Overclocking a 7970 (artifacts)

[ruhtraeel]

Hello,
I have a Sapphire 7970 OC w/boost with a stock voltage of 1.025V, running at 1000mhz core. I was trying to find out how far I could go without touching the voltage, but I the moment I push up the slider, Google Chrome already artifacts like crazy (squares showing up on the screen, with distorted parts of the webpage inside each of them).

Is this normal? Would I have to boost the voltage to get any OC out of it?

Temperatures never exceed 70 degrees Celsius while gaming.

Thanks

 

[Hitman928]

What software are you using to overclock?

 

[ruhtraeel]

What software are you using to overclock?

MSI Afterburner.

 

[Shmee]

Hmm, odd that it would show so much sensitivity. Have you tried Trixx?

 

[ruhtraeel]

Hmm, odd that it would show so much sensitivity. Have you tried Trixx?

Tried Trixx, same behaviour. However, I discovered that I need to restart my computer in order for the graphical artifacts to disappear, otherwise, even resetting the clock speed back to default still causes artifacts to appear. I've currently managed to bump it up to 1050mhz and restarted my computer, and it seems to not have any artifacts.
However, Skyrim seems to freeze after a while if I have my GPU overclocked. Unigine ran fine through 3-4 runs though.

I would stress test it using OCCT, but for some reason, it doesn't seem to work on my machine (the rendering window never shows up, and the test automatically cancels, saying "user cancelled" after about 30 seconds).

 

[Hitman928]

I've had issues with certain overclocking programs creating visual artifacts once loaded, even if everything is left at stock, I think it's a conflict with AMD's own drivers sometimes. Have you tried overclocking through CCC?

Also, what driver are you using?

 

[rancherlee]

1.025v stock sounds kinda low IMO. My boost cards have all been around 1.19v under heavy load from the factory. My current Sapphire 7950 OC needs more than 1.025v to go over 1000mhz. I know different cards but basically the same chip under the hood. This one tops out at a pretty sad 1100mhz @ 1.25v (1.19 under load) I had a 7970 boost that wasn't much better.

 

[Makaveli]

1.025v stock sounds kinda low IMO. My boost cards have all been around 1.19v under heavy load from the factory. My current Sapphire 7950 OC needs more than 1.025v to go over 1000mhz. I know different cards but basically the same chip under the hood. This one tops out at a pretty sad 1100mhz @ 1.25v (1.19 under load) I had a 7970 boost that wasn't much better.

I have to agree with this.

My boost card came at 1.25 Vcore stock for 1050 base clock.

i've modified the vbios and lowered that to 1.2 Vcore and still stable.

My card will do 1150 at 1.2vcore.