SOLVED Issues overclocking my MSI HD7970 Lightning

[suchamoneypit]

So I recently built my dream PC, with some pretty impressive hardware. Im currently using a X99-UD4 motherboard, i7-5820k ( liquid cooled), 16GB RAM, and the HD 7970 lightning. Ive entered into the world of overclocking, and Im having some issues. I successfully did an overclock, a very low one as it was my first ever, and I got a 5% increase in my GPU benchmark score ( 3dmarkfire) and 13% increase in my CPU overclock. My main issue is I cant seem to get any more improvement on my GPU speed. It seems while reviewing my cards activity is it wont go over its base GPU clock. I've tried changing its clock in MSI afterburner and AMD overdrive via Catalyst control center. Im new to this and im not exactually sure what my issue seems to be here. my GPU maintains temps around 35-40 C while running the benchmark, so that cant be the issue. Here are some pictures with more info, it would be awesome if anyone could help me out. and sorry if i posted this in the wrong sub-forum. I didnt see a dedicated thread i could inquire about this. One of my thoughts was that AMD overdrive was possibly stopping the edits i made in Afterburner, but after changing both i saw no major change in benchmark scores for any category ( +/- .5-1%)


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just a note, my fan speed is high in this pic as i raised the fan speed to cool down my GPU after running the benchmark like 10 times in a row troubleshooting the problem.

edit: After a restart after increasing my CPU overclock to the autotune extreme, my benchmark began freezing and failing. I then set my GPU overclocking settings to normal, and rebooted and reran the test. I determined that it was the CPU. I then set the CPU back to medium autotune as i had it before. After rerunning the test, at settings that worked several times before, my benchmark again froze. Im going to reset everything back to default to see what happens.

 

[sandyduff]

Stick with MSI Afterburner... Leave everything in AMD overdrive as default... could be confusing things trying to use both at the same time!!

That core OC of 1225MHz is quite high... I know my 7990 tops out at 1200MHz so you may be pushing too much.

Since temps aren't an issue, I would increase your core clock by 25MHz, test for stability and temps and if everything is OK, increase again!

Only ever OC one component at a time and always test for stability, last thing you want is to have to troubleshoot whether it's your CPU or GPU OC that's causing the issues.

 

[suchamoneypit]

Stick with MSI Afterburner... Leave everything in AMD overdrive as default... could be confusing things trying to use both at the same time!!

That core OC of 1225MHz is quite high... I know my 7990 tops out at 1200MHz so you may be pushing too much.

Since temps aren't an issue, I would increase your core clock by 25MHz, test for stability and temps and if everything is OK, increase again!

Only ever OC one component at a time and always test for stability, last thing you want is to have to troubleshoot whether it's your CPU or GPU OC that's causing the issues.

Thanks for the reply. Shortly after I did end up doing this. One thing I notice though , and my main concern, is no matter what I change , on the monitoring graphs in Afterburner, my core clock still never goes over 1070 core clock. Instead it rises to the standard core clock (1070), and levels off at exactually 1070, not showing the increased core clock I'm expecting to see.

 

[EarthDog]

For giggles, use GPUz to confirm the clocks are not going up. It will likely be the same but... check.

 

[sandyduff]

Thanks for the reply. Shortly after I did end up doing this. One thing I notice though , and my main concern, is no matter what I change , on the monitoring graphs in Afterburner, my core clock still never goes over 1070 core clock. Instead it rises to the standard core clock (1070), and levels off at exactually 1070, not showing the increased core clock I'm expecting to see.

I don't mean to insult you with this question but... Are you definitely hitting apply in Afterburner after increasing the core speed? Also, is Afterburner the most up to date version?

 

[suchamoneypit]

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For giggles, use GPUz to confirm the clocks are not going up. It will likely be the same but... check.

I don't mean to insult you with this question but... Are you definitely hitting apply in Afterburner after increasing the core speed? Also, is Afterburner the most up to date version?

No insult taken, im new and it could be something as little as that. I appreciate the effort. After turning off AMD overdrive, and restarting my computer to be sure, I did get GPU-Z and reapplied my MSI afterburner settings (im positive i was hitting apply before). After running some benchmarks I did verify with GPU-Z my GPU was overclocking normally and with the settings I set in Afterburner, and I've now settled on a good OC and im sure it works. thanks for the help!