MSI TwinFrozr HD 7950 Experiments

[DesertFox]

Yep, if I recall correctly I didn't have the tessellation optimisation checked in CCC, maybe thats why your score is a little lower.

What settings are you guys using?
Tessellation AMD optimized unticked. Is catalyst A.I. set to performance?
Finally, do you have Enable surface format optimization ticked?

What scores are people getting in 3DM11 with the performance profile? My best score is 93xx @ 1155 / 1650 and that seems low to me.

7970 @ 1075/1550 2500k @ 4.3ghz and 16gb @1600mhz
I got about 8880 with default driver settings.

Ironic isn't it? The most shady manufacturer out of the options so far is the one that offers the best vBIOS for the people looking for the highest default clockspeeds.

Which manufacturer is shady? I'm guessing you mean XFX, I thought they were pretty good though, I just took a XFX 7900gs out of a work pc here the other day and it's never had a problem in I guess over 5 years now, although admittedly it's only been used for 2 or 3 of those 5 years.

Can you get a pic of your card with the cooler off? All you have to do then is cross-reference the PCB with other manufacturers and try vBIOSes from cards that use the same PCB as yours.

I would be afraid of breaking warranty, either way it's been returned today before the 14 days run out.

[DesertFox]

I have the DD model, but with standard clocks. The cooler is a pos, but at least is not as bad as the standard version...
To make things worse, when the fans hit about 70% the entire video card enters in mechanic resonance frequency (I don't know if I'm saying this right, English is not my first language...) and the whole computer vibrates...

I'll never buy XFX again...

I was really curious about your XFX because the DD 800mhz version here is like one of the cheapest you can buy but after this post I'll limit myself to either Sapphire or MSI so I can try to avoid most problems.

[Ket]

That sounds like you need to limit the fanspeed. I have a similar issue with the MSI card, any fanspeed over 60% and the fans literally scream. Good cooler, but very disappointed MSI used such crap fans on it.

[Ket]

I was really curious about your XFX because the DD 800mhz version here is like one of the cheapest you can buy but after this post I'll limit myself to either Sapphire or MSI so I can try to avoid most problems.

For some bizarre reason skymtl liked the XFX 7950 DD card, not mentioning anything about noise issues at all. Maybe hes one of the old skool XFX fans and remembers the days when XFX were actually good

[Andi64]

DesertFox,

8880 seems on the low side for a HD7970. With the Sapphire BIOS @ 1000/1450 I got 8700. Maybe the difference comes from the CPU/RAM.

I'm using default settings on CCC: AMD Optimized Tessellation, AI set to Quality and everything App controlled.

Edit:

The fan works perfectly fine at stock speeds, cause it doesn't go up to 70%, but when overclocking it screams and I can feel the vibrations in the desk. Anyway, that issue is related to my rig, not only the card. If I lay down the case the vibration goes away...

At 1200/1650 with 1.175v:

[Ket]

What settings are you guys using?
Tessellation AMD optimized unticked. Is catalyst A.I. set to performance?
Finally, do you have Enable surface format optimization ticked?

I can't remember what settings I had for the 1344 score but I had definitely been fiddling with the CCC options like the tessellation and AI. I also wouldn't worry about "voiding" a warranty just because you remove a cooler, you aren't going to damage the card in the slightest by doing that, you simply just don't mention the cooler was removed.

[DesertFox]

DesertFox,

8880 seems on the low side for a HD7970. With the Sapphire BIOS @ 1000/1450 I got 8700. Maybe the difference comes from the CPU/RAM.

I'm using default settings on CCC: AMD Optimized Tessellation, AI set to Quality and everything App controlled.

Edit:

The fan works perfectly fine at stock speeds, cause it doesn't go up to 70%, but when overclocking it screams and I can feel the vibrations in the desk. Anyway, that issue is related to my rig, not only the card. If I lay down the case the vibration goes away...

At 1200/1650 with 1.175v:

ye the 2600k could pump the score a bit in 3dmark, I'd love to see some heaven benchmarks with everything at default @1080p
Basically iirc this bench was done @1100/1600 and 2500k@4.3, catalyst driver was at it's default and heaven was at it's start up defaults too.
If you have the time I would love to see ur score with the same settings, ie card @1100/1600 and max ofc.

pOEQk.png

I can't remember what settings I had for the 1344 score but I had definitely been fiddling with the CCC options like the tessellation and AI. I also wouldn't worry about "voiding" a warranty just because you remove a cooler, you aren't going to damage the card in the slightest by doing that, you simply just don't mention the cooler was removed.

Ye I know but it's more the hassle and the fact I could break something, I've had one of the cooler screws sever on my 4870 b4, infact it's still blocking the hole on it but it's not causing a problem.

[Andi64]

DesertFox, here you have, heaven at 1080P, no tessellation, everything at default:

Clipboard02.png

I like the Sapphire vBIOS but I'm still having problems at idle. After 4Hs idling, the AMD driver crash with a BSoD

I need to find another vBIOS.

Ket, do you have th vBIOS from the XFX Black Edition? I need a vBIOS with good stock Overclock, 'cause overclocking with MSI AB or Sapphire TRIXX was giving me headaches (a lots a 2D problems and crashes).

[DesertFox]

Cheers Andi what clocks were u running in that bench, 1100/1600 I guess.

Your card seems to be pretty good though, why are you not using the stock bios again?
I really think if you can at all try and use the stock bios and overclock from there unless you can find an xfx bios for another model but which is identical.

[Andi64]

Yeah, 1100/1600.

I've got a lot of problems with stock BIOS. The default vGPU for 3D is set to 0.93V, which is too low for overclocking... I can't overvolt, it will work fine on 3D, got it to 1100/1575 @ 1.16v (stock HD7970 voltage, max clocks available on MSI AB), but sometimes on 2D It'll simply fail while doing nothing with a driver crash. Sometimes, resinzing the task manager window resulted in a driver crash, and sometimes it will just set the voltage to the default 0.93V again on it's own without me noting... which means an instant crash at 1100Mhz the moment I open a 3D application.

Long story short, I need a BIOS with good default 3D voltage. The Sapphire that I'm using right now seems to be set to 1.16V, I get only 1.05V, but it's working just fine except for the long idle crash...

How is your ASIC quality with your card? Mine is 84.7% and it looks pretty decent clocker, 1200Mhz seems to work just fine. Didn't try anything higher though.

Edit:

This is at 1250Mhz / 1600Mhz with 1.2V:

Clipboard03.png

If I can get it to run stable while overclocked, I was thinking on buying this cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186064

What do you guys think? Maybe I can get it to run 1250Mhz 24x7.

[Ket]

Sorry I don't have the XFX BE DD vBIOS, doing a little googling, doesn't seem like anybody owns that card...

[Ket]

I was doing some tests yesterday and discovered that while I could bench with 1.2v (no clock changes, just increased voltage) Skyrim would crash very quickly. This leads me to think the maximum board power that can be drawn even when set to +20% is the issue here, although I'm now also using Cats 12.8 which reportedly make Skyrim crash. Anybody else noticed they can bench with 1.2v but actual games crash? I might switch to 12.6 Cats and test again.

ED - Doing a bit more testing and measuring the voltage of the GPU with Aida64 v2.3 it looks like whatever voltage somebody intends to put through the GPU you will need to add +.050. Setting 1.2v in AB actual load voltage is between 1.15v - 1.16v, so if you are shooting for 1.2v or 1.25v actual you will need to set 1.25v - 1.3v in AB.

[Ket]

Some might think this is cheeky, but they are valid points. I just sent MSI a email about the 7950 TwinFrozr, heres what I wrote;

"Hi,

Recently I bought a R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC then found out about ATI/AMD releasing a updated vBIOS for the HD7950 increasing GPU clock speed to 925MHz (http://www.techspot.com/news/49808-a...os-update.html). I was wondering if there is going to be a vBIOS update for the R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC based on this new vBIOS +10% GPU clock speed as has been done with the current R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC based on the old 7950 vBIOS (880MHz instead of 800MHz).

Also, the MSI website states the R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC has a memory speed of 5.2GHz (http://uk.msi.com/product/vga/R7950-...=Specification) this is not the case.. at least with the vBIOS that is on the R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC I have, the memory speed is 5GHz. Will that get rectified if/when a new vBIOS is made available based on the new 7950 vBIOS ATI/AMD have released?"

As you might be able to tell, I'm fishing for a new vBIOS that increases memory speed to what MSI states on their website and also fishing to see if the GPU speed can get changed to 1045MHz instead of 880MHz. MSI gave the GPU on the Frozr a +10% boost over the old reference clocks, I'm prodding them to do the same thing again based on the new reference clocks. I'll keep you all posted

[Andi64]

Let's see what they have to say :P

I'm back on 12.6, because I'm trying to fix the idle problems without flashing back to 7950... I really like this BIOS.

I don't know which program to trust on reading the vGPU... AB says 1.05V stock Sapphire BIOS, and GPU-Z says 1.03V, and AIDA64 2.3 also says 1.036V. If I set 1.16V on MSI AB then AIDA64 and GPU-Z will read 1.14V, except for AB that will tell me whatever I wan't to hear and say it's 1.16V lol

I don't have Skyrim, but I could test later with BattleField 3 at 1200Mhz

[Ket]

GPU-Z and Aida are reading actual voltage, AB is only reading the value set in the vBIOS. As of GPU-Z 6.4 it does seem like the ASIC test needs refining a bit, GPU-Z says ASIC quality is 74%, but the TSMC test says ASIC quality is 75%.

[DesertFox]

How is your ASIC quality with your card? Mine is 84.7% and it looks pretty decent clocker, 1200Mhz seems to work just fine. Didn't try anything higher though.

Ye thanks for that, that's really close, guess the extra 300mhz on the cpu helps. I can't really remember what asic it was, I don't think that makes any difference.
From some results I saw anyway, didn't seem to make any difference to oc, best guess is it was 67% or 72%
I sent mine back anyways:

Update: I sent the 7970 gigabyte windforce card back yesterday. I spend an incredible amount of time trying to unlock this card, just before it went back I even tried to install 12.1 beta and 12.1 whql, they wouldn't even recognise the card, ie catalyst didn't even come up.
I reinstalled 12.8 and returned the card, I put my 6950 with unlocked shaders in, didn't bother reinstalling drivers, I fired up 2.2.2 afterburner simply because it was the last afterburner edition I tired to unlock with, iirc it asked me to reboot my computer first, I rebooted and fired up afterburner again, it opened up with the ability to change voltage.
I used ab to unlock the overdrive limits with worked fine as it did with the 7970. Changing the voltage with ab or trixx doesn't change to voltage on the desktop gadget by Orbmu2k but Gpu-z confirms the change and works even after I close either program and even after I reboot, so I'm guessing it does it in registry.

I still don't know why the 7970 windforce wouldn't let me change the voltage, but I should have just sent it back earlier, I spent far too much time trying to get it too unlock. It was fully stable @1075/1550 with 1.17v My ambient here was 30 degrees and my case is more designed for sound dampening than airflow but this card never went over 66 degrees and I could never hear it, so from that aspect it was the best card I ever had.

[Ket]

Supposedly a higher ASIC quality lets you OC further with less heat output and less voltage, although in my testing when it comes to OCing at least ASIC quality wouldn't seem to factor in at all otherwise with 1.2v I should of been able to hit 1200MHz really considering I can do 1155MHz @ 1.1v. I can however hit over 1GHz with 1.03v which under load would come out to about 0.98v which is awesome so I would say a high ASIC quality certainly lets you OC further with less voltage and hence less heat output.

I hope you picked a better brand than Gigabyte for your next card fox

[DesertFox]

I hope you picked a better brand than Gigabyte for your next card fox

hehe, ye I found their mb's to be fine, the card was how I imagined it, really impressive cooler. Unfortunately, regardless of whether they have started to stop voltage tweaking or not, they certainly don't help in any way to do it.
My next card will be like my current card, Sapphire, most likely the 7950 950 OC edition, although I hear the vapour edition has a cooler similar to the gigabyte card, it was the cooler that made the gigabyte card.
By buying a Sapphire card I know I won't have problems unlocking the voltage, didn't W1zzard design their oc software and generally their bios's are good and varied. I have a 1gb 6950 atm and the shaders unlocked fine on that.
I'm going to play some GW 2 now haven't had a chance all weekend but I'm getting over 60 fps with max settings. Might wait till next gen dunno tbh.

[Ket]

Many PC games these days won't even tax a OC'd 1GB GTX460. The only reason I grabbed a 7950 is because it was so bloody cheap it basically cost me the price of a upper midrange card. That said though there are a few games that could probably stretch what a 460 can do, Skyrim (with texture mods, vanilla skyrim a GTX460 can do without breaking a sweat) Witcher 2... and thats really all I can think of atm. People say Metro 2033 is demanding but I ran it on my OC'd GTX460 all settings at maximum with the exception of the advanced DOF, 2xAA 8xAF and didn't have any lag at all. Current top tier graphics cards only MIGHT start to get a workout when the new gen of consoles come out, but even then...

[Ket]

Ugh... AMD drivers are truely horrid. I've had this HD7950 less than a week and I've already had to submit 2 bug reports. One to do with BOINC and Unigine Heaven 3.0, the other about the grey screen of death

[Ket]

Yet more discoveries...

Ok, so I gave up using AB the OC caps and general clunkyness of the AB UI was doing my head in so I switched to TRIXX, while still having a god awful clunky UI (what the hell is it with manufacturers liking big bloaty UIs? Its retarded) it does at least allow for OCing beyond CCC limits, with TRIXX I've discovered that I can hit 1700 on the memory (vs previous best of 1650 with AB) without issue. The screen did go black and I had to hard reset though, raising GPU voltage (vdrop becomes worse with higher memory clocks.. a little odd) didn't help, and as there's no way to change memory voltage with TRIXX.. I think I'm stuck with 1650 for now. No amount of voltage will let me hit 1200MHz on the GPU stable either even with 1.3v. On the plus side the GPU is content to run @ 1155MHz with just 1.1v temps are also low, I haven't seen above 76c with the dual fans fixed @ 60% (any faster than that people will think there's a banshee in my house...) and that's even setting the most extreme AA/AF/AI settings I can in CCC and running Heaven 3.0. VRM temps are also equally low really, about 73c. There's lots of potential in this card for sure but I don't think there's anything more it can give without water to tame the GPU temps but that is a route I will never go down, way too much of a pain to set up never mind all the extra maintenance time.

Summary (Extreme AA/AF/AI applied through CCC):

GPU Voltage: 1.15v (1.1v actual)
Max GPU temp: 76c
Max VRM temp: 73c
Fan speed: 60%
Clock speeds: 1155 / 1650

Mods: New TIM, remounted RAM / mosfet etc plate, covered lone memory IC with a filed down to size VGA RAMsink (no I don't know why MSI didn't cover it in the first place..)

Alright, I think that's everything there is to discover about the MSI 7950 TwinFrozr. I'm disappointed by the cooler, I had expected to be able to set the fans to 80% without them not becoming too intrusive.. but this was not to be. The GPU clock is also good, not as bad as some but not as good as others.. kind of plops itself right in the middle really although I would of liked to get 1200 because its a damn sexy figure to look at All that's missing now is a vBIOS editor, I'm sure this will come in time I'll even look into making a vBIOS editor when I have the time but its not my specialty largely I do hex and HLSL.

[Alex-Ro]

Hey guys,i just got a Gigabyte Windforce HD7950.It;s default voltage it's 0.943(yeap) and can clock without problems to 1100/1600 at 1.049 set in AB~1.006 in gpu-z,aida whatever.

My problem is the following.Each time i set 1.22V in afterburner or plus(limit is 1.3) and try a bench,the board will run a little and then boom,fans on the card are set to minimum and video signal is lost.Need to restart system.Everyone else got this problem?

Tried flashing other HD7970 bios,not working,even gigabyte Windforce 7970 bios is not working.

So each time i set the voltage higher than 1.22V in afterburner,in load video card looses signal.Too bad because it clocks very good,i hit 1270/1700 on 3DM2011 and the voltage was 1.22==>1.15 in gpu-z.Maybe some sort of over-voltage problem?

BTW ASIC is 85.2%.

[Ket]

I had that problem as well. Cropped up when running kombustor once the GPU hit 93c+, so I've had to reduce GPU voltage to 1.1v (actual around 1.05v) and the GPU to 1055MHz although its probably possible to run 1100MHz with that voltage.

[Alex-Ro]

So when did you encountered it,when running kombustor and the temperature peaks?Try setting 1.3 and run a bench or two,as 3dm2011 or something,does it work?

[doonsy]

Sorry I don't have the XFX BE DD vBIOS, doing a little googling, doesn't seem like anybody owns that card...

Hey Ket, are you still looking for this bios, I think I have mine on my usb key still.