7970m...how high can it overclock?

[SlickDude80]

^that's good

[StZu]

@Halo

How stable is it at those clocks? Temps? Did you overvolt?

[HaloGod2012]

@Halo

How stable is it at those clocks? Temps? Did you overvolt?

play battlefield 3, tera online, crysis 2, and dirt showdown for hours and no artifacting or crashes so far. Im using the 1075v vbios. temps idle are 43c, load is 66c

[ObserverJLin]

@ stock voltage on a dell card, for me, its 1ghz core 1.5ghz vram

Geo was able to take his 1020mhz core, 1.55 ghz vram

For everyday, i game at 950/1375. however, even the stock 850/1200 will produce very playable fps in every game out there

The clevo cards typically come with slower vram, so those cards may not be able to pump up the ram as high...and although pumping up the ram past 1100mhz in the 6990m didn't make much of a difference in benches, i'm seeing huge differences going from 1200 to 1450mhz. The 7970m can make use of the additional bandwidth

Hi dude. Does OC damage the card in anyway??? What did you did say the max stable clocks for gaming was again?
Should I set MSI AB to apply OC on startup or should I only apply the OC clocks when I start the game? I presume the latter will protect the card more right? Or does it matter? After all I just want to protect my card. Oh and the 7970m will be in a Clevo P170EM if that makes any difference.

[HopelesslyFaithful]

Hi dude. Does OC damage the card in anyway??? What did you did say the max stable clocks for gaming was again?
Should I set MSI AB to apply OC on startup or should I only apply the OC clocks when I start the game? I presume the latter will protect the card more right? Or does it matter? After all I just want to protect my card. Oh and the 7970m will be in a Clevo P170EM if that makes any difference.

temps are pretty much the only thing that will damage a GPU. You need to monitor your temps. 105C is thermal threshold and will ruin it. GPUS running at 80-90C are fine but the temps are still higher then you would like. If your gaming on and off those temps are not that bad but 24/7 that will reduce the life significantly. I like to keep it below 80C if i can but I fold on my gpu so its that way 24/7

Can you post temps? use speedfan/afterburner/gpu-z/hwinfo

[SlickDude80]

Hi dude. Does OC damage the card in anyway??? What did you did say the max stable clocks for gaming was again?
Should I set MSI AB to apply OC on startup or should I only apply the OC clocks when I start the game? I presume the latter will protect the card more right? Or does it matter? After all I just want to protect my card. Oh and the 7970m will be in a Clevo P170EM if that makes any difference.

observer, hopeless mentioned soemthing important...temps. Temps are a good indicator that you've overclocked too high.

Another indicator is stability. If you clock too high, you will freeze in games, 3dmark won't finish its run and/or get bsods.

My rule of thumb...as long as you don't overvolt, overclocking is harmless. Worse that happens is that you will freeze or bsod, so you restart and set the clocks lower.

From my experiments, 950/1400 is very reasonable for a 7970m. There are some that will go higher for the best bench scores, but at 950/1400, you essentially have a desktop 7870 / gtx 570. There is no need to really go higher. I would try to go higher only to see what the upper limit on your card is and then set it lower...this way, you won't over stress your card. My upper limit at stock voltage is 1ghz core, so setting it to 950 is reasonable for me

[ObserverJLin]

temps are pretty much the only thing that will damage a GPU. You need to monitor your temps. 105C is thermal threshold and will ruin it. GPUS running at 80-90C are fine but the temps are still higher then you would like. If your gaming on and off those temps are not that bad but 24/7 that will reduce the life significantly. I like to keep it below 80C if i can but I fold on my gpu so its that way 24/7

Can you post temps? use speedfan/afterburner/gpu-z/hwinfo

What temp monitor software would you recommend as the best?

[ObserverJLin]

observer, hopeless mentioned soemthing important...temps. Temps are a good indicator that you've overclocked too high.

Another indicator is stability. If you clock too high, you will freeze in games, 3dmark won't finish its run and/or get bsods.

My rule of thumb...as long as you don't overvolt, overclocking is harmless. Worse that happens is that you will freeze or bsod, so you restart and set the clocks lower.

From my experiments, 950/1400 is very reasonable for a 7970m. There are some that will go higher for the best bench scores, but at 950/1400, you essentially have a desktop 7870 / gtx 570. There is no need to really go higher. I would try to go higher only to see what the upper limit on your card is and then set it lower...this way, you won't over stress your card. My upper limit at stock voltage is 1ghz core, so setting it to 950 is reasonable for me

Okay dude. So I only touch the Core Clock & Memory Clock then it'll be safe? Core @ 950 & Memory @ 1400 I confirm.

Sry for noob question but what is bsods?

[SlickDude80]

Okay dude. So I only touch the Core Clock & Memory Clock then it'll be safe? Core @ 950 & Memory @ 1400 I confirm.

Sry for noob question but what is bsods?

yes, that's all you have to do

[widezu69]

I haven't been around here much but I'm sure someone has mentioned my 1035/1560 3DMark11 benchmark? Anyway that was as high as my GPU could go although I expect it wouldn't be as stable in gaming.