UPDATE: I'll just end up redoing this as an Official owners thread. We have 18+ pages of decent information that is not worth losing. Incoming guide and resources.
Overclocking guide
1.) The Tools You Need!
Benchmarks: These will not only give you a comparative score, but will also give you a good idea how you're doing on stability. We'll focus on two of them, Unigine Heaven and 3DMark11.
3DMark11: download
Unigine Heaven: download
OCCT: download (For stress testing)
Overclocking software: This will be the software you need to overclock your current 7950 to new heights. As we did above, we will focus on two applications, MSI Afterburner and Asus GPUtweak.
MSI Afterburner: download ; an alternative to MSI Afterburner is Sapphire Trixx: download
Asus GPUtweak: download (Asus GPUtweak is optional, but is a confirmed route for unlocking clockspeeds past 1125/1575 in MSI Afterburner. We also have an alternate method for doing this, we'll leave it up to you)
Monitoring Software: The monitoring software we'll be focusing on using is TechPowerUp's GPU-z, which will give you plenty of information on your clock speeds, temperatures and voltages. GPU-z will also indicate your ASIC % reading, which allows us to see whether the ASIC readings on the 7950s indicate their overclocking potential. (As a sidenote, MSI Afterburner and Asus GPUtweak both include monitoring software, which will allow you to compare and contrast. GPU-Z tends to have a bit more information temperature wise (VRM temps, etc) and will be necessary for your overclocking success.
TechPowerUp! GPU-Z: download
Another option
HWiNFO64: download
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Program Installation
Now we'll begin simply by downloading and installing all of the above applications onto your system. Theres no rocket science to this, no wacky tricks, and no mess with installing all of them. Ensure you have adequate hard drive space and, if you're in a rush, you can avoid installing the benchmarks applications until its time to test for stability... and scores.
Once you've got everything installed onto your system, and ofcourse you've rebooted, we will begin by opening ASUS GPUtweak and do the following:
1) Press the "Settings" tab on the left hand side.
2) Once in settings, you will see 5 tabs running along the top. We will want to enter the "Tuning" tab.
3) Checkmark the "Overclocking Range Enhancement" square just like the picture below:
4) Once you verify the checkmark is there, apply the setting and close down ASUS GPUtweak
5) Re open the application and verify in the tuning tab that the core clocks and memory clocks can go past 1100/5800. Your ASUS GPUtweak should now look like this:
6) Once confirmed, you can close down Asus GPUtweak, you will no longer be needing the application open. *Do not uninstall the application as it unlocks the clock speeds in MSI afterburner as well* *Ensure that MSI Afterburner is not open at any time during the clock speed unlocking process as it will not work*
7) To unlock voltage controls in MSI Afterburner, simply click settings and you will be prompted with this screen
Simply checkmark the two boxes as shown and restart your system. Voltage control should be unlocked with MSI AB after. Some may not have to do this step, some may.
The alternative option to unlocking clockspeeds in MSI Afterburner thanks to RussianSensation:
http://www.overclock.net/t/640563/ms...ass-ccc-limits
and put these words in too:
[ATIADLHAL]
UnofficialOverclockingMode=1
UnofficialOverclockingEULA=I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
The cfg files are located at:
/MSI Afterburner/Profiles/MSIAfterburner.cfg
/MSI Afterburner/MSIAfterburner.cfg
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=359671
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overclocking: Core Frequency
Your first step into increasing your frequencys is figuring out what you can do with any voltage adjustments. For starters, we'll simply see what we can do with the stock voltage on your card.
1) Open MSI Afterburner, you should see this:
2) Up the core frequency ONLY to 1050mhz and hit apply. Stress test the gpu via Heaven and 3DMark11 or with a good hour of gaming. If all checks out, see what your maximum temperatures were.
3)Assuming you had success maintaining your 1050mhz clock speed, continue to up the frequency by 5-10mhz increments and continue to stress with each application. Continue to go higher with this method until artifacting, lock ups, or AMD display driver failures occurr during stressing the GPU. You will then need to back down a step to what the last stable core frequency was and stop there.
4)Now, at some point, you'll end up hopefully from 1000mhz - 1100mhz without any voltage adjustment. If so, figure out where you're happy or if you're interested in going further with the core frequency. We will next be looking into memory overclocks and what we can get out of those.
*Voltage adjusting is considered an "advanced" degree of overclocking and will have it's own chapter so to speak*
Overclocking: Memory Frequency
Now that we've established where you can be in terms of your core frequency with the factory voltages of the card, we will now look into what we can get out of the 3GB of GDDR5 memory paired with it. We will be looking into what the maximum frequency is the memory will be happy to run at without adjusting the memory voltages.
Adjusting the voltage for your memory is a good way of shortening the life of them, so we'll simply increase the frequency and stop there. For the most part, the 7950 won't see huge gains with memory frequency increases other than in benchmarking so the number we hit over the factory speeds is really just e-peen glory.
1) Increase the memory frequency by 25-50mhz and test for stability. After each stress test, ensure that your GPU Core temperatures stay below 90*C and your VRMs stay below 90*C. We can monitor this by using GPU-Z and simply going into the "Sensors" tab and simply looking at what the temperatures are hitting.
2) At this point in the overclocking process, your VRM temperatures are very important to watch. You can probably go with the memory up to roughly 1600-1800mhz, proven a handful of times by multiple owners in this thread, but we can argue it won't give you much in terms of a performance increase in the games you play. None the less, once artifacting and/or lock ups occurr, back the memory frequency down by 5mhz until you see stability.
3) Once done, your MSI AB will look roughly like this:
Your frequencies will not necessarily be the same as mine, your voltage may be either higher or lower too. The idea is to see what you can do with the factory voltages. Upon completion, you can save the overclock as a preset (the numbers 1,2,3,4,5 at the bottom are essentially your presets) this way you can always have it there. You will also most likely want to have MSI AB to run upon start up, which you will see the toggle just below the row of preset buttons.
Your fan will more than likely need very little adjustment considering the voltages were untouched. Your chip will run just a little warmer than they did at stock frequencies. Once we delve into voltage bumping we will also look into how to set a functional fan profile and/or finding the best noise to cooling fan speed and manually locking it to that.
Also, if at any point through this little readme you decide you can speed up the process, i encourage you to do so. This is simply for those that have never overclocked in the past, or who wish to take caution to ensure they get a proper overclock on their card. I myself do not use this method and instead plug numbers in and adjust from there and test for stability when I feel I have something that would theoretically work. I have also been overclocking for a few years now and should not be used as an example for any newcomers to overclocking.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***Overclocking For Advanced/Comfortable Users Only***
Do at your own risk! I accept no responsibility for any harm caused to anyone's system for publishing this!
Here we will discuss how much further we can go with our frequencies when we adjust the voltage. Now, despite what anyone may say, even myself, adjusting the voltage on your GPU does increase the risk of things going wrong. With that being said, the Tahiti chips are safely rated to run at voltages as high as 1.25v(1250mV) and many board members have made us aware that reference 7970s run at 1.175v(1175mV), which lucky for many new partakers in the MSI TFIII 7950, means our 7950s with 6+8 pin connectors are running reference 7970 PCBS. The importance of monitoring temperatures and testing for stability increases significantly once voltage adjustments are made considering we have now introduced a new variable to the table.
To be continued...
Overclocking guide
1.) The Tools You Need!
Benchmarks: These will not only give you a comparative score, but will also give you a good idea how you're doing on stability. We'll focus on two of them, Unigine Heaven and 3DMark11.
3DMark11: download
Unigine Heaven: download
OCCT: download (For stress testing)
Overclocking software: This will be the software you need to overclock your current 7950 to new heights. As we did above, we will focus on two applications, MSI Afterburner and Asus GPUtweak.
MSI Afterburner: download ; an alternative to MSI Afterburner is Sapphire Trixx: download
Asus GPUtweak: download (Asus GPUtweak is optional, but is a confirmed route for unlocking clockspeeds past 1125/1575 in MSI Afterburner. We also have an alternate method for doing this, we'll leave it up to you)
Monitoring Software: The monitoring software we'll be focusing on using is TechPowerUp's GPU-z, which will give you plenty of information on your clock speeds, temperatures and voltages. GPU-z will also indicate your ASIC % reading, which allows us to see whether the ASIC readings on the 7950s indicate their overclocking potential. (As a sidenote, MSI Afterburner and Asus GPUtweak both include monitoring software, which will allow you to compare and contrast. GPU-Z tends to have a bit more information temperature wise (VRM temps, etc) and will be necessary for your overclocking success.
TechPowerUp! GPU-Z: download
Another option
HWiNFO64: download
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Program Installation
Now we'll begin simply by downloading and installing all of the above applications onto your system. Theres no rocket science to this, no wacky tricks, and no mess with installing all of them. Ensure you have adequate hard drive space and, if you're in a rush, you can avoid installing the benchmarks applications until its time to test for stability... and scores.
Once you've got everything installed onto your system, and ofcourse you've rebooted, we will begin by opening ASUS GPUtweak and do the following:
1) Press the "Settings" tab on the left hand side.
2) Once in settings, you will see 5 tabs running along the top. We will want to enter the "Tuning" tab.
3) Checkmark the "Overclocking Range Enhancement" square just like the picture below:
4) Once you verify the checkmark is there, apply the setting and close down ASUS GPUtweak
5) Re open the application and verify in the tuning tab that the core clocks and memory clocks can go past 1100/5800. Your ASUS GPUtweak should now look like this:
6) Once confirmed, you can close down Asus GPUtweak, you will no longer be needing the application open. *Do not uninstall the application as it unlocks the clock speeds in MSI afterburner as well* *Ensure that MSI Afterburner is not open at any time during the clock speed unlocking process as it will not work*
7) To unlock voltage controls in MSI Afterburner, simply click settings and you will be prompted with this screen
Simply checkmark the two boxes as shown and restart your system. Voltage control should be unlocked with MSI AB after. Some may not have to do this step, some may.
The alternative option to unlocking clockspeeds in MSI Afterburner thanks to RussianSensation:
http://www.overclock.net/t/640563/ms...ass-ccc-limits
and put these words in too:
[ATIADLHAL]
UnofficialOverclockingMode=1
UnofficialOverclockingEULA=I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
The cfg files are located at:
/MSI Afterburner/Profiles/MSIAfterburner.cfg
/MSI Afterburner/MSIAfterburner.cfg
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=359671
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overclocking: Core Frequency
Your first step into increasing your frequencys is figuring out what you can do with any voltage adjustments. For starters, we'll simply see what we can do with the stock voltage on your card.
1) Open MSI Afterburner, you should see this:
2) Up the core frequency ONLY to 1050mhz and hit apply. Stress test the gpu via Heaven and 3DMark11 or with a good hour of gaming. If all checks out, see what your maximum temperatures were.
3)Assuming you had success maintaining your 1050mhz clock speed, continue to up the frequency by 5-10mhz increments and continue to stress with each application. Continue to go higher with this method until artifacting, lock ups, or AMD display driver failures occurr during stressing the GPU. You will then need to back down a step to what the last stable core frequency was and stop there.
4)Now, at some point, you'll end up hopefully from 1000mhz - 1100mhz without any voltage adjustment. If so, figure out where you're happy or if you're interested in going further with the core frequency. We will next be looking into memory overclocks and what we can get out of those.
*Voltage adjusting is considered an "advanced" degree of overclocking and will have it's own chapter so to speak*
Overclocking: Memory Frequency
Now that we've established where you can be in terms of your core frequency with the factory voltages of the card, we will now look into what we can get out of the 3GB of GDDR5 memory paired with it. We will be looking into what the maximum frequency is the memory will be happy to run at without adjusting the memory voltages.
Adjusting the voltage for your memory is a good way of shortening the life of them, so we'll simply increase the frequency and stop there. For the most part, the 7950 won't see huge gains with memory frequency increases other than in benchmarking so the number we hit over the factory speeds is really just e-peen glory.
1) Increase the memory frequency by 25-50mhz and test for stability. After each stress test, ensure that your GPU Core temperatures stay below 90*C and your VRMs stay below 90*C. We can monitor this by using GPU-Z and simply going into the "Sensors" tab and simply looking at what the temperatures are hitting.
2) At this point in the overclocking process, your VRM temperatures are very important to watch. You can probably go with the memory up to roughly 1600-1800mhz, proven a handful of times by multiple owners in this thread, but we can argue it won't give you much in terms of a performance increase in the games you play. None the less, once artifacting and/or lock ups occurr, back the memory frequency down by 5mhz until you see stability.
3) Once done, your MSI AB will look roughly like this:
Your frequencies will not necessarily be the same as mine, your voltage may be either higher or lower too. The idea is to see what you can do with the factory voltages. Upon completion, you can save the overclock as a preset (the numbers 1,2,3,4,5 at the bottom are essentially your presets) this way you can always have it there. You will also most likely want to have MSI AB to run upon start up, which you will see the toggle just below the row of preset buttons.
Your fan will more than likely need very little adjustment considering the voltages were untouched. Your chip will run just a little warmer than they did at stock frequencies. Once we delve into voltage bumping we will also look into how to set a functional fan profile and/or finding the best noise to cooling fan speed and manually locking it to that.
Also, if at any point through this little readme you decide you can speed up the process, i encourage you to do so. This is simply for those that have never overclocked in the past, or who wish to take caution to ensure they get a proper overclock on their card. I myself do not use this method and instead plug numbers in and adjust from there and test for stability when I feel I have something that would theoretically work. I have also been overclocking for a few years now and should not be used as an example for any newcomers to overclocking.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***Overclocking For Advanced/Comfortable Users Only***
Do at your own risk! I accept no responsibility for any harm caused to anyone's system for publishing this!
Here we will discuss how much further we can go with our frequencies when we adjust the voltage. Now, despite what anyone may say, even myself, adjusting the voltage on your GPU does increase the risk of things going wrong. With that being said, the Tahiti chips are safely rated to run at voltages as high as 1.25v(1250mV) and many board members have made us aware that reference 7970s run at 1.175v(1175mV), which lucky for many new partakers in the MSI TFIII 7950, means our 7950s with 6+8 pin connectors are running reference 7970 PCBS. The importance of monitoring temperatures and testing for stability increases significantly once voltage adjustments are made considering we have now introduced a new variable to the table.
To be continued...
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