overclocking the 7950gx2

[overdosedelusion]

i have an xfx 7950gx2 extreme:
mem: 1300MHz
core: 520MHz

i want to overclock mt graphics card, though im somewhat new to it i need a little input.

what would be a good boundary?

bare in my mind my card is cooled by the bog standard heatsink/fan, and my system relies on 6 case fans (4x120 and 2x92), none of which are over the card.

Pc specs are in my sig. V

[AKA_RA]

im kinda curious...what are you running on your rig that is giving you less than desireable results?

[overdosedelusion]

boredom. lol

just a willingness to learn. dont want to **** it up, but i want to explore

[Slug Toy]

well heres a suggestion. bump the frequencies up a few MHz at a time and test it after each step (3dmark or a game). you've hit the limit when you get artifacts.

ive found as a general rule that GPU related artifacts are blotchy green and purple things all over. ram related ones tend to be lots of black and white dots popping up like static. thats just my card though... no guarantee thats what youll run into.

i use coolbits to do my overclocking. i also find that the auto detect settings are fairly accurate and often conservative. you could try doing the atuo detect settings and then test it to see what happens first.

two things you shouldnt do: dont fiddle with voltages, and DONT touch the 2D frequencies. the 2D frequencies are for 2D applications like photoshop and just being at the desktop (you dont need a lot of power for that stuff). make sure when you overclock you are overclocking the 3D part (there will be an option somewhere).

now, speaking of what a good boundary would be.... thats up to you really. im not really sure what exact gpu the 7950 uses... its either two 7900 gt's or gtx's. to be safe... ill assume its two gt's, and id say the cores can probably go up to 600 in a perfect world. seems to me they're down at 500 for reasons to do with data transfer... but that sounds like crap to me. the ram can probably go to 1500.

just dont quote me on this stuff. its not a science by any means, so predictions are usually pretty useless. its fun though.

let us know what you come up with.

[monoflap]

I don't mean to be a party pooper but I think you'd be best to leave the card alone. In my mind, its plenty fast as it is and you wouldn't get much out of overclocking the card. How long do you intend on having this card? Because oc'ing it is going to cut its life expectancy dramaticly.

[overdosedelusion]

well i wouldnt intend on keeping the card Overclocked. i basically want to do a little exploring as im new to overclocking. i would have done it with my old system (shuttle xps) but i threw it off my desk in a drunken rage (after it crashed and i lost all the music id created) and the mobo ad graphics card lost quite a few resistors and is now cmpletely kaput.

any settings i make will be set back to factory defaults. once i'm happy i know what to do.

i plan to do my processor also, but one thing at a time.

[monoflap]

Thats a rediculously expensive card to learn on, you should just get a cheapo card from somebody and experiment on that. I'm all for you learning at all but the stakes are high with this kind of hard-ware.

[esakivi]

aren't the cooling solutions and everything exactly the same in all the XFX 7950GX2 series cards, only the clock speeds differ? wouldn't that mean that it is safe to overclock the M500 and M520 models to at least to the M570 clocks. i am buying an M500 or M520 and was thinking about clocking it to match the M570. if anyone knows whether the cooling is indeed the same in all cards, please let us know.

[Ronyx]

dude looking at how your systems is now it's near perfection (except the CPU , w00t go Intel X6800 Extreme!!!) just wondering. How much did all of it cost you? i'm in the process of making something similar (but mo pimp =P) myself and the main difference i can see here is that you've got an AMD CPU and the M2N-32 mobo where as i've sofar thought about the Intel X6800 Extreme and the P5N-32 SLI.
If it's not personal ofcourse =]

[CanaBalistic]

Ronyx.... That proc is going to cost you over $1000 alone... No offence but, your a moron if you buy it. I would never spend that much on just a cpu unless it was for work and they were going to pay for it or at least half of it.

AMD is coming out with quad core cpu's soon. Probly far cheaper than a conroe extreme.

[Edit]
KrAzY! Intel® Core 2 Duo Extreme X6800 (http://www.shopbot.com.au/p-19723.html) - 2.93Ghz From $1,550.00 to $1,724.80

[simon275]

Hopefully they will be cheaper.

OH AND DO NOT OVERLCOCK THE 7950gx2. You void the wanranty they wont give you a new one. But they probebly will anyway if you say I dont know it just stopped working. Also its not a good idea as there are no after market cooling systems for it. So you can OC it that much any way. Buy a 6800gt and a cooler and overclock it till it catches on fire.

[Indybird]

[Edit]
KrAzY! Intel® Core 2 Duo Extreme X6800 (http://www.shopbot.com.au/p-19723.html) - 2.93Ghz From $1,550.00 to $1,724.80
They're $1150 on newegg.com

but to overdosesolution, I wouldn't do any overclocking on that card, even for a sec, i got the same card and if u read the manual or a spec sheet they have everything running at the max for what that card and its cooling can handle, if you haven't noticed XFX doesn't make an O.C'd version like they always do with their cards...

[Silenced_Coyote]

Danger Den has this "little" water block that they are testing.
http://www.dangerden.com/images/blocks/7950/small/7950_top_view2.jpg

[Ronyx]

i know you didn't mean any offence but calling someone a moron is well... calling someone a moron. So... no offence but even though i am asking for input on a purchase in another thread i don't really appreciate anyone telling me how dumb i am for choosing something. In the end it is my choice and if you would like to give advice then you're more then welcome to. But straight out remarks like that i don't take kindly to.

AMD's quad CPU's will be a first line of quad CPU's. This means that it will be new, fresh, buggy and not very good. AND it will cost more then the X6800 if it does come out. Everything new costs a lot. If it does go quad then it will have to get good cooling which in my case isn't going to be very plentiful and it will cost around 2G i'm guessing because it will be a new leap in technology, it will be fresh and it will be highly rated meaning prices will go as high as AMD wants em to go.

another thing is that Soon in date terms could be a year soon. Halo 3 is eing advertised in AU as "coming soon" and we all know it aint comin til Christmas next year. When AMD finalyl does release this Quad CPU system chances are Intel will think of something jsut like it. Buying and uprading computers is just one huge unwinnable battle. You can wait and wait and wait as long as you want and it will still keep on improving, getting better, faster and cooler then ever before. I have decided to get the best there is now and then not have to think "**** why did i get this crap CPU when there's quad's beating it in every benchmark". For quad to really hit off and develop people will have to wait for atleast 6months. Even now i'm waiting for around 6 months to get some new mobo's coming out with the nF590 chipset. So i think the best choice for me would be to get top of the line now and hope it stays top for quite some time (which i'm sure it will).

[Silenced_Coyote]

It all depends on how you want to fight this "battle". It is true that new stuff comes out so fast but that doesn't mean that the thing you bought is already useless. I got a friend who still games perfectly fine on an AMD 4000+ even though AMD put that CPU on the "End Of Life" list.

So you don't have to get the absolute top-of-the-line. You can even get midrange stuff and still not lose the "battle".

Intel already has plans to do quad core, it is called Kentsfield. It is two Conroes put together. I doubt that quad core will be cheaper than the X6800. Right now the prices are pretty high becuase of the low availability. Oh, and Tiger Direct has it for $1250.

[Ronyx]

so by March prices should drop to about $700? and i read up on the E6 Cnroe CPU's and the main difference between them and the Extreme is that they have a L2 2mb cache and Extreme has an L2 4mb

[Silenced_Coyote]

I don't think it will drop all the way to $700 by March. But who knows, I heard that Intel is going to release another Extreme Conroe later this year so who knows how far it will lower the price of the X6800.

True, the Core 2 Duo X6800 has 4 MB of L2 Cache but so do the E6700 and the E6600. The E6300 and the E6400 are the models with the 2 MB of L2 Cache. The bigger cache size doesn't bring huge performace gains, the average performance gains are a few percentages.

[Ronyx]

there is going to be a X6900 release later this year and that will definatley bring the price down a good notch. it should be priced at the same level the X6800 was at when it first came out (meaning $US999) so the X6800 should drop down to $US750(or 800) and the E6700 should hover about what it's at now (maybe 100$ less for the sake of it)