7950 power draw at 3 different clocks

[BallaTheFeared]

Testing in Bioshock Inf (Thanks AMD!)... :awe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YArBm85FNMQ

(Total system draw)

800/1250 950mv/1500mv 177~ watts

1050/1500 1156mv/1525mv 239~ watts

1225/1675 1275mv/1600mv 310~ watts

Prime95 113w

:thumbsup:

 

[futurefields]

Hey Balla how do you get those onscreen infos?

Also what version of Cayalyst are you run?

thx

 

[BallaTheFeared]

MSI OSD, it's part of Afterburner.

13.3 - wtb new driver thou let me know if you see one!

Welcome.

 

[Xarick]

Should be one out next week.. Nvidia is also releasing one next week. YAY.

 

[hyrule4927]

What CPU do you have in that system now? Power draw is a lot lower than I would have expected. Thanks for the info!

 

[psolord]

Thanks for the info.

My locked Gigabyte 7950 WF3s do not drop nearly as much in power consumption when underclocked. See the lock goes both ways. I cannot OV nor UV. 3d mode means 1.15V for me, be it 800Mhz or 1100Mhz.

 

[Stuka87]

1: You have VSync on, turn it off.

2: What was your CPU load at? Was it at or near 100%?

My system (In sig) is closer to 420W when CPU and GPU are both at 100%. Obviously my CPU is going to use more power than your i3, but your numbers are low.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Your 7950 at 1.1175 or 1.25 like the boost models?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Your 7950 at 1.1175 or 1.25 like the boost models?

1.25 stock, but I was undervolting for 1050 and 800.

I don't use vsync either.


Here is another run, this time with total cpu usage shown as well.

960/1250 1250mv (stock) 258~ watts
960/1250 1063mv (undervolted) 212~ watts

Fan is set for 1C = 1% fan so if it's at 60C it's at 60% fan, or 45C = 45% fan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zsvCHxjgvU

If you watch the video turn sound off or bare the conversation :\


Edit: System..

i3-540 @ 3.8GHz 1.3v, Prime95 gives me 113w for cpu only.

1 1TB F3 HDD

1 Zalman 9500 spliced 3 pin to molex running 5v.

No case, no case fans

HX850

2x4GB 1600 1.5v DDR3 Cas9

 

[wand3r3r]

The power usage starts to increase quickly but the temperature was still not that much more. Solid card.

 

[Durvelle27]

upgrade that CPU bud gesh

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Indeed, waiting (forever) for Haswell though

 

[Durvelle27]

Indeed, waiting (forever) for Haswell though

:thumbsdown:


XD

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Not a chance >.<

 

[Durvelle27]

Not a chance >.<

no real performance over IVY bridge

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Power savings, AVX2, possible overclocking benefits... Plus I won't have to delid

Already had a very high clocked SB, unless I got lucky Ivy wouldn't even be a side grade. ()

Hoping for a bit more tweaking freedom, at the end of the day it's about tinkering and having fun with the hardware for me.

 

[tviceman]

Do you think you are CPU limited at all in Bioshock Infinite with the settings you are using?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Do you think you are CPU limited at all in Bioshock Infinite with the settings you are using?

I think I am in some areas, but for the most part I don't feel I'm too gimped by the processor in this title. In something like BF3 64 player though anything past 800MHz clocks is a total waste, and even that is cpu limited on the low end.

What I need are faster cores, not more (at least in this title). I'm really debating the Haswell i7 vs i5 this time, I think I'll have Bofox pick it up for me from Micro Center so that totally changes the price landscape.

The thing is if I get a Haswell i7 and undervolt it I can probably get the same level of power consumption, probably even less, and a world more performance... This i3 is dated, it's basically 2008 tech on a node shrink.

 

[tviceman]

Only reason I ask is cause if you were CPU limited, then the GPU power usage may rise when you get a faster CPU.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Did you watch either video? They show gpu usage, second shows both gpu and cpu.

There was a time when gpu usage dropped to around 77%, at which point wattage also drops off. I won't say I'm never cpu limited, that wouldn't be true but for the most part even at 1225 I'm gpu limited. At least for this title.

I get similar results in most areas of Tomb Raider (power wise), except something like Shanty Town which causes my i3 to crumble.

I'm pretty keen to spotting cpu limitations, some of this here in Bioshock could actually be I/O limitations as well as light cpu limitations. Areas with reflections will dog it badly, however I wasn't in an area where I felt the cpu was going to be a major drag on my tests.

As I said though, if you watch the second video posted at 960 it has overall cpu usage hooked into Rivatuner as well as gpu usage.

 

[24601]

The best 7950 stability/powertune limit tester seems to be litecoin mining for me.

If you can mine litecoins for 1 hour @ 24000 thread concurrency 20 intensity without problems the 7950 should be rock solid in DX11 games (AMD still sucks for DX9 and requires lower clocks because of it).

My Sapphire 7950 seems to hit the +20% powertune limit at 1150 core clock when litecoin mining at 1.188 volts. Powertune limit is dumb and should go away :O.

 

[halodude23]

Testing in Bioshock Inf (Thanks AMD!)... :awe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YArBm85FNMQ

(Total system draw)

800/1250 950mv/1500mv 177~ watts

1050/1500 1156mv/1525mv 239~ watts

1225/1675 1275mv/1600mv 310~ watts

Prime95 113w

:thumbsup:

Hellooo, is this the "Boost" version of the 7950? If it is, then god damn it, I regret getting the Sapphire OC model. I can only hit about 1150/1600 stable...:whiste:

 

[BallaTheFeared]

It really doesn't matter, it's all luck of the draw... But yes it's a TF3 boost 6+6 card, the first one I had would overclock to 1275 on the core.

 

[Yuriman]

The power usage really scales up with clocks, a lot more than I would have expected!

 

[KompuKare]

Thanks for the info.

My locked Gigabyte 7950 WF3s do not drop nearly as much in power consumption when underclocked. See the lock goes both ways. I cannot OV nor UV. 3d mode means 1.15V for me, be it 800Mhz or 1100Mhz.

This is with the FX1 / FX2 BIOS? I managed to flash F43 on mine despite people saying that the boards with FX1/FX2 don't work with F43 (mind you haven't tried HDMI which was one of the things which some Gigabyte BIOS revisions had problems with). A bit risky of course but the card does have a BIOS switch...

Anyway, while the voltages are still limited, F43 defaults to 1.09V which is a lot better than the 1.25V the boost BIOS had. Only when underclocking to 700Mhz does it allow 0.95V. Not ideal but better than constant 1.25V.

BTW: while I can't adjust memory voltage and I didn't look too much into this I did measure the power difference of memory clocks:
1100 MHz 1500 MHz 1090 mV 245.5 W
1100 MHz 310 MHz 1090 mV 210.5 W
Those figures are my estimates of card usage. That is full load less (estimated) mobo/CPU etc. with an 85% FXF (Seasonic based) PSU.

So, GDDR5 uses a fair bit of power - too much to be useful for main memory. So laptops with PS4 type Jaguar CPU/GPU is probably not a good idea.