Identical throttling, 2 different cards 3 cooling methods wtf?

So i previously had a XFX 7950 that throttled identically to this Powercolor 270 clocks down and up rapidly and usage fluctuates back and forth from 64% to 100%. the 7950 throttled like this even before i put a water block on it, i've only every used a water block on the 270. all temps are good What the hell is going on?

Edit: just tried uninstalling afterburner and am using sapphire trixx same issue.

Is this happening under load (benchmarking etc)? At idle? Gaming?
It will throttle depending on the workload.
If @ idle you may have some background malware-miner working away. Not good...
Run say Furmark and if you still see the throttle spikes during stress testing and temps are good. Then look to the drivers.

  • Uninstalled, cleaned (guru3d DDU), re-installed drivers?
  • Tested cards in other machines
  • Tested in a linux environment? - there is a linux version of the Heaven benchmark available