[Cyclops]

It's the Gigabyte 7970 OC. Stock clocks were 1000/1375. Flashed it with a BIOS from TPU to 1100/1500 and it seemed to work fine. I tried stress testing it with Unigine Valley 1.0 and Heaven 4.0 and I noticed that after a few minutes of running either benchmarks, the card starts to downclock significantly.

It starts out at 1100 MHz then keeps fluctuating all the way down to 700-ish MHz and keep going up and down. I don't know what causes this and it is seriously frustrating. I put a couple of fans around the card and ramped up the GPU's fans to 100% but it didn't change anything. Max temps I saw was 55C which is super chilly and not relevant to the downclocking.

What's going on?

 

[sherlock]

It is probably downclocking because it is not getting enough voltage. I would fireup GPU-Z and check your TDP & VDDC during benchmark runs.

Those Gigabyte 7970 are voltage locked and Bios flash might not fix it.

 

[Cyclops]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sherlock

It is probably downclocking because it is not getting enough voltage. I would fireup GPU-Z and check your TDP & VDDC during benchmark runs.

Those Gigabyte 7970 are voltage locked and Bios flash might not fix it.

Well I checked with GPU-Z and the voltage is a solid 1.256v which I don't think is the issue. I hate the locked voltage.

 

[zulk]

The sensors might be wrong if you are using after burner for readouts, also try increasing the powertune to 20%.

 

[Bal3Wolf]

Have you tried putting powerlimit to +20 that might fix it.

 

[Cyclops]

Alright, I'll try the powertune option and report back.

 

[Just a nickname]

+5%-+10% should be enough.

 

[sugarhell]

Probably you will need to revert to your default bios if the power target dont work

 

[Cyclops]

Changing the power limit did the trick. Thanks folks. It now runs at a solid 1100 Mhz core.

 

[deathmake317]

first off CYCLOPS HAVNT TALKED TO U IN A WHILE YOUR NEVER ON STEAM ANYMORE

second when I overclocked my 7970 I had the same problem it fixed it self by going into catalyst and 20% boost voltage

 

[spinejam]

What revision is your 7970 and what bios are you running? I have a rev. 2.0 (F40 bios) and it's voltage locked as well.

 

[Cyclops]

Quote:

Originally Posted by deathmake317

first off CYCLOPS HAVNT TALKED TO U IN A WHILE YOUR NEVER ON STEAM ANYMORE

second when I overclocked my 7970 I had the same problem it fixed it self by going into catalyst and 20% boost voltage

Hey, my steam got messed up or hacked or something and I lost all my contacts. It's back on now for whatevers worth.
Quote:

Originally Posted by spinejam

What revision is your 7970 and what bios are you running? I have a rev. 2.0 (F40 bios) and it's voltage locked as well.

Model name is: GV-R797OC-3GD and it's rev 2.1. Voltage is also locked on mine and I don't know how to unlock it. Don't think it's possible at this point in time.

PS:

On a different note, I noticed that everytime I restart the computer, the CCC reset the power limit back to it's default 100%. I couldn't find a way to make it permanent.

 

[deathmake317]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyclops

Hey, my steam got messed up or hacked or something and I lost all my contacts. It's back on now for whatevers worth.

I sent you a friend request on steam and the reason its going back to 100% is a bad driver completely remove the driver with that ati cleaner program and download the newest beta I had the same problem on my 6950 where the catalyst overclock settings would reset everytime I restarted catalyst or the computer

 

[Just a nickname]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyclops

Hey, my steam got messed up or hacked or something and I lost all my contacts. It's back on now for whatevers worth.
Model name is: GV-R797OC-3GD and it's rev 2.1. Voltage is also locked on mine and I don't know how to unlock it. Don't think it's possible at this point in time.

PS:

On a different note, I noticed that everytime I restart the computer, the CCC reset the power limit back to it's default 100%. I couldn't find a way to make it permanent.

Try Trixx w/ start-up at windows boot