Overclocking MSI 7950 twin frozr

shADy81

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Nov 27, 2012
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Hi, I'm totally new to overclocking and would like some extra advice on my card which seems to give me some strange results. Im using MSI Afterburner and Kombuster, the card is factory o/c to 880 MHZ I began moving the card up in 20 MHZ bumps testing in Kombuster for 10-15 mins and recording the temps FPS etc. I currently have it at a 1000 clock with no artifacts or problems.

When I've Googled people overclocking these cards their load temps seem to be much lower then mine at much higher clocks? Im getting 79 c at 1000 MHZ after 15 mins of Kombustor thats without modifying the fan settings on the card which are running at 75%(any faster and it sounds like a hydrofoil), I read somewhere about a bad batch of these cards but those people were saying that their card idles at 50c andf load at 80+, mines idles at 34c which is apparently about right.

I recently bought a Silverstone 14cm air penetrator fan and put it on the side of the case blowing directly onto the card, because I was getting a bit worried about the temps getting over 70c in my earlier o/c attempts. This doesnt seem to have had the benefit I was expecting!

I have a Xigmatek Midgard 2 case, could it be that my case is just poor for ventilation? I have 1 12cm silverstone and 1 Gelid silent 12 on the front, the 14cm Silverstone on the side and 2 Xigmatek performance fans exhausting at the back and on the top just behind the cpu cooler.

Playing Batman Arkham City with everything on apart from tesselation the temps are around 65c which I'm happy with I just dont understand why other people online seem to get Kombustor results 10c cooler then mine, have I got a bad card?

Thanks for reading!
 

Slow Trot

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I don't really have much advice to give as I'm also new to overclocking. I do however have the same graphics card so I can at least give you some numbers for comparison. My card usually idles at 35. I just put it up to 1000mhz with stock voltage and ran Kombustor for 15 minutes and my temperature peaked at 74. While gaming, I'm usually in the high 60s.

I have a Fractal R4 case with 5 140mm fans (3 intake and two exhaust). I hope this helps a bit.
 

shADy81

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Hi thanks for the reply :) nice to have some numbers to compare to, I found in Kombuster my temperature varies sometimes by up to 5 C with the same clocks and fan settings, weird.

Think my temps are a bit high so I'm going to apply my own thermal paste, just ordered some cleaner and Arctic Silver 5, apparently MSI are a bit to liberal with it sometimes.

Just a heads up I started using Heaven 3.0 as I read somewhere that its better for comparitive real world stability testing, I noticed a bit of glitching once I put the clocks up to 980 (I've been increasing in 20mhz blocks and testing). Nothing showed up in Kombustor even at 1020, might be worth a shot for you.

Cheers!
 

Lord Tumnas

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the airflow through your case should be fine, other than that, im not very familiar with 7950 temps so i cant help much more sorry :??:
 

ravagetheearth

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I HOPE YOU SEE THIS. I believe some of the 7950 cards come with WAYY too much thermal grease applied onto the GPU. If you take off the cooler and wipe off all of the thermal grease and re-apply it with a very thin layer your temps should drop significantly. I really hope you read this!!
 

Lord Tumnas

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i noticed this on my 7850 as well.. there was a little to much, and it was absolutely everywhere, messy application is an understatement!
 

shADy81

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Thanks for the replies again! :)

I had lost this thread. I already did as you suggest a while ago. My temps have dropped 3-4 degrees at idle to around 30c and under load its now about 65 c during gaming and Heaven 3.0 with the fans hardly ever going over 50% and almost inaudible. This is with a relatively small O/C 975/1325 as well.

Seems MSI spend a lot of money on the design and manufacture of the card and cooler, and then just put them together really badly, now I fixed it I would recommend this card to anyone! :D