my 7900gt overclocking results

[morgash]

just got my 7900gt vanilla edition in from eVGA step up today and went right on to the volt mod for gpu and mem. After easily bringin GPU volts to 1.4 and mem volts to 2.2 i got the following OC results:

Stock eVGA 7900gt
Core: 450mhz
Mem: 1320

Volt Modded eVGA 7900gt
Core: 625
Mem: 1800

Fully stable and art free after a hour of rthdribl and atitool. Temps are 38C idle and 53C load on a Zalman VF700 Cu with OCZ pure copper ramsinks. 3dMark05 netted me 9889 marks with my opty 144 toned down to 2.2ghz (went to a LAN this past weekend and the place was hot as hell so i toned it down for stabilty pruposes). Gonna try 3dmark again tomorrow with my normal 2.6ghz and see what i get. Lemme know whatcha think and post ur own results.

Thanks,
Morgash

***EDIT*** Talked to an eVGA engineer for a while yesterday and according to him (this is NOT officially supported by eVGA) any 7900gt should be perfectly fine running at 1.4 volts with no long term damage as long as good aftermarket cooling is used (aka vf700 cu or better). He also said that the RAM should have no noticable decrease in lifespan running at 2.2 volts instead of 2.0 but u MUST have at least passive cooling on it. So there ya go for everyone thinkin about safety. i might bump mine up to 1.5 volts and see what i can get, not sure yet

*EDIT2* Volt mods are here
Easy GPU volts: Easy GPU
Easy RAM tougher GPU: Togher GPU Easy RAM

 

[mazeroth]

VERY, VERY NICE!

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

I got mine to 700/1828 with just the GPU @ 1.4v . . .

 

[morgash]

well ******, looks like its back to work for me lol, cant be outdone here

 

[RussianSensation]

That's some serious overclocking

I wonder how long these cards can survive with such overvoltage?

 

[Bullhonkie]

I only went for 1.3v when I voltmodded but I get up to 645 core with it. Around 33-35C idle and 48-50C load on a VF-900.

I scored 10899 in 3DMark05 but I think I can break 11k. I know both the CPU and GPU have more to give, just a matter of if I'm comfortable pushing the volts to them.

1Dark1Sharigan1 got a real nice one, his card is freakishly good. My max stock OC was 585, so the 0.1v to 1.3 bought me 60mhz. If it scaled linearly to 1.4v I'd have a chance at 700 but I'm too chicken to do it.

 

[samusaraniv]

I can do 650/1860 with two SEs in SLI at 1.4/2.22, but the cards get insanely hot because I have an Abit AN8 32X that has PCI-E ports that are too close together for dual-slot cooling solutions, like the VF700 (good airflow is not possible). At these voltages, RTHDRIBL errors out with the top card getting around 105C!!

SOOoo... I undid the volt mod for the memory on both cards completely and redid the GPU volt mods to 1.3 because I don't want my cards getting this hot, but I don't want to sacrifice a (near) silent VGA solution. Now after running RTHDRIBL for 8+ hrs. straight, top card never goes above 85C and bottom 75C. In-game I have only seen 75 max for top card and 65 for bottom. These temps are at 620/1820 (the highest I can get the two to run at stable at these voltages), mind you, with VF700s set to silent, AS5 and OCZ copper ramsinks.

Let this serve as a warning for those out there considering buying an AN8 32X for SLI with dual-slot cooling solutions, the airflow is minimal between the two cards so they get much hotter than if you're using just one (for instance, a single card with fan set to silent OCed to 650/1860 1.4/2.2 only gets to 62C max in RTHDRIBL).

And Sharigan, your OC pwns, btw.

 

[iamtrout]

When you guys are doing this does the RAM get really really hot too?

 

[morgash]

with the all copper ramsinks and the vf700 blowin directly on all of em i have no probs with RAM heat. 625/1800 is by no means my max stable overclock, just what im happy with since the computer is on 24/7.

 

[kyparrish]

I know the eVGA warranty covers a lot, but does it cover these volt mods? And does it cover the fact that we're putting ramsinks on here?

 

[Ryan Norton]

Does this mean anything for a 7900GTX? I mean, OCability is good, no matter what, people are just raving about the GT vs GTX because the GT is more cost-effective?

Can you link the best voltmod instructions you found? That's awesome that you got an EVGA engineer to discuss OCing and the ramifications on chip life with you.

 

[morgash]

eVGA DOES cover the non obvious and removable volt mods(aka conductive ink and graphite pen tricks, the engineer said they cover it because they have no way of truly knowing if u did em as long as u remove all trace b4 RMA) and they also cover ALL aftermarket heatsinks as long as the stock heatsink is put back on b4 u send it back in. overclocking is included in the warranty as well.

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: morgash
eVGA DOES cover the non obvious and removable volt mods(aka conductive ink and graphite pen tricks, the engineer said they cover it because they have no way of truly knowing if u did em as long as u remove all trace b4 RMA) and they also cover ALL aftermarket heatsinks as long as the stock heatsink is put back on b4 u send it back in. overclocking is included in the warranty as well.

No offense but that sounds a little fishy to me. If you are legally covered under the warranty to voltmod your card, why would all traces of the voltmod have to be removed in order to RMA it? Sounds like an engineer who is telling you how to beat the system, not what is legally covered under the warranty.

 

[firewolfsm]

looks like you got a bad card, most are doing 650/2.0 at those volts. I have basically the same system as you, we'll see how mine OCs

 

[Arkane13131]

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: morgash
eVGA DOES cover the non obvious and removable volt mods(aka conductive ink and graphite pen tricks, the engineer said they cover it because they have no way of truly knowing if u did em as long as u remove all trace b4 RMA) and they also cover ALL aftermarket heatsinks as long as the stock heatsink is put back on b4 u send it back in. overclocking is included in the warranty as well.

No offense but that sounds a little fishy to me. If you are legally covered under the warranty to voltmod your card, why would all traces of the voltmod have to be removed in order to RMA it? Sounds like an engineer who is telling you how to beat the system, not what is legally covered under the warranty.

this guy is upset he bought an x1900xt when he could've had one of these sweet 7900gt's.

j/k

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: Arkane13131

this guy is upset he bought an x1900xt when he could've had one of these sweet 7900gt's.

j/k

Lol. Yup, I'm pretty broken up over my purchase.

Don't get me wrong, I thing the bang for the buck factor of the 7900GT's is pretty high. For people who like to oc, myself included, it looks to be very promising. My issue was with the OP/EVGA engineer trying to say that voltmods are covered under warranty IF you erase all trace of them and replace the stock cooler to make it look like the card was never touched.

 

[videopho]

3dMark05 netted me 9889 marks with my opty 144 toned down to 2.2ghz


You will be well over the 10k mark when the Opty goes back to 2.6ghz. It would be a challenge if you can hit over 11k mark with 2.6ghz. I knew, on the 3dmark05, my 7800gtx hits 8000 points at 2.0ghz (Venice 3500+), and goes up an additional 700 point at 2.52ghz.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: Arkane13131

this guy is upset he bought an x1900xt when he could've had one of these sweet 7900gt's.

j/k

Lol. Yup, I'm pretty broken up over my purchase.

Don't get me wrong, I thing the bang for the buck factor of the 7900GT's is pretty high. For people who like to oc, myself included, it looks to be very promising. My issue was with the OP/EVGA engineer trying to say that voltmods are covered under warranty IF you erase all trace of them and replace the stock cooler to make it look like the card was never touched.

Hell you could do that with any brand of card and get away with it.

 

[MADMAX23]

I have modded the vgpu to 1.3v using a conductive pen (my multimeter reads 1.296v) and the mem to 2.13v (570 resistance). With these low voltage values the GPu runs 100%stable at 620Mhz and the memory up to 1800Mhz....tested during several hours of intensive gameplay!!
Temps are 2-5 ºc higher than at stock volts with the stock HSF!!
3DMARK 05: 10335
3DMARK 06: 5097

 

[morgash]

you can go read eVGA's warranty if ya want, in detail it states that the warranty DOES cover aftermarket heatsink and fans as well as overclocking. this and the step-up system are the two main reasons i got one, course the lifetime warranty doesnt hurt either.

 

[Arkane13131]

anyone here had a vf700 and moved up to a vf900? is it worth it? is the vf900 good cooler? most reviews i saw say yes..but one review stated its only good for silent solution and the accelro is much better.... (tho doesnt fit on 7900)

any ideas? im probably going to buy a vf900 but i dont want to feel like a jackass when i install it to cool my card off...and its just quiet and not much better than stock cooler.

 

[russki]

hey guys my coolbits only goes up to 800 mem, how do I increase that?

 

[imported_ST]

Some history from Asus 7900GT stock -> OC -> Volt mod OC

3DMark06 Scores:

Stock (450/660) : 4695
OC (532/784 ): 5411
Volt Mod (685/885): 6559

Basically 40% improvement in performance from stock. What I'm curious about though, is whether the "Superclocked" versions are better GPUs, thus will overclock more. Anyone know this?

 

[Arkane13131]

Originally posted by: ST
Some history from Asus 7900GT stock -> OC -> Volt mod OC

3DMark06 Scores:

Stock (450/660) : 4695
OC (532/784 ): 5411
Volt Mod (685/885): 6559

Basically 40% improvement in performance from stock. What I'm curious about though, is whether the "Superclocked" versions are better GPUs, thus will overclock more. Anyone know this?

ill be finding out as I have a 7900gt co superclock and just ordered a vf900 a conducive pen and had some arctic silver5 around already =P

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=525&p=3

this review kind of makes me think i should have gotten a different cooler....

i figured a zalman top of the line would be the best thing around...or damn close...

looking at this ....it wouldnt seem so D: