How to overclock a 7850 past 1050MHz?

555BUK · 5 Apr 2012 at 20:56

RavenXXX2 said:
What temps you getting at max overclocks and are you setting manual fan speeds, if not does fan get loud.

Late 70's for 24/7 clocks on auto fan setting. The fan really is conservative on reference 7850's, keeping things very quiet.

This card is actually part of a system being built for a mate. I generally prefer NVidia, but this has been the best overclocking fun I have had in many years

. No driver issues with it so far (1.5 days and counting).

edit: After playing BF3 on Ultra, temps rose above 80. Looks like I need to create a custom fan profile to maintain 1200 core at sub 80 degrees on a reference cooler.

madteamkiller · 5 Apr 2012 at 21:06

I just purchased one of these thanks to you 555BUK.

Masterdeadly · 5 Apr 2012 at 21:14

555BUK you recommend a 7850 then?

555BUK · 5 Apr 2012 at 21:33

Masterdeadly said:
555BUK you recommend a 7850 then?

Seiously, the 7850 is the best bang AMD card since the 5850. It is probably also the best overclocking card ever. Even though I generally prefer NVidia, I can see this is an exteremely good card which will play anything at 1080/1200P once overclocked a bit. Even with the 1050MHz limitation it was much better than I expected. At 1200-1300MHz it is pretty awesome. The 680 in my main system is faster, but I'm damned if I can notice much different at 1200P whilst playing real games.

IMHO, the 7850 is the best value gaming card available today. Fast enough at stock, cool, quiet, almost reasonably priced, and overclocks like a champ. If it didn't have an AMD label on it, I would get one or two for myself

.

rolypolyman · 5 Apr 2012 at 21:37

This card is looking epic, makes the 570 look very expensive

Masterdeadly · 5 Apr 2012 at 21:38

Can you go on BF3 for me? with the stable overclock ? at 1920x1080 - (1200/5800) and tell me the outcome please?

555BUK · 5 Apr 2012 at 21:43

Masterdeadly said:
Can you go on BF3 for me? with the stable overclock ? at 1920x1080 - (1200/5800) and tell me the outcome please?

I'll try and load BF3 up later. This is a new system build, so not much on it other than Heaven, 3DMark and a few games (F1 2011, Supreme Commander, Metro) so far.

Masterdeadly · 5 Apr 2012 at 21:44

Ok mate

555BUK · 5 Apr 2012 at 22:56

Okay, just loaded up BF3 and played BF3 for 20mins on Ultra with High FSAA. With VSync on framerates stayed mostly at 60fps (indoor and outdoor), with occasional dips into the 50's. FSAA us definatly much better than MSAA, which takes a noticeable hit, and drags fps down to mid 40's in outdoor scenes. This was at 1920x1200, so 1080P should hold 60fps very well with FXAA (post processing) enabled instead of MSAA (I see very little difference between them).

One thing I did notice was that after 20mins my temps had reched 82degrees. I think need to add a custom fan profile.

So, don't expect 60fps all of the timewith this card, but it gets pretty close and if you are willing to turn a couple of settings down it will be great at 1200MHz core.

Masterdeadly · 5 Apr 2012 at 23:08

Can you try it with a new fan profile ?

shadow_boxer · 5 Apr 2012 at 23:18

Great work chaps. These cards look great value for money.

555BUK · 5 Apr 2012 at 23:26

Masterdeadly said:
Can you try it with a new fan profile ?

This profile keeps the temps in the mid 70's, but it is not silent, and I do not like the way GPU Tweak has steps, rather than a gradual hill to bump up the fan. Unlike Afterburner, you can notice the fan ramping up once it gets above 45%.

My 7850 is installed within an ITX Sugo case so airflow is poor. Auto cooling may be perfectly fine for most ATX and MATX cases. I am very picky about noise and heat.

two00lbwaster · 5 Apr 2012 at 23:38

I have sent an enote to change my preorder of an HD6950 2GB to one of these. I was planning on BIOS flashing the HD6950, but this looks like a better deal (I was a little miffed about not being able to get DX11.1 support in my desired price/performance range.)

Hopefully OCUK will be happy to take another tenner off of me and change the order

RavenXXX2 · 5 Apr 2012 at 23:42

Good move, I mean a stock 7850 is not far off a 6970 but uses way less power and overclocks like a beast, it's a no brainer to go with one.

555BUK · 6 Apr 2012 at 00:03

7850 is defo the sub £200 card to get. At stock the 6970 is 5-10% faster, but the 7850 overclocks by >40% and you'll be lucky to get 10% more out of the 6970. As this is an overclockers forums, there are very few here who would argue that the 7850 isn't better.

Jarrod · 6 Apr 2012 at 02:46

Got myne at 1150mhz core, 5600mhz memory, 1.15v, but this is in crossfire, if I try more the computer just turns off. I'll keep trying but ya, maybe the heat between the close cards is causing this.

Ok so highest I can get it to 1165, 5600mhz memory tops, I'll try again when I have some more time

.
3DMARK11 P score:
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3128422;jsessionid=279ungkeq4bv1ddsqgbmfka60

HeX · 6 Apr 2012 at 06:29

If its just turning off when you OC then you have power issues, your cards are pulling too much and your PSU's OVP is kicking in and killing the power. What PSU are you running?

Jarrod · 6 Apr 2012 at 07:01

Ok well once it just turned off, but the rest of the times, the screen froze, then they went black, then I had to reset the computer. I'm running a 750W psu, don't remember the brand specifically, it's a decent brand though.

I think it might be heat, as they are right next to eachother

.

psychodil · 6 Apr 2012 at 08:02

Actually the graphics scores are very similar to the stock gtx 580 scores in your 3dmark compare, the pbysics score and combined score is wbat makes the 7850 score higher. Would be interested in some overclocked 7850 vs some overclocked gtx 570/580 game benches if anyone has them. Great card, but the 7950 id still the overclocking champ due to lower stock clocks.

two00lbwaster · 6 Apr 2012 at 08:54

Awesome Overclockers, (thank you Tanith), I've just checked and they have changed my order to the VTX3D HD7850 2GB.

I'm planning on displaying in Eyefinity, so I'll be giving this a good overclock so I can keep a high preset across three screens. I'll be replacing two GTX260s which barely give me reasonable FPS on low settings at 1920x1080.