Off-Topic Thread

Gumbi

Eboggles wrote: »

With the 7900 series, memory overclocking doesn't do a lot. For example, when I had my HD7950 at 1575mhz (from 1250) memory, I gained about 5% fps. That's a 26% increase in clocks for a measly gain so IMO it's not worth it.

Put up the voltage to 1.3, max out the fan, open up a can, turn on 3DMark11 and have a good time.

Try and get 1200mhz, and call it a day .

So try to get 1200mhz core at the lowest voltage, yeah? Right so, will try! I'm not getting any gains in furmark with the mem at 1400.

Eboggles

Gumbi wrote: »

So try to get 1200mhz core at the lowest voltage, yeah? Right so, will try! I'm not getting any gains in furmark with the mem at 1400.

Then stop. What's that 7950's stock memory clock?

When a HD7950 hits 1200mhz, it topples a GTX 680. Seriously, it's the best card eva'.*

*May be biased due to spending €300 to buy one.

Gumbi

Eboggles wrote: »

Then stop. What's that 7950's stock memory clock?

When a HD7950 hits 1200mhz, it topples a GTX 680. Seriously, it's the best card eva'.*

*May be biased due to spending €300 to buy one.

Sapphire 7950 950mhz edition he says proudly

Like Bloodbath was saying my stick voltage is so low, I should have good OC headroom (1013mV @ 950 core).

Gumbi

It's normal that the higher I go, I pay more in voltage per mhz increase, right? As in, I can get to 1050 for free (stock volts) and 1100 @ 1040mV. but to get to 1200, I'll prob need to spend 1.5v, right?

BloodBath

Yes. It ramps up pretty quickly past a certain point.

I wouldn't go above 1.3v though. That should be good enough for 1200+ if you can keep it cool enough.

Gumbi

BloodBath wrote: »

Yes. It ramps up pretty quickly past a certain point.

I wouldn't go above 1.3v though. That should be good enough for 1200+ if you can keep it cool enough.

Yes. Very noticeably so. Sorry, for the play-by-play, but I'm having fun!

1100mhz is stable (note: stable enough to play Crysis 3 for 2+ hours) @ 1040mV. I put it to 1125mhz @ 1.2v and furmark crashed (well my comp crashed actually) after 10 sec. Is this normal? Maybe I'm remembering my numbers incorrectly?

Gumbi

Will the card shut itself down at certain temps? I can run throught the 1080p benchmark preset of furmark easily @1100mhz core @1040mV (temps don't reach 75 degrees, only reach 72/73), when I ramp up the voltage to 1.2, obv the temps rocket. So my fan (still on auto) reaches about 65%, and by this time my GPU is @ 83 degree. Furmark stutters onc or twice, then my PC crashes (blank screen) need to reboot. Since the 1100mhz is stable at a lower voltage, that means the temperature caused the crash? Which means I should manually set my fan when running Furmark (seeing as it's an unrealistic platform for typical usage)?

BloodBath

They get unstable above 70c-75c when overclocked. What model of card is it? Those temps are high for that voltage.

Gumbi

BloodBath wrote: »

They get unstable above 70c-75c when overclocked. What model of card is it? Those temps are high for that voltage.

Sapphire 7950 950mhz edition. Furmark isn't stable when I run through it at 1100mhz (which is stable at 1040mV btw) at 1.200mV. I set the fan at 90%, and it has some slowdowns, freezing at certain points as if it's about to crash, but barely doesn't (and as a result I get min frames of 31 whereas it should always stay at 60).

My VRM 1 also hit 115 degrees at that playthrough (other one only hit 60 or something).

The fan scraping is also audible. I need to reseat it for sure, the weight of my cables (they're stiff due to the covering I never removed from them, so they prob weigh down more). Hopefully there are only some screws to tighten and it'll all be good However it's not like this would fix the temps much.

Serephucus

There's a post on OCN about AMD unveiling TressFX on the 26th, and it shows the following image:





Whereupon, someone else came up with this:



I LOLed.

Eboggles

Gumbi wrote: »

Sapphire 7950 950mhz edition. Furmark isn't stable when I run through it at 1100mhz (which is stable at 1040mV btw) at 1.200mV. I set the fan at 90%, and it has some slowdowns, freezing at certain points as if it's about to crash, but barely doesn't (and as a result I get min frames of 31 whereas it should always stay at 60).

My VRM 1 also hit 115 degrees at that playthrough (other one only hit 60 or something).

The fan scraping is also audible. I need to reseat it for sure, the weight of my cables (they're stiff due to the covering I never removed from them, so they prob weigh down more). Hopefully there are only some screws to tighten and it'll all be good However it's not like this would fix the temps much.

You know what you should do? Watercool that mofo.

Could get 1200, could get 1250, could get 1280, could get 1300...

You'll definitely get silence though

Serephucus

Eboggles wrote: »

You know what you should do? Watercool that mofo.

Could get 1200, could get 1250, could get 1280, could get 1300...

You'll definitely get silence though

This posted has officially been endorsed by... me.

Gumbi

Eboggles wrote: »

You know what you should do? Watercool that mofo.

Could get 1200, could get 1250, could get 1280, could get 1300...

You'll definitely get silence though

I have heard good things about water cooling, especially this model.

Do you think my temps are unusual @ 1.2v?

Gumbi

Maybe I don't need that much voltage?

Preliminary testing (1 min loop 1080p preset of Furmark) with fan manually set at 70% with 1150mhz core @ 1063mV went fine. Temps hit 70 at the end, I think, and prob hadn't stabilised by that time (seeing as it was only a 1 min run).

Eboggles

Gumbi wrote: »

Maybe I don't need that much voltage?

Preliminary testing (1 min loop 1080p preset of Furmark) with fan manually set at 70% with 1150mhz core @ 1063mV went fine. Temps hit 70 at the end, I think, and prob hadn't stabilised by that time (seeing as it was only a 1 min run).

I never test with Furmark as it just shows how much punishment your card can take before it craps out, as opposed to determining whether or not it's stable.

Just run your most demanding game at the highest IQ settings, and once you're happy with it, save your settings. When your card fails Furmark, it doesn't mean it's totally unstable, it just means that when placed in a situation that does not represent gaming load, it can't cope.

Gumbi

Eboggles wrote: »

I never test with Furmark as it just shows how much punishment your card can take before it craps out, as opposed to determining whether or not it's stable.

Just run your most demanding game at the highest IQ settings, and once you're happy with it, save your settings. When your card fails Furmark, it doesn't mean it's totally unstable, it just means that when placed in a situation that does not represent gaming load, it can't cope.

Fair enough. I knew/read that, but I probably haven't appreciated the true difference. How about looping the Heaven benchmark?

Do you have any comment regarding my temperature voltage ratios? Does it seem like I have a particularly bad/good card, or am I looking good so far?

Eboggles

Gumbi wrote: »

Fair enough. How about looping the Heaven benchmark?

Do you have any comment regarding my temperature voltage ratios? Does it seem like I have a particularly bad/good card, or am I looking good so far?

Heaven's perfect.

You're looking pretty good, voltage wise. For example, my HD7950 won't run 1150mhz under 1256mv after I updated my BIOS to a bonky one uploaded by sapphire themselves. I'm on a HD7970 Ghz one now and I seem to be ok...

There are so many variables to take into account when comparing overclocks e.g temperature, vDroop (the new Trixx is going to have Load Line Calibration options) and power limits so its hard to say if your card is going to turn out okay. It wouldn't be great to see you thermally limited, as I'm sure there's a lot of juice in that card.

Gumbi

Eboggles wrote: »

Heaven's perfect.

You're looking pretty good, voltage wise. For example, my HD7950 won't run 1150mhz under 1256mv after I updated my BIOS to a bonky one uploaded by sapphire themselves. I'm on a HD7970 Ghz one now and I seem to be ok...

There are so many variables to take into account when comparing overclocks e.g temperature, vDroop (the new Trixx is going to have Load Line Calibration options) and power limits so its hard to say if your card is going to turn out okay. It wouldn't be great to see you thermally limited, as I'm sure there's a lot of juice in that card.

Currently the voltage is at 1.063v and I'm at 1150mhz, VRM 1 hit 80 (this is OK, right?) degrees, playing Crysis 3 for 30 mins. Max GPU temp was 74 degrees, fan hit 48% in accordance with the auto profile.

Looks OK to me. I'll try to get 1200 mhz tomorrow, or refine this voltage at current score clock speed.

Thnanks for al your help!

Serephucus

I just... Ah here:

NTMK

dafuq did i just watch?

that is the stupidest thing ive ever seen

didnt a us court rule that its not the isp's job to police the internet

Serephucus

They've apparently set up this new centralised system to catch grandmothers clicking Youtube links, for even more efficient money pilfering.

Gumbi

It seems like I can't run high voltages on my setup. I'll overheat! But here's the good news: I'm stable at 1200mhz core @ 1063mV, looped through the the heaven benchmark once, ezpz, temps only reached 65 degrees (auto fan temps) :D Scored 2137. Am I on the right track? Thanks! (Everything maxed no tessellation).

VenomIreland

Item|Price
4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9|€20.92
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse Core 1000 black|€29.14
Corsair Builder Serie CX430 V3 Non-Modular 80+ Bronze, 430 Watt|€40.06
ASUS P8H61-I LX R2.0, Intel Sockel 1155, ITX|€54.02
Intel Celeron Dual-Core G1620 Box , LGA1155|€47.00
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€163.78
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€373.91

For a media server, thoughts? Drives will probably be set up in RAID1, or I could get 4 1TB drives and run it in RAID5 (will all be software RAID)

Serephucus

I'd stick with 2x2TB. You could do 4x1 RAID5, but it would be a lot more intensive, and probably wouldn't leave you with too much CPU power to spare. You could do 4x1 RAID10, but that seems a little messy, with more points of failure.

VenomIreland

Serephucus wrote: »

I'd stick with 2x2TB. You could do 4x1 RAID5, but it would be a lot more intensive, and probably wouldn't leave you with too much CPU power to spare. You could do 4x1 RAID10, but that seems a little messy, with more points of failure.

You have a point, I think I'll stick with the 2TB drives in RAID1. On that subject, would I be better off spending a small amount on a raid controller or doing it through software in Ubuntu?

Serephucus

If it's just RAID1, software should be fine. Most cheap-ass controllers use software anyway.

marco_polo

Gumbi wrote: »

It seems like I can't run high voltages on my setup. I'll overheat! But here's the good news: I'm stable at 1200mhz core @ 1063mV, looped through the the heaven benchmark once, ezpz, temps only reached 65 degrees (auto fan temps) :D Scored 2137. Am I on the right track? Thanks! (Everything maxed no tessellation).

Looks good so far, the lower the voltage it takes to reach your target clock the better.

Gumbi

marco_polo wrote: »

Looks good so far, the lower the voltage it takes to reach your target clock the better.

Brilliant! I don't think there's anyway I can cool my card at 1.2v, but if I can get 1.2ghz @ 1.063v I'm happy! I might be able to push it a but further to 1.25ghz, that would be class I think.

BloodBath

You should be using max tessellation to stress it. I'm guessing it won't be stable at that voltage.

If it is you have 1 great card.

Gumbi

BloodBath wrote: »

You should be using max tessellation to stress it. I'm guessing it won't be stable at that voltage.

If it is you have 1 great card.

I will do that! You're right, the driver crashed after 5 mins of Crysis 3, so I bumped it up to 1.1v. This is making the fan ramp up to 50/60% in games (fine as it is, keeping temps below 70 alright), but is bringing the scraping sound to bare - so I'll definitely have to take out my card and have a look at what migtbe causing that.

How are you running your card at 1.3v? There's no way I can cool my card at that voltage ^^ I'm at 1200mhz now at 1.1v so I'll see how that goes. That's a big bump from 1.063, so hopefully it'll be enough.