push the GPU over the edge of stability.
My very first card (the one I used to start this thread) did not like more than 1.225v on the sefault cooler. Anything over that would result in a crash unless I ran the fan at 100% with the case open. Once I changed the cooler to an Accelero TTII, my card was happy @ >1300MHz 1.3v. Heat (either GPU or VRM's) was definately holding me back on the stock cooler.
The GPU was not killed, but something did go wrong and now the card only works properly as the secondary card within Crossfire. For some reason there is no ouput from any of it's display ports, even though everything appears fine from BIOS and Windows. Fortunately, everything works fine within Xfire, when the display connections are hooked up to the other card.
The 1.3v ASUS bios flashed fine and was working for some time. It was when I booted up both GPU-Z and ASUS GPU Tweak, then changed some settings that the screen went blank.
As far as I am aware, all VTX (Powercolor) 7850 PCB's are reference design. The X-Edition is likely to be exactly the same apart from wearing a different fan and running a BIOS with higher than reference clock speeds.
Overclocking rarely breaks a card. Too high overclocks are much more likely to result in screem artifacts during gaming or system crashes, which recover after restart.
Perhaps you can tell me which overclocking programs you were running when your card failed. You symptoms sound very similar to my first card which simply "blacked-out" when running GPUZ and Asus GPU Tweak, and making setting changes at the same time.
I suggest using just one tool at a time when overclocking. I thought that a combination of CPUZ+GPU Tool+making OC changes may have baulked my card, but now that you have had a very similar issue it looks even more likely.thanks for the reply, well you are correct i was the GPUZ and Asus GPU Tweak i was using when this happened as i was trying to get the same results as you, so when i get my replacement should i try again or what should i do so it does not break again. i am a bit scared to overclock now.
In the end that is why I moved away from GPU tweak and use Sapphire Trixx instead.
Sadly there is no guarantee for whatever model you buy. No manufaturer has been proven to be better or worse than any other in terms of GPU overclocks. They all use whichever GPU AMD sends them (no cherry picking), so getting a good one is complete lucky dip. The only thing you achieve by picking one model over another is getting a better or worse cooler (noise/heat) or a longer warantee.
My best clocking 7850 was a bog standard reference card. My worst was the most expensive (an MSI TFIII). It is all pot luck.
No.
As long as you keep temps below 85deg and you have tested the clocks as stable, there is no reason not to overclock. AMD's own drivers allow overclocks within CCC, so they also believe it safe.
7850's tend to run very cool so give it a try before buying a third party cooler. 1GB cards should clock just as well as the 2GB versions.Hi all. Found this forum/thread in the vast internet with a little help from google and promptly registered since I am trying to venture in the OC territory myself.
After all these positive reactions to the 7850 I decided to order one myself. I got the MSI 7850 1GB model (was about €30.- cheaper here than the 2GB one and should suffice for 1080p gaming according to various reviews).
I haven't found much info here on how the 1GB model fares when it comes to OC but I guess it should be fine too. The only thing I am worried is the temperature since the MSI 1GB model only has one fan and my PC is pretty hot (eg my Asus 5770 runs at 55°C idle and up to 93°C on load and my i5 2500 stock runs at about 42°C idle). I have ordered some case fans now. You think that should be enough or should I bother with a new GPU cooler for the MSI 7850 1GB.
Thank you
OC'ing cards within Xfire can be tricky, and cards never overclock as well as they would individually (at least not in my experience). In regards to your other questions, always run both cards in sync and disable ULPS if possible. You can also test the cards individually using Afterburner, Trixx, GPUTweak etc to confirm that they both have unlockable voltage, and how far they overclock. It may be that one card is voltage locked or overclocks poorly, or that each card uses different voltage controllers which confuse the overclocking software and result in no control. 1050MHz is pretty good for a dual card setup on stock volts, so don't be upset.
RIP 7850
For a time I had the fastest air-cooled 7800 in the world, benchable @ 1400MHz core. Today I found it lying wet and rusted within a pile of soaked boxes in my garage.
Best card I ever owned, and much more fun than anything currently available. 1300-1400MHz on air was pretty rare two-and-a-half years ago.
For a time I had the fastest air-cooled 7800 in the world, benchable @ 1400MHz core. Today I found it lying wet and rusted within a pile of soaked boxes in my garage.
Best card I ever owned, and much more fun than anything currently available. 1300-1400MHz on air was pretty rare two-and-a-half years ago.