7950 Overclock

[hal9001]

I am a beginner-intermediate overclocker and just finished with my Sapphire 7950. In Heaven, I got it up to 1155mhz on the core and 1655mhz on mem with an under voltage to 1231mv and the power to +20%. Artifacts started showing up like crazy above 1655mhz on mem. Temps never went above 75 Celsius. My score increased from 774 stock (925,1250) to 958 OC'ed at 1080p with maxed out aa and tesselation. I am running a stability test tonight, 8 hours in Heaven, to make sure everything is all right. What do you guys think? Are these ok scores? Is this voltage safe? Can I increase it?

Btw, my cpu is a 3570k @4.2ghz with a hyper 212EVO.

Thanks for all of the help!

[ShadowofGhosts]

There used to be a bug in Uningne where 7950s got like 15FPS. I guess that was fixed. 

[SkilledRebuilds]

On these higher end cards (of old and new) the core clocks are the ones that benefit the experience, memory clocks do improve performance, but NOWHERE near the scale of core clock changes.

 

Best bet is to not push your memory so high, maintain nice temps and keep the core clock as high as possible.

[hal9001]

On these higher end cards (of old and new) the core clocks are the ones that benefit the experience, memory clocks do improve performance, but NOWHERE near the scale of core clock changes.

 

Best bet is to not push your memory so high, maintain nice temps and keep the core clock as high as possible.

Thanks. Is it ok to push my voltage higher?

[SkilledRebuilds]

Thanks. Is it ok to push my voltage higher?

Whats your default non-idle vcore when the card is used? 1.256v?

As long as both Core temps and VRM temps (seen with GPUz sensor tabs) are comfortable to your liking.

 

See while I may let my core hit 80*c, you may not, each person is different, and every card can clock differently as you may know.

I would find a benchmark you can run in a window. Have it running WHILE applying clock changes, it will crash and freeze when unstable, meaning more voltages needed.

So back off again, find the last result that worked just before the crash & I would add a little bit of voltage like +0.007v, enough to call it a step up over the previous number, but not too far to call it two steps forward.

The benchmark would be running this entire time, if it crashed it lets me know something isnt right, if it changes the coreclock fine and still runs for another 60s or so, its still stable.

 

Rinse and repeat coreclock additions with voltage additions.

Keep in mind to NOT exceed 1.3v on the core, unless your watercooling or both of your CORE/VRM temps are still below 75*c

HD7950's I'm not too sure of the Maximum temps maintained over time. But I had my max temp at about 68*c after hours of gaming @ 1175/1650mhz @ 1.282v I may have gone further, but didn't push it.

 

Big wall of text, sorry bout that..

Keep in mind, MSI afterburner or alternatives, let you use custom fan profiles matching RPM VS TEMPS, comes in handy.

Keep in mind all cards are different.

Keep in mind, your Coretemp and VRMtemps.

 

Keep in mind, Have Fun!

[Face2Face]

8hrs of stability testing in Heaven is a  waste of watts, there is no need for it. Do you want to mine and game or just game? What games do you play the most of?

 

What is your stock voltage? VRM temps? What sapphire card do you have?

[Analog]

There is no need to run Heaven for that long, 30-40min is just fine. You can also run 3DMark Vantage since that is a really demanding benchmark. If it passes it then your overclock is 99% stable.   

[hal9001]

Thanks guys!