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Newbie! 7950 Overclocking questions

chillisteak

chillisteak

chillisteak

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Joined
23 May 2013
Posts
22
Ok I'm looking at Overclocking my Gigabyte 7950, as I've heard these cards can run at 7970 speeds.

I've never ever done any Overclocking in the past so I'm completely new to this.

So number one question is what software is best to use for this?
Currently I've downloaded OC_Guru off the Gigabyte website.
is there something better?

Also how do I test the new settings?
Is it just a case of running a game and seeing if it crashes or is there software that can place the card under load to see if it's stable?

Any other tips that can be thrown my way would be appreciated as the last thing I want to do is to fry the card.

Thanks in advance
Gav
 
chillisteak said:
Ok I'm looking at Overclocking my Gigabyte 7950, as I've heard these cards can run at 7970 speeds.

I've never ever done any Overclocking in the past so I'm completely new to this.

So number one question is what software is best to use for this?
Currently I've downloaded OC_Guru off the Gigabyte website.
is there something better?

Also how do I test the new settings?
Is it just a case of running a game and seeing if it crashes or is there software that can place the card under load to see if it's stable?

Any other tips that can be thrown my way would be appreciated as the last thing I want to do is to fry the card.

Thanks in advance
Gav
Click to expand...

I wrote a guide for AMD overclocking for such a person as yourself. It includes all the links to all the tools you'll need as well as a step by step guide of what to do. Good luck. :)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18431335
 
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Thanks for the welcome!

Rest of my spec is below


CPU: AMD Bulldozer FX-6 6100 (Overclocked to 4ghz by Overclockers)
CPU Cooler: OcUK H2Flo Extreme Liquid Dual Fan
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth 990FX
Memory: Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 16GB DDR3
PSU: OCZ ZS 650W
Network Card: Asus PCE-N15
Monitor/s: Asus VN247H 24" Super Narrow Bezel
Keyboard+Mouse: Logitech G510 + GigaByte ECO600
OS: Windows 7 x64

Um I think that's everything to it.
 
As you are overclocking 7950 to 7970 speeds, you may find your cpu bottlenecking the 7950 to some extent from achieving its maximum overclocking potential.

My Q9650@4Ghz bottlenecks my Gigabyte Windforce 3x 7950 (1000/1250Mhz) heavily and it has slightly higher IPC than Bulldozer FX
 
Ok well I can't seem to touch the voltage on this card but I now have it running

Core clock @ 1100MHz up from 1000MHz

Memory clock @ 1500Mhz up from 1250MHz

So I'm kinda Happy.

Although WingZero you said you got the Gigabyte Windfore 3x as well so I'm curious was you able to play with the voltage?
and what have you got out of the card?
 
chillisteak said:
Ok well I can't seem to touch the voltage on this card but I now have it running

Core clock @ 1100MHz up from 1000MHz

Memory clock @ 1500Mhz up from 1250MHz

So I'm kinda Happy.

Although WingZero you said you got the Gigabyte Windfore 3x as well so I'm curious was you able to play with the voltage?
and what have you got out of the card?
Click to expand...

Original GB WF 7950 cards had unlocked voltage. Newer versions come in two forms, a cheaper version with locked voltage and a more expensive version with unlocked voltage afaik.
 
chillisteak said:
Ok daft question bottlenecks?
I'm guessing that means slows the GPU down some how, but like I said new to this so how would I know if it's is doing that?
Click to expand...

Pretty much a bottleneck is when one component is slow relative to other parts of the system in a particular application (eg. gaming) and thus holds back the other components from reaching their full potential.

In most games, you are GPU limited rather than CPU limited, thus the GPU usage is usually 99% whereas CPU might be around 50% usage. However, as you can see, if the CPU is the 'bottleneck', overclocking the GPU will make negligible difference as the CPU is the limiting factor. In your case, the 6100 might be a bottleneck in some games, though it is best just to overclock and see if that is the case.

I personally use MSI Afterburner, just adjust the sliders and monitor temperatures and try not to go above 1.2V ish on the GPU. I like to test stability with a few runs of Heaven benchmark on loop, and then play a few 64 person games of BF3 on the larger maps (Bandar desert etc.). As you increase the clockspeed, the voltage will also need to be increased to reach stability. I simply run mine at stock voltage (993mv core, 1600mv memory) at 1000MHz core, 1400MHz memory, up from 880/1250.

When overclocking memory, it helps to run benchmarks to give you a score. Memory overclocking tends to give higher scores up to the limit of stability, and then beyond that the scores start to decrease as the memory has to error correct itself (thus causing a performance hit) rather than creating artifacts/driver crashing like GPU overclocking does when you go past the stability point. GPU overclocking tends to make more of a performance impact that memory overclocking on these cards anyway, so I would focus on that primarily.
 
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chillisteak said:
Ok daft question bottlenecks?
I'm guessing that means slows the GPU down some how, but like I said new to this so how would I know if it's is doing that?
Click to expand...

Yeah, what I meant was that even if you manage to overclock your gpu nicely which you are doing, in some games you will see your gpu usage only being 60%, 70% etc, and not reaching the 99-100% usage. This would mean your setup/CPU are holding back the gpu from working to it's full potential.


chillisteak said:
Although WingZero you said you got the Gigabyte Windfore 3x as well so I'm curious was you able to play with the voltage?
and what have you got out of the card?
Click to expand...

I think it's voltage locked to 1.25V though I haven't paid full attention to it nor I have overclocked it yet. It came with 1000/1250Mhz default settings and has 8+6 pin power connectors instead of the regular 6+6 pin power connectors.

I have read on forums that those 7950s that come with 8+6 pin power connectors are basically using 7970 ref PCB. However I think it's not entirely true as there are differences between the two boards even if 7950s make use of 8+6 pin power connectors.

In Battlefield 3 (medium/high/ultra - 4xAA) my Q9650@4Ghz/ 4GB DDR2/ lga 775 rig holds back my 7950 a lot and my gpu usage varies all the way from 55% to 62% to 78% to 100% and then back to 55% etc and just repeating this cycle continuously. The gpu usage fluctuates a lot and my FPS also vary :(
 
WingZero30 said:
In Battlefield 3 (medium/high/ultra - 4xAA) my Q9650@4Ghz/ 4GB DDR2/ lga 775 rig holds back my 7950 a lot and my gpu usage varies all the way from 55% to 62% to 78% to 100% and then back to 55% etc and just repeating this cycle continuously. The gpu usage fluctuates a lot and my FPS also vary :(
Click to expand...

Looks like Haswell might be a good upgrade for you then :)
 
Ok next silly question by me, How can I tell what CPU/GPU usage is during a game?

Also thanks for all the responses so far, definitely starting to understand this a lot more now.
 
chillisteak said:
Ok next silly question by me, How can I tell what CPU/GPU usage is during a game?

Also thanks for all the responses so far, definitely starting to understand this a lot more now.
Click to expand...

CPU usage can just be seen with task manager under the performance tab. I monitor CPU temps with core temp. MSI Afterburner shows GPU usage and temperature as a graph with time.
 
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