Hey, overclock virgin here. I got a 7970 gigabyte card that I just recently applied a few small 20 mhz core clock jumps and have ran into very small problems. I'm using MSI afterburner and applied a few basic settings that Jayz2cents gave a tutorial on. I'm pretty sure the gigabyte is voltage locked, I remember reading about it plus even after applying Jayz2cents settings the voltage and temp priority are still locked. So I ran Valley, then I increased core clock 20 mhz to 1020. Tested some games, Dark Souls 2 seems to crash in the first few minutes with any overclock. Then I bummed up 15 mhz to 1035 and got a crash after a few minutes in Valley. Then I ran it again and it ran fine in Valley for 20 plus minutes with a benchmark.
So my first question is does a single crash mean the core clock is unstable and that you either have to down-clock or increase voltage? Secondly since this card is most likely voltage locked and I've already got a crash at 1035 does that mean I got to down-clock and brag about my cool 20 mhz overclock haha. Temps are rock solid this thing can't hit 70 C at 40% fan speed on full load. I basically did this to mess around. I've already been thinking about getting an R9 390, plus I already have and intel/nvidia build with gtx 970. When Valley or Dark Souls 2 failed, sometimes I'd get a display driver crash and once or twice I got artifacts. Doesn't seem to be a big deal always goes away and a restart always clears things up. I found it odd that Valley about crash at 1035, but then run fine the second go around at 1035.
Any nib-its of opinions and advice would be enjoyable. A rather boring card for overclocking haha, again its Gigabtye 7970, amazing cooler though.
If its Voltage locked then yeah you won't get far. Generally you want to run something like Valley for a couple hours without artifacting or crashes: you don't want to be neck deep into a game just to lose it all thanks to an unstable oc ;)
When you do get a crash or atifacting, uping the voltage is what you want to do, otherwise tune down the clock
Also look at the cards ram speed, you can get better mileage bumping that up rather than the gpu clock
Did you set the power limit to plus 50 before you started overclocking?
Did you look for the option to disable ultra low power state?
Did you go into Crimson and enable overdrive?
And most important are you using the most recent afterburner version?
And for shits and giggles download the most recent sapphire trixx overclocking utility and see what options it give you.
sorry forgot to say my power limit was set to 120% which is the max on my card. I did a fresh install of msi afterburner before starting the OC two days ago. All try ULSP, when I skimmed over that settings I though it was just for crossfire. Where do you go in Crimson to enable overdrive? Crimson is just the new version of CCC isn't? Which I'm not a fan of...... Thanks for the tips.
There are a few options in the settings relating to voltage, been a while so I forget but look into it and see if they are just locking the voltage initially as a saftey thing, be careful with some of those options.
On AMD Global Overdrives I've got no voltage settings, Linustechtips said Crimson doesn't have any voltage features and it seems to mimic msi afterburner when I change settings. At 1.7 Volts what can you expect from an overclock? I heard you can do small overclocks with out touching voltage, but so far my 7970 seems to chicken out pretty quickly. 1020 core clock does fine in valley, but crashes in Dark Souls 2, I did notice artifacts in Batman Akrham Knight as well. What seems weird is my card doesn't seem bothered by the core clock increase. Seems like either the card isn't getting enough juice or the games don't like the OC. And if I can't increase voltage or power limit any higher well..... not much can be done that I'm seeing. What I hate is the cards with the best coolers always seem to be power/voltage locked.
The voltage settings in Crimson are power limit settings. For my 290 it is minus 50 through plus 50 should be close to the same for your 7970.
Unless I am mistaken the 7970 was released with a 900mhz base clock on the core. And then many venders oc'd them in house to 1 ghz and the usual lucky upper limit was 1100 on the core. ( I could be greatly mistaken will do some googling and edit with factual numbers) food for thought the 7970 is the first generation of GNC architecture so it will not clock as high as the latest generations.
The reference core clock at launch was 925. The ghz edition boost clock was 1050 with a base of 1005. Armed with this knowledge I have to ask you if you have a card with a dual bios or a single bios.
If dual bios I would look for a bios that has voltage unlocked. If single bios I would not try to flash it unless you have a second graphics card that you can use In case of a bad flash.
From what I found online it has a dual bios, but both are the same, the extra is in-case of corruption? I did the suggested 2 hour test on Valley at 1020 ran fine. Ran it again at 1040, never crashed and ran a benchmark, however the screen went black several times and came back. Valley never crashed and I never got a message about driver crash.
Is that considered a failed benchmark? If so I'll back down to 1020 and then try the ram and then test games out and see how if goes over time. I may just go back to stock if to many games don't like the OC. Valley wasn't showing a higher FPS gain from higher core clock.
Yes the extra bios is in case of corruption. If you feel froggy look into flashing your bios to a gigabyte model with unlocked voltage.
With out flashing your bios. Keeping the core at 1020 and upping the ram is your next best move. You will get more from the ram overclock than a core overclock of 10-15. If you are lucky you should be able to get about 100- 150 on the ram with out adding any power to the card. If you are super lucky you can get more Happy overclocking
Thanks for the help. I'll try the memory next.
In MSI Afterburner go to Settings > General Tab > Unlock Voltage Control
You can use benchmark applications for testing like MSI Kombustor to test stability, performance and temperature.
But remember raising voltage means higher temperatures, and voltage roughly translates that it gives your card some "juice" means if you raise your clocks you must find a point where you would need extra voltage.