Benefits from 7970 GHz edition

Hi guys.
I got two question about my 7970 cards

1. What benefits do i get if i should flash my non GHz 7970 cards with a GHz bios?
Is it just higher MHz or is it something else? My cards are OC'ed from factory as default to GPU Clock : 1000 MHz

2. I'm running two XFX R7970 Black Ed. at 1125MHz / 1575MHz easily with MSI afterburner. But the problem is i can't go higher since the sliders are at max.
I found two "work arounds" for this where you had to copy some ati files to the program, or change the cfg file for MSI afterburner, but that gave me terrible tearings and a flickering screen.
Is there any other way to go higher with MSI afterburner?

sub'd. Very interested in answer.

The Ghz edition 7970 is just a regular 7970 with faster memory and core clock speeds (which affect the memory bandwidth and texture fillrate, respectively, if you're comparing specs). If your card is running at 1125/1575, then it's already running at speeds faster than a Ghz 7970, so you'd see no benefit in flashing.

A different bios may have a positive effect on your overclocking potential, but likely not by a wide margin (and it could also have a negative effect).

Are they running the same voltage?

I have an xfx 7970 non GHz. I've overclocked to 1060 core and 1600 mem.. Interested in this topic

Setting the unofficial overclock shouldnt cause screen tearing or flickering unless you pushed it too far after that. Did you raise your voltage any?

Thanks for the answer guys.

ninjacore said:

The Ghz edition 7970 is just a regular 7970 with faster memory and core clock speeds (which affect the memory bandwidth and texture fillrate, respectively, if you're comparing specs). If your card is running at 1125/1575, then it's already running at speeds faster than a Ghz 7970, so you'd see no benefit in flashing.

A different bios may have a positive effect on your overclocking potential, but likely not by a wide margin (and it could also have a negative effect).

Click to expand...

As i thought then
I'll stay with stock bios for now since it works great with overclocking already

anthonyg45157 said:

Are they running the same voltage?

I have an xfx 7970 non GHz. I've overclocked to 1060 core and 1600 mem.. Interested in this topic

Click to expand...

Yes, both card are running at 1175mV.
Don't know which one i should believe however. MSI afterburner tells me 1175mV, but Aida64 show me 1170mV

EarthDog said:

Setting the unofficial overclock shouldnt cause screen tearing or flickering unless you pushed it too far after that. Did you raise your voltage any?

Click to expand...

The flickering and tearing start right after i enable these two option in the .cfg file
*Seek UnofficialOverclockingEULA field and add following text:
I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
*Set UnofficialOverclockingMode to 1 to keep PowerPlay active (may not work on old ASICs), 2 to traditionally disable PowerPlay or to 0 to temporary disable unofficial overclocking path

And this is when i run the same overclock as before "1125/1575" which works great otherwise. I even tried to raise the voltage to 1200mV with no success.

Found more people with the same problem http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=371994

Hmm, i've done some reading now and stumble upon some bioses over 7970 cards.
I noticed that some bioses has a higher CCC overclock limit then my cards are limited to.

Here's a example
CCC Overdrive Limits
GPU Clock: 1500.00 MHz
Memory Clock: 2000.00 MHz

Lets say i give this bios a go for my 7970 cards, is it then possible to go higher then "1125/1575" without editing the MSI AB config file and perhaps get rid of that darn flickering?

And also, how do i know which bioses works for my cards?

This is the bios i've been looking at
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/125161/xfx-hd7970-3072-120711.html

Yes. You can modify the bios to get higher ccc clocks and higher default voltage. I had modified bioses on my 7950s that gave them the voltage needed for 1200 core and extended the ccc limit to 1300/1800 so I didn't need any overclocking program running.

Another quick question.

I can change my voltage in MSI Afterburner and it tells me the correct voltage, but both Aida64 and GPU-Z tells me the "old" Voltage.
So which one should i trust?

EDIT: I've done alot of reading about this and some people claims that some cards from the XFX black ed. came out with a locked Voltage.
So is there any way to see if my voltage is locked? I mean, i can change the voltage with MSI Afterburner, but if the new voltage is applied or not is another thing

jebediah said:

Another quick question.

I can change my voltage in MSI Afterburner and it tells me the correct voltage, but both Aida64 and GPU-Z tells me the "old" Voltage.
So which one should i trust?

EDIT: I've done alot of reading about this and some people claims that some cards from the XFX black ed. came out with a locked Voltage.
So is there any way to see if my voltage is locked? I mean, i can change the voltage with MSI Afterburner, but if the new voltage is applied or not is another thing

Click to expand...

Had an xfx 7970 and 7870 both were locked. No voltage control. In MSI afterburner you can't adjust voltage.if I remember correctly afterburner never did show my voltage...

The sensors on GPU z should give you an accurate voltage reading...

Hmm, don't know which one i should believe. People over at Guru3D tells me to ignore Aida64 and Gpu-Z. Everyone has wrong except MSI Afterburner.

Kinda wrong if you ask me that two major programs as Aida64 and GPU-Z should show me wrong info.

But still. I can change Voltage in MSI Afterburner, but i don't know if the changes really are applied

Try more overclocking...without changing voltage. Go as high.as you vsn until you get errors in games or artifacts. Bump up the voltage and see if you can achieve a higher stable over clock.

If you can change voltage in afterburner then I would imagine you have unlocked voltage

Just a tiny update.
It seems that my voltage was locked.
All programs that i used showed me my default voltage, except MSI Afterburner.

So used VBE7.0.0.7b to make my own bios with a slight higher voltage, and now all the programs are showing me the new voltage.

1200/1800 was the highest i could go with 1.2 V, and after that my VRM temps went past 85c.
So a new GPU cooler is needed