7950 Overclock Question

Pavel Pokidaylo

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Hey guys. I just overclocked my Sapphire Dual-X OC boost 7950.
I set the Core to 1100mhz and the RAM to max. Turned up the power to 20% as well. I got a nice performance boost and no freezing or anything like that.

My concern is the cards temperature. Normally under load the card is at 70C.
During gameplay with the overclock I noticed it was reaching upwards of 85C. I tried turning up the fan speed to 70% but that didn't really seem to help.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
 
Solution


The maxing out part isn't a problem -- the problem is you've jumped too high in the overclocking. You can seriously damage hardware doing massive overclocks like this. I've seen 5-10 people absolutely ruin parts of their card by OCing too much off the bat. It could be stable, but its not safe for the card. Take it slowly. 1100 is fine. You haven't damaged the card, but the Dual X is a beast cooler, and to be hitting 85 degrees at 70% fan speed is not good. Probably a crappy thermal paste job.

n1ghtr4v3n

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tuning memory to the max frequency is like suicidal >.>

when you are overclocking a GPU your aim should be increasing core frequency not memory frequency. As it has little gains compared to core frequency and it makes you push more voltage and stress overall, for little boost
 

JJ1217

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Yeah I agree. You're not really doing yourself any favors putting up the mem any higher than 1450 TBH. Its 384 bit bus already does a good enough job at even 1440p. With my mem at 1700 its like a 2 frame bonus at 1440p for games like Crysis 3, which while nice, its not really worth it. Although overclocking the memory does not affect the core voltage. Memory has its own voltage (Which is much more sensitive, and you should not change it).
 

Pavel Pokidaylo

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I'm actually not messing with the voltage at all for any of them as I'm a total noob at overclocking and dont wanna damage the card. I'm using CCC to do it and it doesnt have the voltage there also I think the card is Voltage locked.
 

JJ1217

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1100 is normally around the max for most 7950's. Some do get past 1100 and get to 1150. 85 degrees at 70% is way way way too high. If you are not confident in reapplying thermal paste, I would return it if you just got it. Lets just say my HIS blower hits 75 degrees at 65% fan speed @ 1100, and its just a single 57 mm fan (but it does beat all the 7950 coolers according to Toms review of it).

What seems to go around, is that the 7950's safe operable max temperature is 93 degrees, but personally, I would not let it go past 85 degrees, as what you are getting.
 

JJ1217

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The maxing out part isn't a problem -- the problem is you've jumped too high in the overclocking. You can seriously damage hardware doing massive overclocks like this. I've seen 5-10 people absolutely ruin parts of their card by OCing too much off the bat. It could be stable, but its not safe for the card. Take it slowly. 1100 is fine. You haven't damaged the card, but the Dual X is a beast cooler, and to be hitting 85 degrees at 70% fan speed is not good. Probably a crappy thermal paste job.

 
Solution

Pavel Pokidaylo

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Ah I raised it too high too fast instead of doing it in increments. I pretty much raised the core to 1100 off the bat and then the mem to like 1450 and then to max. I only had it running that way for about 20 min and I was checking the temperature every 5 min. As soon as I saw it at 83C I set it back to default.

Right now I'm playing and I set the Core to 1100 and raised the power to 20% but left the ram at default.

I was under the impression that I couldn't really damage the card as long as I don't mess with voltages. Guess that's a misconception.
 

Pavel Pokidaylo

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Oh and a few days ago I was messing with it and I was still stable at 1150 core so I maxed it and it froze for a minute during Tomb Raider and wouldn't let me do anything. Finally after a minute I closed Tomb Raider and it let me set it back to default. Think that damaged it?
 

JJ1217

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An OC fail won't damage it. Jumping too far MAY damage it. It depends on your luck. Its good that the temps are back at a manageable range.

I would test a OC for several hours in a game like Battlefield 3, or Crysis 3, before determining it stable. If it runs for an hour and then crashes, it means you are very very close to reaching stability. I recommend installing MSI Afterburner for overclocking, rather than just using Catalyst.
 

Pavel Pokidaylo

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Thing is when I got this card I read all the reviews of people playing all games with all settings turned up and no problems. Crysis 3 ran very well on this card for me I only had to turn down the shadows and I think that is because of my CPU... i7 920 2.6ghz. Same deal in Bioshock infinite. Tomb Raider I had to turn off Tressfx and level of detail to normal only when I was looking at a really far picture with lots of detail.
Metro 2033 ran great at max settings. Metro Last light is the only one thats really giving me issues. I kind of want to get another card and crossfire it up but I just watched a video of a guy playing last light with very high settings and 2xssaa and he was getting like 40-60fps.
The people that posted on that video said oh how did you get it to run so smooth but for me 40fps is not smooth at all. I want to be at 60fps.
 

JJ1217

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1100 is normally a safe clock. I have mine on 1100. Just make sure its completely stable. Metro Last Light is really buggy right at this moment, I would wait a while until more patches for the game comes out. CPU is a little weak, I would recommend OCing it.
 

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