Suggestions for overclocking AMD Radeon HD 7970

[Lennon Norris]

I use an AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphic card in my PC as GPU. I am trying to overclock it using stock voltages. I am hitting 1100/1575 easily but getting beyond it becomes difficult. I tried using MSI afterburner to achieve it but it didn’t help much. I also tried running 1150 core at 1.25 V but it failed. If I try to revert back the changes I made, it happens successfully, but after it if I start any application or game that requires graphic card, then it just crashes and with error message saying drivers for graphic card missing. I updated graphic drivers but it didn’t help. Can someone help me by telling, why this problem is happening and how can I sort it?

[Tigerius]

Have you checked the temperature of your system after overclocking it till 1100/1575? If the temperature is too high, that is above 70 degree Celsius, then it can cause problems that makes the graphic card malfunction. If you are achieving 1150 at 1.25 V with high temperature, then you can try it for different voltage values, like 1.2 V, 1.15 V, 1.1 V and so on. This will surely help you get reduced temperatures. Also after failed overclocking only reverting back the changes won’t help. You also need to do artifacting for properly bringing back the changes to normal.

[Oms-waroop]

Your system must be suffering from case of weak PSU. See if your graphic card is being supplied with enough power. Also check if there is no fluctuation in power and the supply is consistent. If you are playing heavy games that need to utilize the graphic card to its maximum capacity, then you need to have a good PSU unit. I suggest that you get a PSU unit which can supply 1200 V of minimum energy. This will manage the graphic card’s requirement along with requirements of other peripherals.

[Calvert]

While overclocking, if you had set the fan on auto mode, then it will obviously fail to overclock the graphic card. You need to change the fan of graphic card to manual settings and then try overclocking. You also need to control the speed of the fan manually. On automatic settings, fan choose the optimal settings to work on, that is around 50%.You need to control the fan manually and keep changing its speed in range of 50% to 75% depending on the stage of overclocking you are on. If you are benchmarking which is a heavy process, then you need to keep the speed at 75%.

[Anvita]

You can use FurMark for making stress tests on the GPU that you are trying to overclock. It uses OpenGl techniques to generate heavy stress on graphic card similar to fur rendering done in a industry. This amount of stress is best for straining the limits of graphic card.

[Hayley]

Yes, I too use FurMark for testing the temperature of graphic card when it comes to overclocking. It has an inbuilt option called Thermal Limit Testing which provides the best option for getting information about the temperature of graphic card under stress. But I didn’t find much useful when I needed to test the other aspects of my graphic card needed for overclocking. FurMark works best on graphic cards that support DirectX11 drivers.

[Bageshri27]

Use of FurMark should be avoided if you are using AMD processor in your PC. AMD sets the clocks of graphic card to value of 950 MHz automatically. This processor also creates a lot of variance in 28nm processes. This is done by the developers of AMD processors to limit the overclocking of various peripherals. This is good in a one way as it helps to maintain stability for a long period of time. Also if you are using FurMark, never refer to the outcome of values of different graphic cards. Many times people tend to compare the results of benchmarking their graphic cards with their friend’s. But let me tell you that FurMark behaves differently with different graphic cards even if they are of same version and quality.

[Amy_i3]

You can try tweaking with the voltage of the core of your graphic card. It can be found in the BIOS settings of the graphic card by abbreviation VDDC. You will find a table suggesting you the status of graphic card for a specific power level. Some of the values are pre-defined according to the TDP and shouldn’t be changed under any circumstances. These values are used by graphic card to match its voltage consumption according to the clock state.

[Omanand]

If you see the value of VDDC going down then do not fear, it means that gpuz has started synchronizing itself to the actual voltage output. This actual voltage output is acquired from VRMs of the core in your GPU. If you find these values going down at a fast rate than expected than you can use MSI afterburner to control it.