Info Radeon VII owners/buyers thread

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Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
24
41
Alcolawl, also thank you for all of your work....

....One of the problems with some water blocks is the lack of good VRM cooling. Hopefully, the Bykski full water block addresses this.
No problem! Hope it helps. people in the future.

As for the VRM cooling worries, I see this posted a lot in communities all over the internet when it comes to putting AMD cards under water. I don't have a lot of experience with watercooling many cards, but I can say that an Alphacool Eiswolf (passive VRM cooling) had no issue cooling my overclocked Vega 56 pulling nearly 300W. And the VRMs on the Radeon VII are even better than the reference Vega 56/64 PCB. I would be pretty confident that the waterblocks will have no problem cooling the VRMs as well.
 

guachi

Senior member
Nov 16, 2010
761
415
136
Looking at the kindly provided community numbers:

Average stock voltage: 1084 mV
Median stock voltage: 1080 mV
Lowest stock voltage: 1018 mV (66 mV below avg.)
Highest stock voltage: 1149 mV (65 mV above avg.)

Average undervoltage (for those who undervolted at least 1 mV): 91 mV
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,797
11,143
136
Heh! My stock voltage stinks compared to some of those. Good thing mine undervolts so well.
 

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
24
41
Well, folks. I decided to try something a bit silly today with my card: Taking off the shroud and strapping two 120mm fans to it with zip ties.

It's not my cleanest work, but it was only for preliminary testing. Luckily the shroud comes off without having to take the whole card apart. The PWM fan connector on the card isn't usable in this case, so I had to use a motherboard chassis fan connector. Additionally, 120mm fans are a bit too big for this heatsink. The stock heatsink's fin stacks are ~100mm wide, and on top of that, the fans bumped into components on my motherboard, forcing me to push them to one side so the card could even fit.

Results are disappointing. Temperatures under load went UP by a pretty fair margin when compared to the stock fans at 100%. But it was soooo quiet (Arctic F12s). I've chatted with another user and he concluded that three 80mm fans would be better in this application. The fans and other assorted accessories will be here in two days and I hope to spend the night modding the card properly and cleanly. This time around I'll be mounting the fans to the outside of the shroud after removing the puny stock 75mm x 75mm x 15mm fans. This keeps a more aesthetically pleasing look while the shroud also aids in channeling the air directly onto the heatsink. Because of the restrictive nature of the shroud in certain areas, the air should also spend more time in the fin stack instead of just blasting around it, resulting in better cooling. At least that's what we hypothesis. If this is successful, a $16 mod may be a fast and easy way to get better and quieter cooling on this card.

I know it's a $700 card, but this is just for a bit of fun. If it works out, so much the better.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,797
11,143
136
@Alcolawl

I'm kind of wondering if better air coolers that are 2.5/3 slot couldn't be released for this card. It seems like there are limitations based on fin height etc.
 

Despoiler

Golden Member
Nov 10, 2007
1,966
770
136
I got my card and installed it yesterday. Super nice card. Very high quality material design IMO. I can't believe how fast it is compared to my Vega. Really big step up in FPS. Furthermore it's noticeably smoother when gaming largely from the more stable frame rates. Overclocking and undervolting is looking good. I haven't figured out the combination I like between the two and also fan curve and temp. On the otherside if I wanted to have it sip power it can. I can get Vega or slightly more performance for 100w less than Vega would use. It's a good option to have.
 
Reactions: lightmanek

guskline

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2006
5,338
476
126
Despoiler, glad to hear about your Rad VII. It's not a world beater, but it does grow on you.
 

Despoiler

Golden Member
Nov 10, 2007
1,966
770
136
Despoiler, glad to hear about your Rad VII. It's not a world beater, but it does grow on you.

It's a perfect card for 1440p. It's as fast as I need it to be for my setup. Like any enthusiast, I enjoy having something new to tweak. The only thing I wish is that it had Sapphire's blow through cooling. It would be as fast as it can be and silent.
 

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
24
41
@Alcolawl

I'm kind of wondering if better air coolers that are 2.5/3 slot couldn't be released for this card. It seems like there are limitations based on fin height etc.
I wondered that myself. My buddy seems to think that even a Morpheus cooler for this card wouldn't do a whole lot more compared to the mod I'm going to attempt tomorrow. So, I guess we'll find out. I'm of the impression that something like a Morpheus has a bit of a beefier fin stack (and two extra heatpipes), so it would help at least slightly, but the stock cooler's setup (minus the fans) is really actually pretty solid.
 

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
24
41
... I've chatted with another user and he concluded that three 80mm fans would be better in this application. The fans and other assorted accessories will be here in two days and I hope to spend the night modding the card properly and cleanly. This time around I'll be mounting the fans to the outside of the shroud after removing the puny stock 75mm x 75mm x 15mm fans. This keeps a more aesthetically pleasing look while the shroud also aids in channeling the air directly onto the heatsink. Because of the restrictive nature of the shroud in certain areas, the air should also spend more time in the fin stack instead of just blasting around it, resulting in better cooling. At least that's what we hypothesis. If this is successful, a $16 mod may be a fast and easy way to get better and quieter cooling on this card.

Last update on modding the stock shroud / fan setup. I've created a who Imgur album with pictures to better illustrate the quest for a cooler and quieter Radeon VII, stead of a wall of text here.

TL;DR is that temperatures were still worse no matter what I tried. So it looks like I'll have to wait for water cooling like the rest of us. There's also a Reddit thread with some comments and suggestions from other users that may answer many of your own questions if you have any after looking at that album. All-in-all, it was worth a shot and a lot of fun to screw around but this $700 card really deserves water. That being said, a user did reach out to me and offered to whip up a shroud design in cad that would house 80mm x 80mm x 25mm fans like the ones I used before hand. This way, the 80mm fans can remain as close as possible to the heatsink, which is where I ultimately think the problem lies.

Radeon Chill Question

Additionally, switching gears, here. Does anyone use Radeon Chill? I've noticed that it sometimes struggles to maintain minimum frames, and when it does keep the frame rate in between the min and max I have set, there is a considerable amount of input lag or something. It's very weird. Watching GPU-Z, I determined that Radeon Chill isn't dialing back the Core Clock like it did wiht my Vega 56. Instead, it dials back the memory clock, which makes absolutely no sense as the core is the component generating all the heat. So, in-game, my clocks will be around 1800 MHz, and the memory clock will be stuck at 350 MHz. Haven't seen a lot of other people report this, but it's a behavior I've observed since I first purchased the card.
 
Reactions: lightmanek

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,354
5,012
136
Got the VII installed. Default voltage in Wattman was set at 1084mV for 1801MHz, so I immediately lowered that to 1000mV, OC'd HBM2 to 1200MHz, and set a custom fan curve. I think my clocks are limited to around 1750 in benchmarks at 1000mV. But I have plenty of thermal headroom to OC later.

Sky Diver 1.0 benchmark result:
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/34570494?
 
Reactions: lightmanek

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,354
5,012
136
Okay, apparently my sustained clock is about 50MHz below the max I define in Wattman. In any event, at stock clocks even 976mV seems to be enough. How low can I go, I wonder?
 

Feld

Senior member
Aug 6, 2015
287
95
101
Hey guys and gals,

Fellow Radeon VII owner here. I decided to sign up to contribute to this discussion a bit, share my experiences, help, etc. Additionally, I've created a community Google doc, that I've already shared with Reddit where fellow Radeon VII owners can share their overclock / undervolt settings. My aim is to build a decent library of information when it comes to pushing these cards to the limit, one way or another, so we (and future owners) can all use it to get the most out of our cards. I'd greatly appreciate it if some of you could find the time to contribute to the document. I think it could be helpful going down the road.

Radeon VII Undervolting/Overclocking Community Sheet

If anyone has any suggestions, additions, etc. for the sheet, I'm all ears.

I'm experiencing much of the same behavior that DrMrLordX is experiencing with the clocks bouncing up and down depending on workload. I'm not sure if it's by design, but the maximum clock I have set isn't a constant. I understand that this is supposed to be a "Boost Clock" but I find that, depending on how hectic or demanding the scene is (no matter what benchmark or game) the clocks will go up and down. Sometimes during BFV, my core clock will sink to 1660 MHz when indoors or other less-than-demanding areas. This is with Radeon Chill off, btw. I'm hoping further driver refinements are in order.
Out of curiosity, is there any particular reason why you made this spreadsheet private? I just noticed I don't have access anymore.

Also, nice fan mod attempt. I did something similar a while back where I removed the shroud and zip tied two 140mm fans together to replace the worn out fans on a Sapphire Tri-X 290. It didn't work as well as the stock fans either, but it did well enough for my purposes (undervolted and underclocked for mining).

Regarding Chill, I haven't used it. I didn't like the sound of the lower minimums I saw in reviews and have been content to ignore the feature.
 
Last edited:

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
24
41
Out of curiosity, is there any particular reason why you made this spreadsheet private? I just noticed I don't have access anymore.

I was wondering why I was getting all of these access requests all of a sudden. I'm not sure what happened but it was set to private. I certainly didn't change it. The Sheet has been fixed. It should be available to public once again. Link just in case.
 
Reactions: Feld

Feld

Senior member
Aug 6, 2015
287
95
101
I was wondering why I was getting all of these access requests all of a sudden. I'm not sure what happened but it was set to private. I certainly didn't change it. The Sheet has been fixed. It should be available to public once again. Link just in case.
Strange. Some glitch with Google, I guess? But yeah, it's working again. Thanks.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,797
11,143
136
In any event, at stock clocks even 976mV seems to be enough. How low can I go, I wonder?

That's pretty good, though a lot of 3DMark tests don't stress as much as Superposition 1440p or 4k Optimized. I can probably get FireStrike to pass @ .970V but Superposition won't run at anything below .990V when using stock clocks.
 
Reactions: lightmanek

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,354
5,012
136
That's pretty good, though a lot of 3DMark tests don't stress as much as Superposition 1440p or 4k Optimized. I can probably get FireStrike to pass @ .970V but Superposition won't run at anything below .990V when using stock clocks.

I've tested further at stock clocks and 950mV with HBM2 @ 1200 and it passes multiple runs of Superposition 4K optimized with no issue. So I think I lucked out on the undervolt potential of this card as it's already 134mV below stock.
 

Feld

Senior member
Aug 6, 2015
287
95
101
I've tested further at stock clocks and 950mV with HBM2 @ 1200 and it passes multiple runs of Superposition 4K optimized with no issue. So I think I lucked out on the undervolt potential of this card as it's already 134mV below stock.
You definitely scored in the silicon lottery. Congrats!
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,797
11,143
136
I've tested further at stock clocks and 950mV with HBM2 @ 1200 and it passes multiple runs of Superposition 4K optimized with no issue. So I think I lucked out on the undervolt potential of this card as it's already 134mV below stock.

I would say so. Nice card you got there!
 

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,354
5,012
136
I would say so. Nice card you got there!

Yes, quite happy with the card so far. I'm trying to test its FP64 chops in Milkyway@Home but not able to get any work today. I tried some Primegrid at 950mV and the work was completed and validated. So far so good at 950mV, even for scientific/DC apps.
 
Reactions: lightmanek

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,797
11,143
136
Hmm might be a monster of a DC card then. Wonder how it fares against a 2080Ti in Primegrid.
 

guskline

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2006
5,338
476
126
I've tested further at stock clocks and 950mV with HBM2 @ 1200 and it passes multiple runs of Superposition 4K optimized with no issue. So I think I lucked out on the undervolt potential of this card as it's already 134mV below stock.
IEC, I was able to pass Superposition 4k Optimized stock with HBM2@1200 at 960mV but below that it locked.

I'm having fun testing this card, I have already ordered a Bykski fullblock to put this gpu under water. Then I will try some serious OCing.
 
Reactions: lightmanek and IEC
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