Swiftech Komodo HD7970 Preview

[gabe]

I did the following for fun only - my own fun.. I got tired of CAD, Accounting, web site, etc.. all the things I do that must be done, or the world falls apart.. Been itching for overclocking lately.

Hooked up (1) 7970 + (1) 7950 with Komodo's in XFire (the komodo 7950 is in production now), as well a prototype TEC block I had laying around . I needed the extra CPU cooling because our bench CPU is an older 3930K that could never O/C past 4.8 with any sort of stability (at least no enough to run benchies) - Managed to boost it up a couple 100 Mgz, to 5.0 - Nothing to write home about as I'm seeing that many of these CPU's now do 5.2 just on water, but I needed the extra points to beat the score of a good buddy of mine (Doc, if you read this..)

Here is what I got:



I'm pretty sure it would have been possible to push higher, but my mobo started to show obvious signs of condensation, because I had'nt taken the time to prep it properly with gaskets, grease & conformal coating etc.. (sloppy sloppy). So I stopped there. Let the poor thing dry out over the week-end..and hope he'll be in a good mood on Monday.

Conclusions:
- MSI Afterburner (Beta) wouldn't let me OC the 7950. Trixx did, by disabling the Lower Power Mode. Still kinda flaky IMO but maybe due to some OS instability (5.0Ghz is really pushing it for this particular piece of silicon)
- Komodo's worked flawless; didn't record temps as I was after some scores, but judging by the decent OC at a fairly high voltage (1.3v for both GPU's) I see no problem there.
- TEC block didn't have enough juice, as the 24 v PSU is on the other side of the room, and I had to run with a meanwell at 13v. 3930's still have too high a TDP for this unit, which explains why I had to crank up the v to 1.55 ; but I do have good hope that Ivy Bridge could be a very good candidate for a good TEC block. Let's wait and see when we get our sample CPU's.

[ElGreco]

@gabe
Its really nice to see that from time to time you dont forget o have some fun also with this stuff

I would suggest to use the brand new TriXX software, released 2 days ago or/and MSI AB non beta that also released 3 days ago plus the 12.4 catalyst drivers... yes also released 2 days ago

Nice job/story

[gabe]

already using trixx 4.3 - downloading 12.4 now.