Radeon HD 7950 Owner's Thread

[zaydq]

1025/1650 with 1.03v/1.6v
1100/1650 with 1.10v/1.6v
1200/1650 with 1.15v/1.6v
1250/1650 with 1.20v/1.6v
1300/1800 with 1.23v/1.65v
1325/1860 with 1.25v/1.7v

89.1 ASIC

You hit 1300!?

 

[Face2Face]

You hit 1300!?

Yup! 1325/1860 Max clocks for Valley Bench and any 3DMark. I can't game at those clocks though. The VRM's get way too hot. I would need to watercool it if I wanted to. I normally game @ 1200/1650 @ under 60c on the core and 70-80's on the VRMs. About to buy some Fujipoly Thermal pads and see if that helps with VRM temps.

BTW- Hokies83 on here has one that will do 1345 on the core. There is another person on OCN who has one that will do 1370 on the core. Pretty nuts!! of course both are watercooled.

 

[Belkov]

Well, the new cooler is repaying...

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Almost seems criminal to see that 7950 of his on air >.<

 

[Belkov]

His card has a brand new cooler - not the stock TF3 cooler...

 

[zaydq]

Yup! 1325/1860 Max clocks for Valley Bench and any 3DMark. I can't game at those clocks though. The VRM's get way too hot. I would need to watercool it if I wanted to. I normally game @ 1200/1650 @ under 60c on the core and 70-80's on the VRMs. About to buy some Fujipoly Thermal pads and see if that helps with VRM temps.

BTW- Hokies83 on here has one that will do 1345 on the core. There is another person on OCN who has one that will do 1370 on the core. Pretty nuts!! of course both are watercooled.

You're nor using the tf3 cooler, are you?

At 1200 with 1.168v my tf3 cant keep my card below 80C unless i run the fan at 75%. I get throttled by temperatures, if i didn't, who knows how far mine can go.

 

[Face2Face]

You're nor using the tf3 cooler, are you? At 1200 with 1.168v my tf3 cant keep my card below 80C unless i run the fan at 75%. I get throttled by temperatures, if i didn't, who knows how far mine can go.

No, as Belkov said I am using a new cooler. the ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme 7970. Your card sounds a lot like mine. I bet if you were to get a better cooler or put a water block on it you would see similar results. Thing even looks huge next to my - Non working after and hour of taking apart and cleaning 9800GX2

Almost seems criminal to see that 7950 of his on air >.<

I know right

 

[zaydq]

My 7950, which cruised at 1100/1450 just quit sustaining those clocks at 1.081v... Unless it was always unstable and Tomb Raider finally did something to make the computer hard lock.

Anyone know why? I understand degradation but its running at a low enough voltage... And considering msi spams triple overvoltage everywhere, i'm surprised it can't sustain. I upped the vcore to 1.1v and i'll now see if it gets any better.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

I returned my windforce (it had terrible coil whine) and just decided to stay with my hd 7770. :| Got clocks of 1200/1243. Stock 1.2v.

 

[Face2Face]

My 7950, which cruised at 1100/1450 just quit sustaining those clocks at 1.081v... Unless it was always unstable and Tomb Raider finally did something to make the computer hard lock.

Anyone know why? I understand degradation but its running at a low enough voltage... And considering msi spams triple overvoltage everywhere, i'm surprised it can't sustain. I upped the vcore to 1.1v and i'll now see if it gets any better.

Your overclock was probably not stable. I find TR and Crysis 3 are the best ways to test if your overclock is stable. TR is the only game that makes my vrm temps scream in a small amount of time. Crysis 3 - I thought I was stable on an overclock then played it for an hour or so and it locked up...

I returned my windforce (it had terrible coil whine) and just decided to stay with my hd 7770. :| Got clocks of 1200/1243. Stock 1.2v.

Coil whine sucks -- If your 7770 is doing the job currently, then sir you just saved yourself some money

 

[Bubbleawsome]

Coil whine sucks -- If your 7770 is doing the job currently, then sir you just saved yourself some money

The only way I can justify the $ is when my 7770 fails. The thing benches at stock voltage (1.2v) at 1299core. 0_0 Game stable is 1199/1243. (a 100mhz core difference...)After that the memory goes downhill. It's a good card, lags some but it's good.
Just for the lolz the furmark 720 bench scores below. Compare! Stock is 1000/1125

Stock; 1800

Game oc; 1233

Max oc; 1278

It's really bandwidth starved.

 

[Face2Face]

The only way I can justify the $ is when my 7770 fails. The thing benches at stock voltage (1.2v) at 1299core. 0_0 Game stable is 1199/1243. (a 100mhz core difference...)After that the memory goes downhill. It's a good card, lags some but it's good.
Just for the lolz the furmark 720 bench scores below. Compare! Stock is 1000/1125

Stock; 1800

Game oc; 1233

Max oc; 1278

It's really bandwidth starved.

Go over to the Heaven 4.0 thread and post your results with your max clock. I'm interested to see how it does, those are some nice benched clocks.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2313189

 

[zaydq]

Your overclock was probably not stable. I find TR and Crysis 3 are the best ways to test if your overclock is stable. TR is the only game that makes my vrm temps scream in a small amount of time. Crysis 3 - I thought I was stable on an overclock then played it for an hour or so and it locked up...



Coil whine sucks -- If your 7770 is doing the job currently, then sir you just saved yourself some money

Yeah I think its a VRM issue too... looks like I'll have to look into re-applying some TIM and reseating the heatsink. I know the TF3s at the time of purchase seemed to have a poorly mounted heat sink.

How well does your Accelero cooler work? Did it significantly drop temperatures and noise levels?

 

[Face2Face]

Yeah I think its a VRM issue too... looks like I'll have to look into re-applying some TIM and reseating the heatsink. I know the TF3s at the time of purchase seemed to have a poorly mounted heat sink.

How well does your Accelero cooler work? Did it significantly drop temperatures and noise levels?

It's amazing for GPU cooling and noise. Dropped my temps 25-30c at the same clocks. I usually run the fans at 100% and it's still quieter than the Twin Frozr @ 60% - You can run it @ 80% and it's extremely quiet. The Achilles heel is the Vrm cooling. I have the stock MSI plate still installed and the vrms temps are holding the card back. TigerStyle has the same card and cooler and he installed the supplied vrm heatsinks and it's looks like his vrm temps are not much better. Long story short - If you want to game at anything over 1200 you need a better vrm cooling solution or get a water block. I will be buying some Fujipoly thermal pads and try them out, but not sure how much they will help?

 

[zaydq]

Hmm after reverting everything to stock, besides the ram, i still am getting hard lockups in Tomb Raider 3. The ram is clocked at 1600mhz, as is rated, and i can't seem to pinpoint my issue. My i5 2550k is running at 3.4ghz w/ turbo on, ram is sitting at 1333mhz, and my gpu is at 880mhz/1200 as per stock.

Any ideas on how i can pinpoint this?

 

[Face2Face]

Hmm after reverting everything to stock, besides the ram, i still am getting hard lockups in Tomb Raider 3. The ram is clocked at 1600mhz, as is rated, and i can't seem to pinpoint my issue. My i5 2550k is running at 3.4ghz w/ turbo on, ram is sitting at 1333mhz, and my gpu is at 880mhz/1200 as per stock.

Any ideas on how i can pinpoint this?

You have confused me with this

I would monitor your GPU and VRM temps. Tomb Raider really beats the sh*t out of video cards. All of the hard lockups I have encountered were do to a high GPU overclock.

 

[Orija]

Just got ordered a Sapphire 7950, it'll be reaching me by tomorrow or the day after. Which driver version should I be getting?


Edit: Should I uninstall the Intel HD drivers before installing the AMD ones? If yes, then is there a procedure to be followed, or will just using the control panel work?

 

[Face2Face]

Just got ordered a Sapphire 7950, it'll be reaching me by tomorrow or the day after. Which driver version should I be getting?

Congrats!! :thumbsup: I use these
Haven't had any issues as of yet.

 

[gpse]

Just got ordered a Sapphire 7950, it'll be reaching me by tomorrow or the day after. Which driver version should I be getting?


Edit: Should I uninstall the Intel HD drivers before installing the AMD ones? If yes, then is there a procedure to be followed, or will just using the control panel work?

uninstall the intel drivers, shutdown\reboot
install 7950
install latest catalyst from amd.com

 

[zaydq]

You have confused me with this

I would monitor your GPU and VRM temps. Tomb Raider really beats the sh*t out of video cards. All of the hard lockups I have encountered were do to a high GPU overclock.

Sorry. The System memory is what i was referring to. The gpu was reverted to stock(both core and memory frequencies). The system RAM is rated for 1600mhz, and i reverted down to 1333mhz and my i5 is running stock 3.4ghz w/ turbo boost on.

So basically, everything is bone stock and I'm still getting lock ups. No artifacting or poor frames before it happens either... it just happens.

 

[Face2Face]

Sorry. The System memory is what i was referring to. The gpu was reverted to stock(both core and memory frequencies). The system RAM is rated for 1600mhz, and i reverted down to 1333mhz and my i5 is running stock 3.4ghz w/ turbo boost on.

So basically, everything is bone stock and I'm still getting lock ups. No artifacting or poor frames before it happens either... it just happens.

How about your temps GPU/VRM? Is it happening in every game you play? And after how long?

 

[zaydq]

I figured out it was the game only. Changed the exclusive fullscreen setting to off and it fixes everything.

 

[futurefields]

Anybody know if/when all the improvements from the various beta drivers will be wrapped up into an official non-beta driver?

 

[3DVagabond]

Anybody know if/when all the improvements from the various beta drivers will be wrapped up into an official non-beta driver?

That's how it works. Then, though, there will be the next beta driver with more fixes/improvements. Don't get too wrapped up in WHQL certification. While it's important that companies strive for WHQL certification, there's no real benefit for every single driver version to be sent to M$ to be blessed and sprinkled with holy water.

 

[Zorander]

What typical overclock can I reasonably expect from the 7950? I have had my Gigabyte WF3 since last year but only started upping the clocks in the last month.

Using AB, I have been gaming with XCom EU, Tropico 4 and Dishonored at 1100MHz Core (1125mV VCore, +20% power limit) and 1300MHz RAM with no issues, beside the weird tendency for the card to lower the VCore to 800mV but not the Core speed (resulting in horrible lags until I force the VCore back up via AB). Load temperatures are 60+ Celcius.

While 1200-1300MHz seems to be the ceiling for the core speed, I'm not sure how much higher I can bring the memory speed up to.

Thanks.