Possible DSR

[uksoldierboy]

Hiya guys,
Recently bought a B Grade Sapphire 7970 OC, had it delivered on Friday and everything seemed ok.
Been having a go and overclocking it using battlefield 3 to test for stability and found that 1150/1550 was my max i could get on stock volts, adding any sort of volts would result in crazy artifacts.
I settled for this but recently battlefield 3 has started crashing (Screen would just go black and require a hard reset)
At first i thought that maybe my cpu overclock was the cause, so i put it all back to stock (3.6) and tried again, everything seemed ok until playing again this morning and i'm still getting crashes.
Anyone got any suggestions?
Beginning to think it's the card at fault, tempted to DSR it and pay the extra for a new one.
Thanks for any help.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Could be the reason it was returned in the first place?

That's the problem with hardware, sometimes the faults are intermittent and thus not found when testing it.

Thats what i'm thinking too andy tbh, i'll test a little more today before work, if it's still the same i'll speak to Ocuk tomorrow about DSRing it.

Black sceen crashes = Slightly unstable core. Not enough to make the gpu reset itself but enough to produce a black screen. Knock 25mhz off the core overclock and try again, either that or add a notch or two of voltage. (if you can)

Thanks Matt, i'll give it a go, if that's the case though would definitely mean it's not a good clocker at all wouldn't it?

 

[uksoldierboy]

How much did you pay for it?

I mean 1150 on stock voltage is not bad I would think, and most recent 7970 are voltage locked anyway. So it's down to how cheap you got it for...

I paid £270 for it, so not that much less than a new one really.

I could only get to 1125mhz on stock volts on my XFX. I couldn't get any higher than 1150 with any voltage.

All about luck tbh.

I was really hoping for a good clocker tbh, think that's why i'm a little bit disappointed.
Just trying BF3 now @1125/1600 on stock volts.
If i was to return the card, what 7970 would have the best chance of having decent overclocking headroom?

 

[uksoldierboy]

Cheers for the comments guys,
I know i'm being a little bit stupid, the performance at stock is more than enough really, especially when i upgrade to an I5 this month, hope to see a bit difference coming from my fx4100.
Just log volts and it seems alright, going to 1.200 in 3dmode, isn't that a little high for stock volts though?

 

[uksoldierboy]

What % of GPU usage are you seeing when gaming?

Depends what game really, Bf3 ranges from 70-100%. CPU is almost always at 100%

IS this your card? - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-297-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938

I take it yours must be a Ghz edition card with a default voltage of 1.25, but what you are seeing is vdroop. I assume this as you say you haven't touched the voltage.

Al ghz edition cards have a excessively high stock voltage of 1.25, to ensure they all meet the required core speed. On a stock/reference card the highest stock voltage you would see is 1.175 and thats on a high leakage low asic card.

Yeah that's the card Matt, although the stock volts are much different i think
Here's a pic

No matter what bios i enable( 1st or 2nd) the stock volts are set at 1.200, or am i reading it wrong, forgive me if thats the case.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Rgr that tommy i'll try now.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Just had a little go on bf3 to test and it's @1.248, is this good or bad?

 

[uksoldierboy]

Tried what you said tommy, been testing/benchmarking all morning pretty much but nothings worked.
Card crashes after 30 mins even at bios 2 settings now (1000/1450) on BF3.
ASIC rating is 66.6% maybe this has something to do with it?
Regardless i think i'm going to DSR the card and put the extra towards either this:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-097-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938
Or
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-311-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938
Probably the Gigabyte due to the good rma.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Cheers tommy, I'd prefer something that isn't voltage locked tbh.
I was thinking about downgrading to the 7950, but i do like to bench and with upgrading to I5 this month i think i'll stick with a 7970.
Just hope i get a good one.
Really appreciate the help pal thanks again.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Oh i will