Radeon HD 7950 Owner's Thread

[psolord]

Check that thread in overclock.net. I found and attached FZ1 bios for you.

The BIOS unfortunately did not work but that's ok. You ve'been very helpful for me and everyone in this forum thread though.

Listen, the suckers at the shop I got my cards from, actually sent me twice the bundle I was supposed to get.

So since my late mom taught me not to be an ungrateful prick, I have spare codes for Sleeping Dogs, Hitman Absolution, Far Cry 3, and one Bioshock Infinite that will be shipped on the 26th. I also have two 20% discount coupons for Medal of Honor Warfighter.

Choose anyone you like and it's yours!

 

[Belkov]

The BIOS unfortunately did not work but that's ok. You ve'been very helpful for me and everyone in this forum thread though.

Listen, the suckers at the shop I got my cards from, actually sent me twice the bundle I was supposed to get.

So since my late mom taught me not to be an ungrateful prick, I have spare codes for Sleeping Dogs, Hitman Absolution, Far Cry 3, and one Bioshock Infinite that will be shipped on the 26th. I also have two 20% discount coupons for Medal of Honor Warfighter.

Choose anyone you like and it's yours!

Wow, it is very kind of you! My card came with no codes so i'm very grateful. Let me think a little and i will sent you a PM.

 

[Face2Face]

OK now I am having an issue. For hours I was playing with my card at 1150/1425 with no issues. Now all of a sudden my card throttles down to 800mhz all the time. I have the power to +20% so that is not the issue. I wasn't experiencing any artifacts or anything and my temps were at 68 degrees under load. My core voltage was at 1.250 and memory voltage was at 1.675. What could be the issue here?

Like Belkov said I wouldn't run your memory over 1.6v for long periods of time. You can run it up to 1.7v for benching Valley, but for gaming bring it back down to 1.6v and find you memory overclock from there. I would also monitor your VRM temps as well with GPU-Z or HW Monitor.It also could be your memory is getting to hot with that voltage?

 

[Face2Face]

Temps on my 7950 TF3 are decent, but I'm thinking about changing the thermal paste before summer to see if I can bring them down a bit more. I have some Cooler Master Thermal Fusion 400 sitting around . . . should that work alright for a GPU, or would anything else be significantly better?

That thermal paste would work just fine. If your card it not running hot now (75C-80c+) then you probably won't see much of a difference. Maybe a couple degrees. I changed mine and noticed no difference at all.

 

[MBrown]

Now my card is throttling down with everything stock and I have the power at +20%. Not sure what to do now...

 

[Face2Face]

Now my card is throttling down with everything stock and I have the power at +20%. Not sure what to do now...

What program are you using to monitor you clocks? If everything is stock setting what is it throttling down too?

 

[MBrown]

What program are you using to monitor you clocks? If everything is stock setting what is it throttling down too?

MSI Afterburner. The card boosts up to 925 like it should, but then after like 15 seconds it starts dropping down to 850. which is the non boost speed.

 

[hjalti8]

MSI Afterburner. The card boosts up to 925 like it should, but then after like 15 seconds it starts dropping down to 850. which is the non boost speed.

what are your vrm temps?

 

[MBrown]

what are your vrm temps?

under the furmark 1080p preset gpuz sad the max was 54c. And during this my card was throttling down to about 550 to 650.

 

[MBrown]

switched the bios switch...same thing happens in furmark.

Edit. OK now when I run the valley benchmark after switching the bios, there is no throttling.

 

[Phaethar]

/delurk

Picked up a MSI 7950 TF3 yesterday at the local Microcenter as an upgrade over my 570. The sales guy gave me 3 game cards that included Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 3, Tomb Raider, and Far Cry 3. Not bad.

Got everything loaded up and started testing. It's the boost edition, so stock clocks are 960/1250, with 1.125 for the vcore. Has the dual 6-pin power connectors. Asic score was a lowly 66.8%.

While OC results are ok so far, temps are not. I tried it first at 1050/1250 in Crysis 2, and the temp hit 84C on the core. Ouch. Fan was running at 100% too. No issues, just crazy loud and hot.

Tried some of the Kombustor OC tools, and had it running at 1100/1300 when I stopped last night. Never had any artifacts or failures, but man, it gets hot. Tried the Tomb Raider benchmark and the core temp would get up to 77C after a couple minutes, again with the fans at or near 100%.

Seems to idle fine (around 30C), so I'm thinking I may re-apply some TIM tonight. I suppose I could try running it stock as well, just to see what kind of temps I get. Still, it doesn't seem like it's cooling as well as it should be. Case airflow should be fine, as I'm running it in a HAF 932 that's fully equipped with all available fans.

Full system specs are:
i5 2500k @ 4.5GHz w/ Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus - Asus P8Z68-V Pro Gen3 - 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 RAM - Corsair TX750 PSU - 27" Asus VE278Q - Windows 7 Ultimate

 

[Face2Face]

switched the bios switch...same thing happens in furmark.

Edit. OK now when I run the valley benchmark after switching the bios, there is no throttling.

Don't use Furmark, it's pointless wear and tear on your card. let us know how it does in games.

 

[Face2Face]

/delurk

Picked up a MSI 7950 TF3 yesterday at the local Microcenter as an upgrade over my 570. The sales guy gave me 3 game cards that included 2 copies of Bioshock, Crysis 3, Tomb Raider, and Far Cry 3. Not bad.

Got everything loaded up and started testing. It's the boost edition, so stock clocks are 960/1250, with 1.125 for the vcore. Has the dual 6-pin power connectors. Asic score was a lowly 66.8%.

While OC results are ok so far, temps are not. I tried it first at 1050/1250 in Crysis 2, and the temp hit 84C on the core. Ouch. Fan was running at 100% too. No issues, just crazy loud and hot.

Tried some of the Kombustor OC tools, and had it running at 1100/1300 when I stopped last night. Never had any artifacts or failures, but man, it gets hot. Tried the Tomb Raider benchmark and the core temp would get up to 77C after a couple minutes, again with the fans at or near 100%.

Seems to idle fine (around 30C), so I'm thinking I may re-apply some TIM tonight. I suppose I could try running it stock as well, just to see what kind of temps I get. Still, it doesn't seem like it's cooling as well as it should be. Case airflow should be fine, as I'm running it in a HAF 932 that's fully equipped with all available fans.

Full system specs are:
i5 2500k @ 4.5GHz w/ Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus - Asus P8Z68-V Pro Gen3 - 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 RAM - Corsair TX750 PSU - 27" Asus VE278Q - Windows 7 Ultimate

Defective Card
This sounds just like the first TF3 I got. I replaced my TIM on that one and it did very little to help the temps. I would exchange the card and get a new one if replacing the TIM doesn't help. Maybe give me a Crysis 3 code for helping you

 

[KingFatty]

Congratulations on the new card! What was your thought process in deciding between Microcenter vs online ordering? I recently bought a CPU+Mobo combo from them because it was a good deal and I like supporting the local store, but I live really close to Microcenter.

Anyway, here's hoping your heat issue is related to the thermal paste, and hope you can let us know what you found when you pull off the heatsink and take a look underneath before applying the new thermal paste.

 

[Phaethar]

Defective Card
This sounds just like the first TF3 I got. I replaced my TIM on that one and it did very little to help the temps. I would exchange the card and get a new one if replacing the TIM doesn't help. Maybe give me a Crysis 3 code for helping you

Hmm, hope it's not defective. Although, if replacing the TIM doesn't help at all, I'll exchange it.

Also, the only code I have (or will have) 2 codes for is Bioshock, as it happened to be on 2 of the game cards. It's already been spoken for.

Congratulations on the new card! What was your thought process in deciding between Microcenter vs online ordering? I recently bought a CPU+Mobo combo from them because it was a good deal and I like supporting the local store, but I live really close to Microcenter.

Well, the price was within $5 of Newegg, and I'd heard some people saying they had issues getting the game codes. Also, instant gratification.

Related to Microcenter, after he found the card for me started telling me about their replacement plan deal. Knowing that MSI warranties the card for 3 year already, I said no. He then went on to say that it's $40 for 3 years, and that anytime in those 3 years you can bring the card back for any issue (he gave "it runs too loud" as an example) and they'll take it back and give full store credit towards a new card. He said all the employees there do that and basically use it to get new cards every couple of years. Even the cashier mentioned it, saying it's a super good way to get a new card.

 

[GrantMeThePower]

Ok, so...new Gigabyte 7950. Using the Catalyst Control Panel (and I also downloaded MSI afterburner and confirmed) I can run the card at 1075mhz stable. Any higher and the games crash.

I have found that increasing the memory speed seems to also make crashes. I'm leaving it at 1275

I have put the power at +10% and it is fine, but if I go up to +20% it crashes.

How am I doing?

 

[GrantMeThePower]

Also-anyone have a tomb raider code they don't want? Maybe a sale or a trade? PM me...

 

[Belkov]

Ok, so...new Gigabyte 7950. Using the Catalyst Control Panel (and I also downloaded MSI afterburner and confirmed) I can run the card at 1075mhz stable. Any higher and the games crash.

I have found that increasing the memory speed seems to also make crashes. I'm leaving it at 1275

I have put the power at +10% and it is fine, but if I go up to +20% it crashes.

How am I doing?

What is your stock core voltage under load and your memory voltage? Also you must set to +20% whenever you overclock. Try to clock only the core first and when you find your absolutely stable core clock(test it longer - not for a minute or even 30 minutes) then go for the memory. However the memory is not very important when you are playing games.

 

[ArsenalGear]

Replaced a 5850 with a 7950. Noticed a significant improvement in framerates in every game, but something about 3DMark11 is very wrong:

6155 - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6123872

The CPU is actually 40x100 but 3DM reads the idle speed. Otherwise, it's accurate. I'm seeing scores with similar systems well into the 8k and 9k ranges. AA/AF is set to application control in the driver settings, so I don't know what else could cause this. Any thoughts?

 

[GrantMeThePower]

What is your stock core voltage under load and your memory voltage? Also you must set to +20% whenever you overclock. Try to clock only the core first and when you find your absolutely stable core clock(test it longer - not for a minute or even 30 minutes) then go for the memory. However the memory is not very important when you are playing games.

I'll try pushing it up to +20% again. I dont know why it was crashing. I found that it was stable for hours of crysis 3 at 1075mhz without even touching the power % thing. Any higher than that is when I get crashes.

Where will I see the stock core voltage and memory voltage?

 

[psolord]

Um hello again.

I found out a strange problem. Some of my games wouldn't start on my new 7950 CFX system and I found out that it was MSI Afterburner OSD display that was affecting them. I tried all options but they refused to run (Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, Metro 2033 all Steam versions).

Surprisingly for Sleeping Dogs I downloaded a crack and tested on a different folder and it run nicely. So there's some strange combination with Steam's UI and MSI Afterburner that keeps the games from running. Tried Vector 2D, 3D, framebuffer, viewport, but some of the games won't start no matter what.

Do you have any suggestions or any other program I could use that displays GPU load for cards 1 and 2 as well as framerate? I also use fraps for framerate but I want a separate one as well.

Thanks.

 

[Belkov]

I'll try pushing it up to +20% again. I dont know why it was crashing. I found that it was stable for hours of crysis 3 at 1075mhz without even touching the power % thing. Any higher than that is when I get crashes.

Where will I see the stock core voltage and memory voltage?

Download GPU-Z and see the 2nd tab.

Do you have any suggestions or any other program I could use that displays GPU load for cards 1 and 2 as well as framerate? I also use fraps for framerate but I want a separate one as well.

Thanks.

HWinfo for monitoring and fraps for fps...

 

[mongo56]

Did a quick search and was left empty handed so I thought I'd ask here.
If I bump the memory clock even 1Mhz above stock the idle voltage doesn't return back to... well... idle.
It's idling at .94@500 and if I set trixx to 1100/1250@1.1V the voltage jumps back down to .94 perfectly fine when idling.
Anything above 1250 on the memory and it stays at 1.1V.
The card runs perfectly at 1600 on the memory otherwise.
I know there's little gain with higher memory clocks but still.
Switching profiles is bothersome to say the least and idle voltage drops the heat/consumption considerably.

MSI 7950 TF3 BE OC, latest bios, latest catalyst beta, trixx 4.6, win 8 x64.

Thanks guys!

 

[GrantMeThePower]

Belkov- thanks. I used GPUZ and found the volts under load at 1.25v

 

[Rhezuss]

The BIOS unfortunately did not work but that's ok. You ve'been very helpful for me and everyone in this forum thread though.

Listen, the suckers at the shop I got my cards from, actually sent me twice the bundle I was supposed to get.

So since my late mom taught me not to be an ungrateful prick, I have spare codes for Sleeping Dogs, Hitman Absolution, Far Cry 3, and one Bioshock Infinite that will be shipped on the 26th. I also have two 20% discount coupons for Medal of Honor Warfighter.

Choose anyone you like and it's yours!

Wow dude that's might nice of you! A rare sight here on le internet!