Overclocking my Vapor-X 7970

1150 Views 13 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Ganelon, Feb 24, 2013

Ganelon

Discussion Starter · Feb 22, 2013

Hello everyone!

First of all I`d just like to say that I`m new to OCN and I just finished building my first rig (the one in my signature). I played around for a bit with my GPU, and found out that I`m able to run it at 1225MHz, and that at that clock speed it passes the Valley and Heaven benchmarks. I haven`t touched mem clocks or voltages yet (those are at 1500MHz and 1.256V). The temps I`m getting are around 60C for the GPU and 40C for the VRMs (according to GPUz). If I try to go over 1225MHz, I start to get artifacts and/or crashes while running those benchmarks.

What do you guys think? Are those `typical` values for this card at stock voltage? Are the benchmarks a good indication of stability, or should I be running other tests? In that case, which ones?

I might start playing around with voltages in a few days, but for now I can`t really say if I`m happy with the performance I`m getting in games. Well, I am happy, but I haven`t bought a new monitor yet (it will most likely be a 27 1440p IPS), so once I get that I will probably rethink how I feel about the card`s performance. For now, running a 1080p monitor I`m happy with the card even at stock speeds

.

Another thing, do you recommend I make a custom profile with the 1225MHz and use that just for games, or should I be ok running it like that all of time since I haven`t touched voltages (yet)?

Any comments or advice would be appreciated!

Save

1 - 14 of 14 Posts

glina

· #2 · Feb 22, 2013

These temps are too good to be true, unless you're in SIberia - check if your card isn't throttling. Did you increase the power limit to +20%?

If you are indeed getting 1225MHz with 1.25V, you probably can reach about 1275MHz with 1.30V (the max you can set in Trixx 4.6.0).
There's a modded version of Trixx which allows to set the voltage up to 1.38V, but I'm not sure if this is something you want to do on air and without additional VRM cooling.

Save

jerrolds

· #3 · Feb 22, 2013

Ya 60C max at 1225 core? That only happens on low demanding games like Starcraft for me....runing Crysis 2 my Matrix hits 65C at 1240mhz core pretty quick and maxes around 70C - and thats with fan speed set to 60%.

I use different profiles depending on the game, older games run stock obviously - maybe even downclocked/undervolted. Easy enough to switch between them.

Save

Ganelon

Discussion Starter · #4 · Feb 23, 2013

Well, as I said I`m completely new to overclocking, so I might very well be doing something wrong, or not reading some values correctly.

What I did right now was set GPU clock to 1225MHz, mem clock to 1500MHz , voltage to 1256mV and power to +20% with Trixx. I then ran the Valley benchmark and the GPU temp went up to about 63C while the VRM temps stayed at about 60C. The score was 1782. On my previous runs I`m really not sure I set the power to +20%. I don`t think my card is throttling, at least as far as I understand what throttling is. Looking at GPU-Z I see my clock speed at a constant 1225MHz during the benchmark.

Save

raghu78

· #5 · Feb 23, 2013

your temps are very good. you could play safe and put the core clocks to 1200 mhz and check games like bf3, crysis 3, farcry 3 for complete stability. if you want you can push for 1300 mhz with voltage tweaking. try for 1250 mhz and then 1300 mhz at 1.275v . make sure core temps are below 70c and VRM temps below 90c. my advice would be for long term stability leave it at 1200 mhz and stock voltage . good luck.

Save

Luke133

· #6 · Feb 23, 2013

Run furmark on 1080 burn in test set your gpuz to record highest temps on vram and gpu core. My saphire 7970 ghz passed heaven no problem on 1200/ 1600 at 1.256 but started showing artifact son the furmark burnin test ive read a few other caes of this as well so its worth a go.

Save

raghu78

· #7 · Feb 23, 2013

furmark is useless. its a workload scenario you will never come across in a game or benchmark. most of the time furmark artifacts because it pushes the chip to its thermal limits . the cooling solution can't maintain lower temps as it would in games / benchmarks. using benchmarks like heaven 4.0 / 3.0, 3d mark 2013, unigine valley 1.0 and games like bf3, farcry 3, crysis 3 is the best option for overclock stability testing .

furmark is not a problem at all when you watercool but for air cooled cards its not a good test.

Save

glina

· #8 · Feb 23, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by raghu78

. my advice would be for long term stability leave it at 1200 mhz and stock voltage . good luck.

Save

Luke133

· #9 · Feb 23, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by raghu78

furmark is useless. its a workload scenario you will never come across in a game or benchmark. most of the time furmark artifacts because it pushes the chip to its thermal limits . the cooling solution can't maintain lower temps as it would in games / benchmarks. using benchmarks like heaven 4.0 / 3.0, 3d mark 2013, unigine valley 1.0 and games like bf3, farcry 3, crysis 3 is the best option for overclock stability testing .

furmark is not a problem at all when you watercool but for air cooled cards its not a good test.

Ok back to the drawing board hopefully i can get my 1200/1600 back

Save

Derpinheimer

· #10 · Feb 23, 2013

Thats a bit low for a non-reference 7970, but nothing to scoff at. Maybe try 1.275V and see if it gets you anywhere? Or are you voltage locked?

How about the memory voltage? 1600 would be very low for a 7970 AFAIK. All 7970s ship with at least [?] 1500MHz on memory, so they get the quality Hynix stuff. The 7950s @ 1250MHz get the bad samples. So if you're only getting a 100MHz oc on the memory thats a tad disappointing. Just make sure its at 1.6v and not 1.5v

Save

Ganelon

Discussion Starter · #11 · Feb 23, 2013

Well, so far I`m up to 1225MHz core and 1675MHz on the memory clock at stock voltage (1.256V). That gets me a score of 1813 on Valley. Increasing the voltage to 1.3V, I went up to 1235 core, but then the GPU temperature went up to 69C and the mem temps to 72C. I think I`ll just run my card at stock clocks for a while, and if I ever feel I need the extra power I`ll up it to the stable clocks at stock voltage.

At least I have an idea of what my card can do. Thanks guys.

Save

Luke133

· #12 · Feb 24, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derpinheimer

Thats a bit low for a non-reference 7970, but nothing to scoff at. Maybe try 1.275V and see if it gets you anywhere? Or are you voltage locked?

How about the memory voltage? 1600 would be very low for a 7970 AFAIK. All 7970s ship with at least [?] 1500MHz on memory, so they get the quality Hynix stuff. The 7950s @ 1250MHz get the bad samples. So if you're only getting a 100MHz oc on the memory thats a tad disappointing. Just make sure its at 1.6v and not 1.5v

Well currently im away offshore at work so i cant do anything before i left ; i thought my voltage was locked at 1.256 but ive had a read on forums and it seems that if you delete the ome file in AB you can edit the voltage.Hopefully that works

Also i was at first testing for artifacts in Heaven (cant remember what version the one with the floating ship and islands) i had good results and got to 1200/1600 quickly with no artifacts on stock voltage (1.256 thats pretty high for stock) i then tried Furmark and got some artifacts raghu78 says to ignore and bench with other software that so maybe ive got 1200/1600 on 1.256. I will have to wait for a another two and a half weeks until i get back from work and can overclock it again.

Save

Luke133

· #13 · Feb 24, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ganelon

Well, so far I`m up to 1225MHz core and 1675MHz on the memory clock at stock voltage (1.256V). That gets me a score of 1813 on Valley. Increasing the voltage to 1.3V, I went up to 1235 core, but then the GPU temperature went up to 69C and the mem temps to 72C. I think I`ll just run my card at stock clocks for a while, and if I ever feel I need the extra power I`ll up it to the stable clocks at stock voltage.

At least I have an idea of what my card can do. Thanks guys.

Is the you card the double 8 pin version ?

Save

Ganelon

Discussion Starter · #14 · Feb 24, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luke133

Is the you card the double 8 pin version ?

Yes

Save

1 - 14 of 14 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.

Top Contributors this Month