7970 - Overclocking past Afterburner's limits?

-Edit -updated MSI Afterburner, but I still have a question...

How do you overclock past what MSI Afterburner's limits are? Does this involve flashing the bios? Right now I'm stuck at 1200/1650 on my 7970...

I believe this is what your looking for...

Awww yeah, just what I was looking for...

Anyone have any experience or insight oc'ing a 7970 past normal afterburner settings? How much voltage is to much voltage for core and memory? So far my temps have stayed just over 60c.

Btw, just learned that if you edit your msi ab (2.2.3 latest version) shortcut and add -xcl, it will activate unofficial oc limits

White Runner said:

Awww yeah, just what I was looking for...

Anyone have any experience or insight oc'ing a 7970 past normal afterburner settings? How much voltage is to much voltage for core and memory? So far my temps have stayed just over 60c.

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Overclocking and needed voltage depends from gpu. Some are better , some are worse and in this case I can say that can be big difference.
For example my 1st 7970 was making 1200MHz / 1.2V core but was running up to 80*C under load. My 2nd 7970 is making 1150MHz / 1.2V but is running up to 65*C under load ( yes 15*C difference on the same voltage and cooling ).
You can compare ASIC scores for each card. It's something like quality score but good interpretation is important.
7970 have it quite low and usually between 55-75%. I can only add that my 1st card had 73% and 2nd 58%.

To check ASIC just open GPU-Z , click in the top left corner and pick ASIC option. There is also some explanation.
If you see GPU-Z window with ASIC score then you can see that low % doesn't mean that card is worse... it can overclock worse on air cooling but probably better on water or sub zero.

Going back to clocks, your card is probably a bit improved reference design so you can count that 1.30V will be max before OCP will turn on. Explaining it other way , without hard mods 1.3V will be max that you will be able to set with any AB version ( including special unlocked version that is not available from official sources ).

On the other hand I see no point to overclock these cards for anything else than benching.

I run 24/7 stock volts, as I haven't needed to OC for games. I was running some 3dmarks yesterday, and reached 1200/1650 @ 1.20V; which got me thinking how much further I can push it... I've got a ton of other benches to run, then I'll look into going further. Thanks for the help!

My 7970 is making about 1800MHz memory clock for benchmarks without changing voltage. It's about the same as my 1st 7970 could make. In both cases I needed +0.1V to make next 50-100MHz. Still no matter what I do from time to time I see freeze or stripes on the screen when I set anything 1750+.
Core as I said depends from each card but 1.25-1.30V can usually help in reaching 1200-1250 clock. Most of these cards are passing tests up to 1250 on air/water but above 1200/1220 you will see lot of artifacts. Sometimes benchmarks are passing with all black screen and you still get score at the end.

I was running benchmarks and playing BF3/D3 with 1200/1650 and I didn't notice any artifacts or tearing; hopefully I'll get some more time to test it further tonight...

Woomack said:

Sometimes benchmarks are passing with all black screen and you still get score at the end.

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As long as it passes, right?

What drivers are you guys using btw?

ciku said:

What drivers are you guys using btw?

Click to expand...

Just finished running the following benchmarks on 12.6 drivers

3DMark05
3DMark06
3DMark 2011
Heaven B & X

Gonna scrub and try the beta drivers (12.7) and see how my scores differ...

I'm using the system in my sig, here are a little more details

2600K @ 4.5Ghz w/HT on (vcore = 1.35-1.37) I have a Phanteks Big Blue 140mm cooler, I don't recall the exact name, just know its HUGE! I also disabled all of the C states and all that jazz...
2 x 4GB DDR3-1600 @ 9-9-9-24 2T
Gigabyte 7970 Windforce x3 @ 1200/1650 @ 1.17v

Lemme resize some pics and I'll post my scores for the 12.6 drivers before I get going on the 12.7.

Hopefully the pics come out in this order....
12.6 Drivers
3DMark05 - 32,765
3DMark06 - 32,761
3DMark 2011 - 9,660
Heaven B - 4,741.578
Heaven X - 2,332.512

12.7 Beta Drivers
*Note, for some reason the 12.7 Beta drivers show up as 12.6; some registry entry that didn't get updated in the beta drivers.
3DMark05 - 40,140
3DMark06 - 33,036
3DMark 2011 - 9,691
Heaven B - 4,753.586
Heaven X - 2,333.73


Here are the 12.6 driver to compare; only one big difference in 3DMark05...
3DMark05 - 32,765
3DMark06 - 32,761
3DMark 2011 - 9,660
Heaven B - 4,741.578
Heaven X - 2,332.512

Not really much of a difference; I'm gonna play some BF3 but I doubt I'll notice any improvements, and hopefully nothing bad...

I don't see any difference between 12.6 and 12.7 in BF3, but from 12.3 to 12.6 is about 15%.

As for 3DMark11 like you i'm getting a very slight drop.

I should shay i'm running FXAA Injector with BF3 which takes about 10% off the FPS, but its worth it. and i don't know how that might effect the 12.6 to 12.7 result.

I might Uninstall FXAA just to see how many FPS i'm actually getting, right now i'm getting a game Avg of about 50 to 75 (1920 x 1080 Ultra preset) depending on the map.

Frakk said:

I don't see any difference between 12.6 and 12.7 in BF3, but from 12.3 to 12.6 is about 15%.

As for 3DMark11 like you i'm getting a very slight drop.

I should shay i'm running FXAA Injector with BF3 which takes about 10% off the FPS, but its worth it.

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I can't tell the difference between 82fps and 75 fps, nor any difference in game between the two drivers... but I'm curious as to what FXAA Injector is; it sounds like I need it!

*Edit - FXAA Injector looks cool, any advice on which profile to use?

To compare GPU or drivers results better use 3DM Vantage, 11 and Heaven.
3DM05, 06 and older tests are too CPU dependant and results will be almost always the same no matter what drivers you use or how high you overclock your graphics card.
btw I think that you added 2x 3DM06 results for 12.6 drivers thats why there is difference

Hmmm for some reason a few of us are getting gsod / black screen issues with 12.6 and 12.7 drivers That's why we had to reroll to RC11 drivers.

Woomack said:

To compare GPU or drivers results better use 3DM Vantage, 11 and Heaven.
3DM05, 06 and older tests are too CPU dependant and results will be almost always the same no matter what drivers you use or how high you overclock your graphics card.
btw I think that you added 2x 3DM06 results for 12.6 drivers thats why there is difference

Click to expand...

You're right, my 12.6 drivers screenie for 3DM05 is actually the same screenie as my 3DM06 FOR 12.6 driver... I'm going to rerun Vantage, 11 and heaven and repost those results... though I'm going to start with the 12.7 drivers since I have them installed

ciku said:

Hmmm for some reason a few of us are getting gsod / black screen issues with 12.6 and 12.7 drivers That's why we had to reroll to RC11 drivers.

Click to expand...

While my exposure has been some what limited over the years, I have never had driver issues of any kind with my 7970 and I've used whatever the latest has been since I got the card in Feb/March...

I'm gonna start running them now as I finally have an evening free of obligations...