Eureka
Diamond Member
- Sep 6, 2005
- 3,822
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If you don't touch the vcore or power target, an OC will be relatively safe, as it can only draw whatever power it was designed to draw. You just go into AMD control panel and slide up the clock slowly until it starts creating problems or strange effects in games (artifacts).
Generally it is a bit safer to turn up the power target than vcore, if you need a little more headroom. Higher vcore and higher power will allow you to clock higher, but you have to be careful. Do everything slowly. Turn up the clock 25-50 MHz, run a game or a benchmark, see if it's creating problems. Repeat. When you run into problems (little speckles of light, or missing textures), turn it back down 25 MHz and leave it there. Do the same for memory.
However, you do not need to overclock. The 7950 is a capable card at stock speeds. You should generally look into overclocking when it is no longer capable of running your games at your desired speeds, and the 7950 can overclock very well. It is safe to run it overnight, because when the GPU is not in use, it should automatically clock down anyway. However, running with higher vcore may cause the total lifetime of the card to degrade. It won't be fast, but you may find that the card will start suffering stability issues in say, 5 years versus 7 years, when you have higher voltages than stock.
Generally it is a bit safer to turn up the power target than vcore, if you need a little more headroom. Higher vcore and higher power will allow you to clock higher, but you have to be careful. Do everything slowly. Turn up the clock 25-50 MHz, run a game or a benchmark, see if it's creating problems. Repeat. When you run into problems (little speckles of light, or missing textures), turn it back down 25 MHz and leave it there. Do the same for memory.
However, you do not need to overclock. The 7950 is a capable card at stock speeds. You should generally look into overclocking when it is no longer capable of running your games at your desired speeds, and the 7950 can overclock very well. It is safe to run it overnight, because when the GPU is not in use, it should automatically clock down anyway. However, running with higher vcore may cause the total lifetime of the card to degrade. It won't be fast, but you may find that the card will start suffering stability issues in say, 5 years versus 7 years, when you have higher voltages than stock.