I purchased a new Sapphire 7970 OC edition two weeks ago and things seemed like they were going well. All of the games I ran played well, the visuals were stunning, etc. I started to run into some issues over the weekend, however, and now I fear that my card is defective. I believe it started around the time that I attempted some mild overclocking, and I emphasize mild very strongly.
I first noticed issues in the new Unigine Heaven 4.0 Benchmark. Whenever I overclocked I began to notice screen tears, graphical glitches, flickering shadows, and subtle lines moving up and down my screen. I figured this was a sign of an unstable overclock, but after some testing I realized that it occured if I applied even the smallest of overclocks (talking 1 MHz here) to the core or memory. It didn't matter whether I applied the overclock through Trixx, MSI Afterburner, or CCC. The same issues persisted. Normally resetting my GPU to stock fixed all of the visual problems, but after performing my final test in Heaven where I tried a single MHZ overclock, stock settings immediately became infected with the same problems.
It is worth notiing that in the middle of my testing I successfully overclocked without any graphical hiccups on Heaven. I had to start the benchmark at stock settings and then Alt+Tab to the desktop to apply the overclock. Normally I had exited out of Heaven every time I changed any settings. After successfully overclocking up to 1040 MHz using this method, I tried to run it again, only this time after restarting Haven. Sure enough, the problems resurfaced.
My next step was to test everything in game. Crysis 3 being the most demanding game I own, I chose that. Not only was I experiencing the same issues I had in Heaven 4.0, but they were much more apparent. Just moving my crosshair left and right repeatedly gave my screen so many tears it looked like a jigsaw puzzle. And yes, I have VSYNC enabled.
Throughout this process I've troubleshooted nearly every possible angle. I've re-installed my drivers, tried the up to date and older ones. I've reset my BIOS. I've fiddled with countless settings, including advanced ones like dynamic vsync. I've even tried hooking it up to my 50" Panasonic Viera with no success.
Upon further testing I am able to fix the problems in Heaven through enabling VSYNC, and running it windowed seems to work as well, but those are not solutions, and they are evident in other games even when VSYNC is enabled. I don't want to return the card if I don't have to, but if I can't figure out a fix quickly I feel it is the only option I have. Would be a shame too, as this card has been magnificent otherwise.
Here's a quick video I took that gives a prime example of what I'm talking about. Skip to 20 seconds into the video (also be sure to play in 1080p) by clicking the timestamp from my comment. Look at the wooden door as the camera enters through the gate (I show it twice). See the lines frantically moving around? That is not the video quality, that is exactly what I'm seeing on my monitor. That is the same effect I see all over my screen on Crysis 3 whenever I look around.
I've got roughly two weeks to decide whether or not I want to return the card to Amazon. If nothing changes soon I'll have no choice. If anybody has any advice on how to successfully troubleshoot this ailing card I'd be more than happy to give it a shot. Thanks.
I first noticed issues in the new Unigine Heaven 4.0 Benchmark. Whenever I overclocked I began to notice screen tears, graphical glitches, flickering shadows, and subtle lines moving up and down my screen. I figured this was a sign of an unstable overclock, but after some testing I realized that it occured if I applied even the smallest of overclocks (talking 1 MHz here) to the core or memory. It didn't matter whether I applied the overclock through Trixx, MSI Afterburner, or CCC. The same issues persisted. Normally resetting my GPU to stock fixed all of the visual problems, but after performing my final test in Heaven where I tried a single MHZ overclock, stock settings immediately became infected with the same problems.
It is worth notiing that in the middle of my testing I successfully overclocked without any graphical hiccups on Heaven. I had to start the benchmark at stock settings and then Alt+Tab to the desktop to apply the overclock. Normally I had exited out of Heaven every time I changed any settings. After successfully overclocking up to 1040 MHz using this method, I tried to run it again, only this time after restarting Haven. Sure enough, the problems resurfaced.
My next step was to test everything in game. Crysis 3 being the most demanding game I own, I chose that. Not only was I experiencing the same issues I had in Heaven 4.0, but they were much more apparent. Just moving my crosshair left and right repeatedly gave my screen so many tears it looked like a jigsaw puzzle. And yes, I have VSYNC enabled.
Throughout this process I've troubleshooted nearly every possible angle. I've re-installed my drivers, tried the up to date and older ones. I've reset my BIOS. I've fiddled with countless settings, including advanced ones like dynamic vsync. I've even tried hooking it up to my 50" Panasonic Viera with no success.
Upon further testing I am able to fix the problems in Heaven through enabling VSYNC, and running it windowed seems to work as well, but those are not solutions, and they are evident in other games even when VSYNC is enabled. I don't want to return the card if I don't have to, but if I can't figure out a fix quickly I feel it is the only option I have. Would be a shame too, as this card has been magnificent otherwise.
Here's a quick video I took that gives a prime example of what I'm talking about. Skip to 20 seconds into the video (also be sure to play in 1080p) by clicking the timestamp from my comment. Look at the wooden door as the camera enters through the gate (I show it twice). See the lines frantically moving around? That is not the video quality, that is exactly what I'm seeing on my monitor. That is the same effect I see all over my screen on Crysis 3 whenever I look around.
I've got roughly two weeks to decide whether or not I want to return the card to Amazon. If nothing changes soon I'll have no choice. If anybody has any advice on how to successfully troubleshoot this ailing card I'd be more than happy to give it a shot. Thanks.
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