Info Radeon VII owners/buyers thread

[DrMrLordX]

EK block seems to be working. Hmm maybe I should have gone EK instead? Eh whatever.

@extide

Are you using powerplay tables by any chance? For higher than +20% power limit?

edit: I just started using powerplay tables with MorePowerTool:

https://www.igorslab.media/morepowe...x-5700-xt-tweaking-and-overclocking-software/

This thing is awesome. All you have to do is:

1). Open GPU-z and copy the BIOS off your card (Radeon VII, Navi supported)
2). Open MorePowerTool (admin) and load the BIOS file. It'll plug in the standard power limits as a powerplay table
3). Modify whatever limits you like. Popular limit increases are max GPU voltage, power limit, and RAM speed

When I increased power limit from +20 to +50%, I picked up a lot of stability, enabling me to use lower voltages. Right now I'm at 2070 MHz running 1.208V 1.161V but I'm not done yet. Also temps seem to be dropping since I can run lower voltages. Which is interesting.

I was able to run 2000 MHz @ 1.111V which was a real eye-opener. 1.134V is the card's default.

 

[extide]

@DrMrLordX
No I am just using the stock +20% for these tests. According to GPU-Z it didn't even seem to go much beyond stock power use -- hovering in the 250-270W range, but I am not sure I believe that.

I will def play around with this -- in fact modding the power limits was the next item on my list. I can get "2100" to work by going to 1209mV, it was unstable at ~1150mV (2100Mhz as set in Wattman, at least)
Funnily enough I saw that program a while back when it first came out and it only supported Navi at the time. Glad to see Radeon VII support added. It's a shame it isn't open source -- I really wish more apps like this were open source, I think they would get a lot more development and community involvement.

Seeing ~2050Mhz actual game clock speeds is pretty nice -- basically where I was hoping to get the card. I was able to do 1950Mhz (in wattman so ~1900 actual) on the stock cooler .. but I would love to see how far I can push it. I definitely have thermal headroom available.


Overall I have been super happy with the performance of my blocks -- both the CPU and GPU temps are great -- frankly even better than I was expecting because I have seen a lot of not so great results, especially with the 3900X.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I think you will be able to get 2100 MHz working below 1.209V once you raise power limits. So far I'm thrilled with this tool. Radeon VII is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[extide]

Yeah, seems likely. I will have a go at it tomorrow.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Anyone here had any software titles cause their GPU to throttle to around 1650 MHz when overclocked? I've had problems in:

Blender benchmark
Geekbench 5 (Vulkan and OpenCL)
Dragon Quest XI
GPUPI

Anything about around 1850 MHz GPU clock in Wattman causes performance regression and reported clocks in the ballpark of around 1650 MHz. This problem extends across multiple driver revisions. I haven't rolled back to19.5.4 to see if it happens under that driver as well.

Interestingly enough, this seems to happen under the same conditions that once caused memory overclocks to regress to 800 MHz RAM speed in GPGPU scenarios. Maybe Dragon Quest XI has some physics calculations being offloaded to the GPU that is causing the downclock? Anyway, nowadays I can OC RAM and run GPGPU stuff without trouble, but instead the GPU downclocks itself. Really annoying!

 

[Micrornd]

Anyone here had any software titles cause their GPU to throttle to around 1650 MHz when overclocked?

No, but one thing I have noticed is that if you have HDR turned on, it really messes with benchmarks and sensor readings for some reason.
And it seems that there is no real standard default voltage for these cards.
Mine is a Gigabyte and came with 1.106v and the default.
Since I stuck a Kraken x60 on the card, I haven't been able to push it past 80c on the "hotspot" no matter how hard I try.
1.137v @ 2050gpu and 1225mem is where I stopped to start enjoying the card, I'll get back to testing later.

 

[DrMrLordX]

No, but one thing I have noticed is that if you have HDR turned on, it really messes with benchmarks and sensor readings for some reason.
And it seems that there is no real standard default voltage for these cards.
Mine is a Gigabyte and came with 1.106v and the default.
Since I stuck a Kraken x60 on the card, I haven't been able to push it past 80c on the "hotspot" no matter how hard I try.
1.137v @ 2050gpu and 1225mem is where I stopped to start enjoying the card, I'll get back to testing later.

What driver revision are you on? I'm on 19.9.2 and overclocking in anything causes GPU throttling. Overclocking RAM, no problem. Otherwise bleh.

 

[Micrornd]

What driver revision are you on? I'm on 19.9.2 and overclocking in anything causes GPU throttling. Overclocking RAM, no problem. Otherwise bleh.

19.9.2, Not a problem here.
I use MorePowerTool and Afterburner, everything works fine.
I haven't seen it mentioned but, you do need to reboot after applying the settings in MPT or some of those settings are not available/usable to other apps like Wattman, Afterburner, etc. until a reboot happens. The most notable is the Power Limit.

 

[DrMrLordX]

19.9.2, Not a problem here.
I use MorePowerTool and Afterburner, everything works fine.

Maybe I need to use AfterBurner instead of Wattman?

I haven't seen it mentioned but, you do need to reboot after applying the settings in MPT or some of those settings are not available/usable to other apps like Wattman, Afterburner, etc. until a reboot happens. The most notable is the Power Limit.

Yeah I know about the reboot. Wattman is detecting +50% power limit and max mem speed of 1235 MHz (my custom settings). It may just be that Wattman is bugged.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@Micrornd

I tried with Afterburner but no luck. It still downclocks to 1650 MHz. Do you have yours on water, or with the stock cooler?

 

[extide]

I must have shitty RAM on mine -- I can't go past 1150Mhz on the HBM otherwise I immediately get artifacts in windows. This is when the RAM temp is sitting at ~25C, even. Argh. I am able to get pretty good core clocks though. Still messing with it, though. I bet I could get the RAM up a bit if I could give it more voltage.

 

[Micrornd]

Do you have yours on water, or with the stock cooler?

Mines on water.
Kraken X60 AIO mounted with a modified Kraken G12. I retained the black VRM plate/heatsink/card stiffener and the stock backplate.
With this setup I have not been able to force the card over 80c GPU hotspot, 62c GPU, 61c memory, 61c GPU VRM or over 50c on any other VRM, so I'm pleased with the cooling.
Regardless of voltage, I'm only able to push the card (stable) to 2075gpu and 1240mem, so just to allow a small margin, I run it at 2050/1225 @1137mv

 

[DrMrLordX]

Hmm. Mine will do 2150 MHz or so, but it takes a lot more voltage than that to get there. One of these days I'm gonna have to roll back to an older driver to see if I can get around these OC problems.

edit: rolling back to 19.5.2 seems to have eliminated the GPU downclocking problem. Now my RAM downclocks to 800 MHz in GPGPU benchmarks just like when I first got it (meaning I have to run RAM @ 1000 MHz to stop that bug). If it ain't one thing, it's another. I really hope AMD is serious about fixing this problem. It would be nice to get regular driver updates again without killing my OC.

 

[Micrornd]

Ah, maybe I should rephrase. Where I said "regardless of voltage", I should have said that I did not exceed 1175mv in testing, as I chose that as the upper limit for 24/7/365 operation and stability.
My card may very well do higher clocks, but I had to pick a point of usable diminishing returns and 1175mv was mine.
So with that in mind, once I had the highest clocks at 1175mv, then I just reduced voltage slowly to maintain the best usable overclock and ended up with 2050/1225 @1137mv.

For comparison in 19.9.2 -
I use GPU-Z to monitor temps, volts and clocks.
At idle/desktop things reduce to - GPU 27-167mhz, Ram 350mhz, GPU 27-31c, Hotspot 28-31c, Mem 28-32c, GPU VRM 31-34c, Mem VRM 30-34c, GPU Volt 0.737v, GPU power 18.23w

Have you tried using DDU and then doing a clean install of video drivers ?
That is what I normally do when testing drivers or when something seems "funny".

 

[DrMrLordX]

Have you tried using DDU and then doing a clean install of video drivers ?
That is what I normally do when testing drivers or when something seems "funny".

Yes. I'm not the only one having this problem. OCN has a lot of folks reporting it.

 

[Soulkeeper]

Where is the best place/price to get a radeon VII right now ?
people charging 2x the msrp ... insane.

 

[Micrornd]

You can still buy new ones on Ebay for about $650.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@Soulkeeper

Choose A Video Card

pcpartpicker.com

Not many left.

 

[Feld]

EKWB now has their Radeon VII water blocks on clearance for 50% off. I think I may jump on that. My only prior experience with liquid cooling is with the AIOs that came on the Fury X and Vega 64 Liquid, but this could be a good excuse to upgrade my whole system (aside from the GPU) and do a custom loop for the first time.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@Feld

Be sure to tell us how it goes! I used a Bykski block myself, but I'm sure the EK block will work out better than the stock cooler. Be sure to drop in the Cases&Cooling section for some WC build tips.

 

[extide]

I love my EK block -- card stays nice and cool -- hot spot stays under 75c even with a 2100Mhz@1250mv overclock. Man, for 50% off, thats a smoking deal!

 

[Kippa]

I managed to snag a Raden VII at a reasonable price a few days ago. Looking forward to putting it into my rig. My old Nvidia Titan X (maxwell) died about a month ago and finally got around to replacing it. I do content creation so the 16gb of ram is more of an important point over raw gpu performance.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Glad to see a few people are getting nice deals on Radeon VII. There're XFX cards $499 at several etailers right now. Hard to pass up if you want a high-end video card.

 

[Soulkeeper]

Does it make sense to get a VII right now ?
I heard rumors big navi might be announced at CES next week.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Does it make sense to get a VII right now ?
I heard rumors big navi might be announced at CES next week.

Depends, what do you think AMD will charge for such a card? If you can get Radeon VII for $500 on sale, go for it. $550 on NewEgg right now which is (in my opinion) a bit of a stretch. A few things to think about:

AMD is showing no real love to Radeon VII in terms of driver/feature support. For example, with the latest drivers, good luck overclocking via Wattman. You have to use other tools. I think some of the features announced at the Navi launch are also not working with Radeon VII. The anti-lag and sharpening features may not work on it (haven't honestly tried myself; still using old drivers for proper overclocking).

And of course if you want Radeon VII for that sweet 1/4 fp64 speed then there's no question which card to buy.