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Faulty HD7970 Vapor-x?

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Pierre3400

annnnnnd it's gone
Joined
May 15, 2010
Location
Euroland, Denmark
Hey guys,

Some of you may know that i have been having issues with one or both my HD7970 Vapor-X 6Gb cards.

Today, i started a long term testing phase.

First off, i have two cards. One of them is showing flux residue, the other looks like new.

When the card with flux residue is sitting as the top card and with Crossfire enabled, then the pc will freeze up, under almost no stress. When the card with flux residue is on the bottom and Crossfire is enabled, then the pc works fine, but i have noticed graphics jumping around in SimCity (all i have played)
Soon as CFX is disabled with the non flux in top position the graphic are smooth and great looking. I have not run test with flux card in top and non flux in second, no CFX and then running the game.

So far today i have run 3dMark11 Performance tests. One card installed at a time.

One thing i have noticed is that on both cards, scores tend to drop slowly.

For this test i have used following setup.

i7 3770K Stock speeds, air cooled.
AsRock Z77 WS
2x 4Gb Corsair Vengeance 1866Mhz
Corsair AX750
Kingston SSD Now Vseries 128Gb

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit SP1
GPU driver: Ati Catalyst 13.1

The results:

Sapphire HD7970 Ghz Vapor-X 6Gb Single card 3dMark11 Runs
Performance Scores
Runs Card 1 (Flux) Card 2
1 9784 9818
2 9764 9811
3 9739 9754
4 9721 9749
5 9728 9724
6 9717 9725
7 9687 9704
8 9683 9738
9 9679 9706
10 9658 9710
11 9671 9702
12 9650 9685
13 9622 9685
14 9638 9745
15 9613 9651
16 9653 9695
17 9612 9694
18 9605 9641
19 9596 9634
20 9601 9601
Graph_1.png


This is what i have so far, and my concern is still with the card with the flux residue. What i found funny is the scores on a steady drop, and after 20 runs on both cards, they ended on 9601p.

Next up is Unigine Heaven.

Comments are welcome to help me find the bad card, or what else it could be?
 
I know for benchmarking many, including myself, reboot after each run (or at minimum close the app and open it again). That said, the score difference is a mere 1-2% difference really. This is within the margin of error for the test.

As its posted, I personally dont see a problem, especially if you went run after run after run...
 
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I know for benchmarking many, including myself, reboot after each run. That said, the score difference is a mere 1-2% difference really. This is within the margin of error for the test.

As its posted, I personally dont see a problem, especially if you went run after run after run...

I went run after run.

I been doing a few Heaven 4.0 with 3 screens and maxed out. Same score.

So i think im going to skip to dual card setup next.
 
I know you dont see one, but your not the one that has had a pc freeze up on you, and it didnt stop until the GPU positions were changed around, and still then there were graphical issues.

I have just run 2 runs with old freezing setup, and everything seems fine SO far.
 
Sorry, let me rephrase it... with what you posted as far as benchmarks go, I do not see a problem. Performance is fine.
 
Sorry, let me rephrase it... with what you posted as far as benchmarks go, I do not see a problem. Performance is fine.

I can only agree with you.

Like i just posted. The cards are installed as they were when the pc was freezing, right now.

I ran 3dmark11 twice and scored mid 14000's

I just ran a Heaven 4.0, maxed out, 3 screens with crossfire on.

It scores 358 points, while with a single card, it scored 360. How can this be?:shrug:
 
Perhaps in Heaven 4.0 doesnt scale in CFx/SLI? No idea, I dont run it. You are getting scaling in 3d11, so its working on other applications...
 
Right now, the setup is working, which is strange. Since i have had so many problems past week, but i guess i will keep testing it.
 
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