How to overclock a 7850 past 1050MHz?

[Piklar]

Cossfire 7850's are approx 30% faster than a single 7970 according the the few benchmarks I have seen. As costs for both systems are almost identical, and as both crossfire and sli are very reliable nowadays, it certainly makes sense

Specs
Transistors: 2.8bn x2 (5.6bn) vs 4.31bn
Stream Processors: 1024 x2 (2048) vs 2048 - tie
ROP's: 32 x2 (64) vs 32 - 7850 win
Texture Units: 64 x2 (128) vs 128 - tie
Memory: 2GB x2 (duplicated 2GB) vs 3GB - 7970 win
Memory Bus: 256bits x2 (512bits) vs 384bits - 7850 win
Memory Bandwidth: 153.6Gbits x2 (307.2Gbits) vs 264Gbits - 7850 win
Power Consumption Max: 130W x2 (260W) vs 250W - 7970 slight win
Power Consumption Idle: 14W + 3W ZeroCore power (17W) vs 19W - 7850 slight win

There are however several good reasons to opt for a 7970. For multi-monitor setups the extra 1GB DDR5 may eventually come in handy. Also, some mobo's and cases can only handle a single card.

I do think that for the vast majority of people 2x 7850's will be a superior solution to the 7970 and the GTX680.

Cheers for taking the time to share that info, finding a review on crossfire 7850s or any decent info for that matter is a challenge! Originaly was considering the 7950 with the prospect of crossfiring down the line, the idea of 3GBs on a single card with 384bit mem bus is/was very tempting but coming from positive crossfiring experiences mixed with impatience and curiosity lead to the final choice, knowing what I/we know now Id probably have gone the non sapphire OC route as they seem to have the same OCing headroom and the only benefit is perhaps slightly added resale value when upgrade time comes around again.
Even @5760 x 1080 these things put out ridiculously good FPS.
I just remembered! have had 1 issue with what appeared to be micro stuttering while playing Skyrim however since switching from 1920x1080 to 5760x1080 that seems to have dissapeared and suspect the addition of an "active displayport" resolved the issue which indicates microstuttering was not the problem afterall..
Have taken a few screenies as examples of the fps (top left corner) these cards put out in eyefinity @1150/1375 @1.176v, all games @Max settings

 

[555BUK]

Will cf with two sapphire 7850's oc'd run 3x 24" Dell mons in portrait 3600x1920 with enough grunt on BF3 or should I opt for a future proof setup and go 7950/70 and have the spare slot for the future?

I only ask cos I have a thermalright twin 6 pin GPU psu and it will feed the CF 7850's real nice at the best bang for buck - but the upgrade path means starting again if I get th 7850's...

I doubt that a single 7970 or Crossfired 7850's will play BF3 smoothly on Ultra settings at your resolution. For me, a single 7850 just about held 60fps with a single 1920x1200 monitor on Ultra with FXAA. Even a 7970 will only provide 75fps, so expect to turn the settings down quite a bit. If you are happy with just 30fps, both should be fine.

Out of the two options, crossfired 7850's will be faster, but you will lose the upgrade path later on. However, I guess you could sell both 7850's and buy a 8970 or GTX770 or whatever at the time. As a rough performance guide, 2x7850's = 1.3x 7970's or 1.2x GTX680's.

 

[new boy]

Scroll down a bit further. It's beneath the board power line

*facepalm

Thanks mate

 

[Primey0]

Looks like I've hut my OC limit. 1250 core / 1450 mem @ 1.22V. Max temp is 65C so I don't dare increase the voltage any more. I think I could push the memory a little further but I've seen hardly any increase in performance by increasing the memory clock.

 

[Geeman1979]

I doubt that a single 7970 or Crossfired 7850's will play BF3 smoothly on Ultra settings at your resolution. For me, a single 7850 just about held 60fps with a single 1920x1200 monitor on Ultra with FXAA. Even a 7970 will only provide 75fps, so expect to turn the settings down quite a bit. If you are happy with just 30fps, both should be fine.

Out of the two options, crossfired 7850's will be faster, but you will lose the upgrade path later on. However, I guess you could sell both 7850's and buy a 8970 or GTX770 or whatever at the time. As a rough performance guide, 2x7850's = 1.3x 7970's or 1.2x GTX680's.

What clock speeds did you have the 7850 at to maintain 60fps at those settings in BF3?

 

[555BUK]

What clock speeds did you have the 7850 at to maintain 60fps at those settings in BF3?

1200/5800 did a pretty good job of holding 60fps, although there were some occasional dips into the 50's during big explosions.
Please resize image to maximum 1024 pixels wide. Thanks.

 

[Geeman1979]

1200/5800 did a pretty good job of holding 60fps, although there were some occasional dips into the 50's during big explosions.
Please resize image to maximum 1024 pixels wide. Thanks.

Was that with Anisotropic filter and Msaa applied?

 

[Freddy1765]

Finally got my card, a Sapphire non-oc. Been tinkering with it most of the day, and I got it stable at 1210/5500 with a Heaven score of 1305. It seems pretty low though, most in the thread get 1400+ at those clocks, or am I way off?

I fail at linking the Unigine score in my post, but here are my settings:

Render: direct3d11
Mode: 1920x1080 4xAA fullscreen
Shaders: high
Textures: high
Filter: trilinear
Anisotropy: 4x
Occlusion: enabled
Refraction: enabled
Volumetric: enabled
Tessellation: normal

Unigine also reports Intel(R) HD Graphics Family 8.15.10.2418 5Mb as the GPU model, bit odd..

 

[555BUK]

Was that with Anisotropic filter and Msaa applied?

I believe 16xAF but no MSAA. I used FXAA = High (Post Processing) instead of MSAA because it provides pretty similar visuals, but at a much lower hit to performance. FXAA = High is supposedly equivelent to 4-8xMSAA (I think closer to 4x in reality).

 

[555BUK]

Looks like I've hut my OC limit. 1250 core / 1450 mem @ 1.22V. Max temp is 65C so I don't dare increase the voltage any more. I think I could push the memory a little further but I've seen hardly any increase in performance by increasing the memory clock.

At first I thought your score was very low, but then I saw you use 8xAA and 16x AF.

The usual settings for Heaven runs are:-
1920x1080
MSAA = 4x
AF = 4x
Tesselation = Normal
All other settings at default.

That should provide ~56fps.

 

[Geeman1979]

I believe 16xAF but no MSAA. I used FXAA = High (Post Processing) instead of MSAA because it provides pretty similar visuals, but at a much lower hit to performance. FXAA = High is supposedly equivelent to 4-8xMSAA (I think closer to 4x in reality).

Ok cheers! Will be recommending one of these cards to a freind of mine as the price seems good for the performance you get.

 

[Freddy1765]

Using Trixx my scores are really low (1300ish) at 1200/5500.
It also resets core to 860 when i reboot my computer.

 

[Ion Sights]

Hi guys, love this thread you guys are awesome, special thanks to Hex (cos he is also from Huddersfield )
I just bought an MSI TF II 7850. I’m really impressed by the temps for far. Even with a mild overclock without unlocking the voltage.. yet (I get low 60’s under load + mid/high 20’s idle)

Well it seems at stock volt my card is doing very well so far as expected:
1050(Core)/1450(Mem)@ 1.138v (stock volts) and very stable in BF3

But to increase and unlock the voltage do I need to install the ASUS Tweaktool or Can I use MSI Afterburner?
Also what settings and how long should I run the 2 main benchmarks to determine good stability.

Many thanks

 

[wazza300]

Hi guys, love this thread you guys are awesome, special thanks to Hex (cos he is also from Huddersfield )
I just bought an MSI TF II 7850. I’m really impressed by the temps for far. Even with a mild overclock without unlocking the voltage.. yet (I get low 60’s under load + mid/high 20’s idle)

Well it seems at stock volt my card is doing very well so far as expected:
1050(Core)/1450(Mem)@ 1.138v (stock volts) and very stable in BF3

But to increase and unlock the voltage do I need to install the ASUS Tweaktool or Can I use MSI Afterburner?
Also what settings and how long should I run the 2 main benchmarks to determine good stability.

Many thanks

use asus tool,msi afterburner didnt work for me,good test is stalker call of pripyat,i played that for only few minutes and it locked up with gpu at same settings as you have,stable in all other games,cured it by lowering mem clocks to 1375mhz

 

[Primey0]

At first I thought your score was very low, but then I saw you use 8xAA and 16x AF.

The usual settings for Heaven runs are:-
1920x1080
MSAA = 4x
AF = 4x
Tesselation = Normal
All other settings at default.

That should provide ~56fps.

So be it

 

[Jschatt]

*facepalm

Thanks mate

If it makes you feel better, I did the same thing. Thanks RevBillyG

 

[RevBillyG]

's ok so did I at first

 

[Dragonfire01]

Got myself a Sapphire (non-oc) two weeks ago, been following this thread for a while... Got mine to 1140-1375 stable on stock voltage (1138v).

I know it can do better, but I'm a little concerned about overvolting. Does it actually shorten the life of the GPU?
I want to be very careful with this card, don't want it to explode you see
So is overvolting up to 1.2 volt safe?

 

[Freddy1765]

My Sapphire non-oc came with 1.21 stock voltage, so you can easily crank it up to that.

On a different note, I could really use some feedback on this heaven score; its way too low for 1200/5500 as far as i can tell. Using Trixx, board power limit at +20, 2500k at 4.0.

 

[Ion Sights]

Yeah I looked in the options and ticked the 2 volt boxes, but nothing happened, well I might give asus a go. Come on MSI get with the times.