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Overclocking 7970

  • 21-08-2014 8:11am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,051 ✭✭✭


    Hi All,

    So I decided to stick with my 7970 for another couple of months and try and overclock it. I’m very much a bit of a novice when it comes to these things, so looking for some tips.

    I did a bit of reading and found that my Club 3D RoyalQueen 7970 and found out about this dual bios. I was a little apprehensive but figured if anything went wrong, I had a backup of the original bios or could swap to the other bios, so I was good to go.

    The process was really simple and I increased my default clocks from 975mhz to 1050mhz and 1375mhz to 1500mhz for the core and memory clocks respectively.

    I had been using MSI afterburner for a bit so tried to up the clocks a little bit further, loaded up FarCry 3 and fraps to see what I would get

    My end result was stable game play with:
    - Voltage: 1200mhz
    - Core Clock: 1160mhz
    - Memory Clock: 1600mhz

    My issue now is, I just bought a new 1440p monitor and my FPS in FarCry 3 is at about 20 to 30 FPS with some dips to 15 FPS… Ideally, I’d like to be getting this to a minimum of 30 FPS.

    Any tips or advice on what I could do to get more out of my card. The rest of the rig looks like:

    - CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3ghz running at 4.2ghz
    - MoBo: MSI P67A-GD55 (B3), Intel P67
    - Ram: 8GB of Corsair DDR3 PC1600 C9 Classic


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 878 ✭✭✭Luck100


    It sounds like you have pretty much maxed out your hardware. I'd say you need to tune your settings in Far Cry 3 if you want to improve FPS. Where do you have it set right now? MSAA can really kill your framerate.

    I'm running 1440p, 670 SLI. Ultra settings in FC3 with 2x MSAA runs 60+ FPS most of the time. 7970 should be a bit faster than a single 670, so my guess is you can hit 30 FPS with Ultra (or mostly Ultra) with some settings tweaks. I can check my exact settings later tonight if it's of interest.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,051 ✭✭✭OmegaRed


    Luck100 wrote: »
    It sounds like you have pretty much maxed out your hardware. I'd say you need to tune your settings in Far Cry 3 if you want to improve FPS. Where do you have it set right now? MSAA can really kill your framerate.

    I'm running 1440p, 670 SLI. Ultra settings in FC3 with 2x MSAA runs 60+ FPS most of the time. 7970 should be a bit faster than a single 670, so my guess is you can hit 30 FPS with Ultra (or mostly Ultra) with some settings tweaks. I can check my exact settings later tonight if it's of interest.

    If you could mate, that would be great!

    I have everything maxed out (8XMSAA). I should really knock it down....

    Also, what would my best options be for v-sync, Alpha to Coverage and SSAO Method in the video settings?


  • Registered Users Posts: 878 ✭✭✭Luck100


    v-sync = no unless you're solidly over 60 FPS. I prefer adaptive v-sync through Nvidia control panel over in-game v-sync. Not sure if AMD has something equivalent.

    Alpha to coverage, I think I have it turned on. I believe this affects where MSAA is applied in the image.

    SSAO, I believe I have it set to HDAO. The other SSAO choices (including the default) looked bizarre - everything had dark lines around them, like some kind of cartoon.

    MSAA is the big killer. Just try no AA or 2xMSAA and see if you can get over 30 FPS that way. I'll check my settings tonight.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,051 ✭✭✭OmegaRed


    You were right, MSAA was the killer. Knocked it completely off and was getting 40+ FPS. It did drop to 25 in big fire fights...

    I'll manage to Christmas. I think I'll ask Santa for another 7970 or up to a 290x


  • Registered Users Posts: 878 ✭✭✭Luck100


    Here's my settings screenshots.
    319255.jpg

    319256.jpg

    Shot of screen in-game, you can see my framerate at the top left. I usually have adaptive v-sync on, but I turned it off for this.
    319257.jpg


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,051 ✭✭✭OmegaRed


    Whats the program you have running showing the FPS and GPU details?


  • Registered Users Posts: 878 ✭✭✭Luck100


    MSI Afterburner. I also use it for gpu overclocking, custom fan profile, and screenshots. It works for both AMD and Nvidia.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,051 ✭✭✭OmegaRed


    That's what I use, didn't know it could do that... *off to check settings*


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,229 ✭✭✭Wetbench4


    OmegaRed wrote: »
    That's what I use, didn't know it could do that... *off to check settings*

    Its the rivatuner program that runs with afterburner.


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