Possible DSR

uksoldierboy · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:12

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.

ALXAndy · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:20

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.

LtMatt · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:52

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)

uksoldierboy · 27 Jan 2013 at 16:57

ALXAndy said:
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.

LtMatt said:
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?

Marine-RX179 · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:34

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...

ALXAndy · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:38

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.

uksoldierboy · 27 Jan 2013 at 17:49

Marine-RX179 said:
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.

ALXAndy said:
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?

Diagro · 27 Jan 2013 at 18:00

Only ever do 1100/1600 on my dcII...

Dont need more power

tommybhoy · 27 Jan 2013 at 18:16

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

Even though you went the cheap route, your not happy because you can't get 1150MHz stable@stock?

1050/1100MHz@stock will look exactly the same as 1150/1200MHz outwith benchmarks.

When you add return postage(as the card works@stock, you pay for it ~£15), it starts mounting up, for the performance your expecting, you are looking at Lightnings/Matrix priced northwards of £400, which might top out at 1150 too.

There is a chance AB didn't add voltage, grab Trixx and run gpu-z and check the log files to make sure.

ALXAndy · 27 Jan 2013 at 18:25

tommybhoy said:
Even though you went the cheap route, your not happy because you can't get 1150MHz stable@stock?

1050/1100MHz@stock will look exactly the same as 1150/1200MHz outwith benchmarks.

When you add return postage(as the card works@stock, you pay for it ~£15), it starts mounting up, for the performance your expecting, you are looking at Lightnings/Matrix priced northwards of £400, which might top out at 1150 too.

There is a chance AB didn't add voltage, grab Trixx and run gpu-z and check the log files to make sure.

^ that. I did get mine stable at 1125 IIRC and it would go higher but only for benchmarks. Games would bomb.

In the real world in games it will make no difference, though arguably going from 925 to 1125 did.

Mine sucked, but that's the way of the world unfortunately.

LtMatt · 27 Jan 2013 at 18:49

uksoldierboy said:
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?

Depends how it reacts to voltage. In my opinion if you can reach 1100 without touching voltage you have a good but not great clocker. I can reach 1125 before i need to add voltage but i can go as high as 1275. Your mileage may vary.

uksoldierboy · 27 Jan 2013 at 19:15

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?

Space Monkey · 27 Jan 2013 at 20:23

What % of GPU usage are you seeing when gaming?

LtMatt · 27 Jan 2013 at 20:32

uksoldierboy said:
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?

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.

uksoldierboy · 27 Jan 2013 at 21:26

Space Monkey said:
What % of GPU usage are you seeing when gaming?

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

LtMatt said:
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 :confused:

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.

tommybhoy · 27 Jan 2013 at 22:54

Your voltage reading is in the 'VDDC'-0.951V, do this:

Run a game/benchmark, then you'll find out what voltage the card hits.

Hope all's well andy.

uksoldierboy · 27 Jan 2013 at 23:12

Rgr that tommy i'll try now.

uksoldierboy · 27 Jan 2013 at 23:33

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

tommybhoy · 28 Jan 2013 at 00:09

uksoldierboy said:
@1.248, is this good or bad?

That's where it should sit on GHz voltage.

First off, add some voltage through Trixx, run Bf3>exit>check if the voltage went up, if it didn't then voltage didn't stick, or you may be on a high Asic and it won't go further(I may be wrong here, just a thought).

If it did stick, then you may/not get higher clocks.

Forget games if you want to find what's a general stable OC and get Heaven BM.

Reset the clocks, push your board power to +50, and your fan to max, then start@1100, just on the core, run Heaven, if all's fine up the core by +20, rinse and repeat until you get artifacts in Heaven.

Then reset,+50, max fan and start your vram to find the limit on it.

Take your time when OC'ing, most just rush in and up everything and cross their fingers.

Also note that the bm results you see in the threads are often done on the very limits of stability, some remove case panels, sit bowls of ice under the gpu and use desk fans when they do suicide runs, which isn't idicative at all on what their gpu's will be clocked at 24/7 for stability.

BF3 is a nightmare as it isn't the most stable game, also note that when your approaching max OC, what is stable in one title isn't going to be stable in high demanding titles.

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

uksoldierboy · 28 Jan 2013 at 10:23

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.