# AMD HD 7950 Boost Clock BIOS Update



## W1zzard (Aug 14, 2012)

AMD just released a free BIOS upgrade for the Radeon HD 7950, which provides an extra speed boost by updating the company's PowerTune algorithm. We will thoroughly test this update and not only look at performance but also power consumption and heat.

*Show full review*


----------



## Casecutter (Aug 14, 2012)

Told you!


----------



## HD64G (Aug 14, 2012)

Nice work Wiz! Dual BIOS is a nice addition to top GPUs. Gives some power to future addons on sold products.


----------



## NHKS (Aug 14, 2012)

> Increased voltage will lead to increased stability at higher clock speeds, which is probably required to ensure that all cards can handle the increased clocks. Unfortunately this means that power consumption is increased, by around 20% during typical gaming, which seems to be a bad trade considering 5% performance improvement. I am a bit worried that AMD is cannibalizing on the hard work of their GPU development team to reduce power consumption - we've seen the same on the HD 7970 GHz Edition. As result the HD 7950 Boost has 15% worse performance per Watt compared to the original HD 7950 design.



sums it up..


----------



## okidna (Aug 14, 2012)

"Unfortunately this means that power consumption is increased, by around 20% during typical gaming"

Great extras


----------



## m1dg3t (Aug 14, 2012)

Thanks for the quick/thorough write up W1zz 

Doesn't look like ATi is heading in the right direction with these GPUs IMO. Glad i got mine when i did, thinking about snagging another one before they are all "Boost" equipped


----------



## dj-electric (Aug 14, 2012)

Oh well... can't say i didnt expect this from AMD
Means nothing to an overclocker anyway...


----------



## W1zzard (Aug 14, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> Means nothing to an overclocker anyway...



the bios increases voltage and CCC limits, so it might be of some use to overclockers, too.

but i agree with you, in general better to just OC yourself


----------



## cadaveca (Aug 14, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> the bios increases voltage and CCC limits, so it might be of some use to overclockers, too.
> 
> but i agree with you, in general better to just OC yourself



Those voltage boosts are rather high compared to my cards, which run 0.95 V by default @ 900 MHz. I can run 1000 MHz with 1.07 V...

I hope we see some BIOSes for non-reference cards soon! Would make overclocking a bit easier with higher stock voltage!


----------



## Sah7d (Aug 14, 2012)

I like the effort with the AMD cards, some fanboys have been saying that the GTX660Ti will sweep with the AMD market, even with just a few (3fps - 5fps) difference.

Many people didnt seems to care when the Nvidia GTX480/70 where a real beasts consuming energy and now all of the sudden it seems to care when AMD is practicing the same effort.

I like AMD and Nvidia but I dont like when nvidia products release a new card becouse it is all an exaggeration.


----------



## revin (Aug 14, 2012)

Another great review W1z! 
Where is the comp's to the 5870? 
Are the 5870's going to be dropped from all reviews?
I still follow the scaling to keep up on where my 5870XXX Ed. falls to try to follow the trend on what is going to be my best second card to add on the Z68 board.

To me, I think any 6k card is still out so I'm hoping to find where the sweet spot in the 7k cards lay


----------



## Hayder_Master (Aug 14, 2012)

Before and After, it's remind me with artists Facelift


----------



## N3M3515 (Aug 14, 2012)

So weird, 15% increase in clocks and only 5% increase in perf.
And 7970 has like a 12% increase in clocks and like a 10% inc in perf.
Something is wrong..

But anyhow it seems that this and the 660 ti will be in a dead heat.


----------



## W1zzard (Aug 14, 2012)

revin said:


> Where is the comp's to the 5870?



5870 has been dropped from the latest rebench (just like GTX 480). unfortunately the local slave market was out of people who could benchmark graphics cards


----------



## tt_martin (Aug 14, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> the bios increases voltage and CCC limits, so it might be of some use to overclockers, too.



Yeah, you should probably check whether it helps or not.



N3M3515 said:


> So weird, 15% increase in clocks and only 5% increase in perf.
> And 7970 has like a 12% increase in clocks and like a 10% inc in perf.
> Something is wrong..



_The memory frequency stays unchanged._


----------



## Red_or_Dead (Aug 14, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Those voltage boosts are rather high compared to my cards, which run 0.95 V by default @ 900 MHz. I can run 1000 MHz with 1.07 V...



MSI HD7950 TF3


----------



## cadaveca (Aug 14, 2012)

That's Nice, but I'll never use anything MSI, since they lie to me and make false promises(and yes, I can back that claim up, or I'd not be saying this). If that was ASUS, or any other brand, I'd have said "cool, nice cards", but they are MSI, so are garbage to me. 

My cards do not clock quite as well, unfortunately, but at the same time, mine are also pulling very little power. My full rig, with IVB @ 4600 MHz, pulls under 400 W when gaming, with dual 7950's.

Don't get me wrong, that's just my personal opinion, not TPU's opinion, but I have no love nor respect for MSI and their products.


----------



## HumanSmoke (Aug 14, 2012)

Sah7d said:


> Many people didnt seems to care when the Nvidia GTX480/70 where a real beasts consuming energy and now all of the sudden it seems to care when AMD is practicing the same effort.


Maybe you should acquaint yourself with the truth rather than some idealized concept regurgitated from fanboys of a different stripe


Sah7d said:


> ...becouse it is all an exaggeration.


I tend to think along the same lines with some of the hyperbole-riddled posts that tend to pop up in the aftermath of graphics reviews.


----------



## Assimilator (Aug 14, 2012)

So the 7950 now draws more power than the GTX 670 but still can't beat that card. Not seeing the point of this BIOS release...


----------



## Jstn7477 (Aug 14, 2012)

Is this BIOS safe to attempt to flash on an XFX FX-795A-TDFC? I'd just like to know as I'm sick of the 500MHz UVD clock (which I have to disable ULPS to avoid) and the screen randomly twitching when going to certain webpages or even just using normal programs. I've had a ton of problems with both my XFX cards (RMA'd the first one because a fan broke literally 3 weeks after purchase). Had to increase PowerTune to 20% to even get the card at stock to run better than my 6950 did, card gets to 87c at 1000/1450 1.05v and XFX denies any problems with their cards...


----------



## happita (Aug 14, 2012)

This means that I probably won't be getting a 7950 after all. Looks like I will just be side-grading kinda...to a 7850 



tt_martin said:


> _The memory frequency stays unchanged._



Well, to be honest....increasing memory frequency rarely, if ever, increases gaming performance much at all. So I think it's best that they left it alone anyway, but from a marketer's standpoint it would be a sin to not make those numbers look bigger to that big dough-eyed customer out on the floor of an electronics retail store.


----------



## alexsubri (Aug 14, 2012)

In all honesty, is this worth it? I already bricked my 2nd Bios , and my Sapphire OC Edition 7950 runs fine at 1125/1275


----------



## Omar24Kobe (Aug 14, 2012)

That's Sounds nice ... what about the reference 7970 ???


----------



## I'm your huckleberry (Aug 14, 2012)

The Anandtech review mentions that in most games, they noticed a continual fluctuation of the cock speed from the boost to the base state.  Is this something that was noticed in your review as well?


----------



## happita (Aug 14, 2012)

I'm your huckleberry said:


> they noticed a continual fluctuation of the cock speed from the boost to the base state.



Completely unneccessary, but I just lol'd real hard


----------



## buggalugs (Aug 15, 2012)

Well, AMD have to do something, they need to stay competitive.


----------



## LAN_deRf_HA (Aug 15, 2012)

So to compete with the 660 they jack up the power consumption to beyond 670 levels? I'd say it's ironic how things had swapped, but even when nvidia cards were the more power hungry they at least offered the top performance.


----------



## TRWOV (Aug 15, 2012)

I think that the 7900 series need an extra 8 ROPs to really deliver. Too bad that can't be achieved with a bios flash.


----------



## DeoDomuique (Aug 15, 2012)

Red or Dead, dude... You got a gem there! 

By the way, I can do 1000Mhz with 1.056... Does this mean probably my card consumes less than Wizard's reference card in those graphs ( the ref at 800Mhz with 1.07 ) ?

I'm curious because I really do care for power consumption. This was the reason I didn't get 7970, back then.

So... There is absolutely no reason to try this BIOS, right? Why to increase my Voltage to 1.112 ( 1.031 default at 900Mhz and I can easily undervolt at least 1.006 )? I can run with this voltage at 1060-1070Mhz normally.


----------



## Hilux SSRG (Aug 15, 2012)

Assimilator said:


> So the 7950 now draws more power than the GTX 670 but still can't beat that card. Not seeing the point of this BIOS release...



I don't get it either.  AMD dropped the ball this generation, hopefully they can push the envelope next gen.


----------



## N3M3515 (Aug 15, 2012)

tt_martin said:


> Yeah, you should probably check whether it helps or not.
> 
> 
> 
> _The memory frequency stays unchanged._



Well it doesn't matter, radeon chips are not memory bandwith limited....


----------



## rvalencia (Aug 15, 2012)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> So to compete with the 660 they jack up the power consumption to beyond 670 levels? I'd say it's ironic how things had swapped, but even when nvidia cards were the more power hungry they at least offered the top performance.


79x0 still carries practical double float performance and it's associated transistors.



Assimilator said:


> So the 7950 now draws more power than the GTX 670 but still can't beat that card. Not seeing the point of this BIOS release...


Depends on the benchmark mix and AA settings e.g. add Dirt Showdown and MSAA 8X. 1280x800p can skew the average.


----------



## Jstn7477 (Aug 15, 2012)

Updated my XFX FX-795A-TDFC with no problems (used atiflash DOS on USB stick and shortened the BIOS filename to the traditional 8.3 character DOS style). It looks like this BIOS raised the voltage a lot, although I sort of wanted that to an extent so I could just use Overdrive without Afterburner getting in the way and causing conflicts with Overdrive (I'm guessing that is where most of my display driver crashing and weird screen spazzing is coming from). Going to try Nexuiz tomorrow and hope my card doesn't hit 90c at 1GHz like it was (wouldn't be surprised if it did, the XFX 7950 DD cooler sucks).

I'm almost tempted to buy one of those expensive Accelero coolers but the stock card barely fits in my Rosewill Challenger as it is.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Aug 15, 2012)

Jstn7477 said:


> Updated my XFX FX-795A-TDFC with no problems (used atiflash DOS on USB stick and shortened the BIOS filename to the traditional 8.3 character DOS style). It looks like this BIOS raised the voltage a lot, although I sort of wanted that to an extent so I could just use Overdrive without Afterburner getting in the way and causing conflicts with Overdrive (I'm guessing that is where most of my display driver crashing and weird screen spazzing is coming from). Going to try Nexuiz tomorrow and hope my card doesn't hit 90c at 1GHz like it was (wouldn't be surprised if it did, the XFX 7950 DD cooler sucks).
> 
> I'm almost tempted to buy one of those expensive Accelero coolers but the stock card barely fits in my Rosewill Challenger as it is.



I believe You can turn off Overdrive, I guess its the same for Afterburner


----------



## tacosRcool (Aug 15, 2012)

A solid bump in performance even though it consumes more power


----------



## cadaveca (Aug 15, 2012)

Testing this BIOS on "non-reference" PCB...will report result, etc in a couple of days, if not sooner...


Now, to BF3!!!


----------



## eidairaman1 (Aug 16, 2012)

Good Luck Dave


----------



## cadaveca (Aug 16, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> Good Luck Dave



It's slower than my stock BIOS @ 900 MHz. 


Overclocking?


forgeddaboutit.


New driver out taday, I'll try that, but for now this BIOS = FAIL!!!


----------



## eidairaman1 (Aug 16, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> It's slower than my stock BIOS @ 900 MHz.
> 
> 
> Overclocking?
> ...



probably not meant for the non ref boards like the GHZ edition 7970.


----------



## rvalencia (Aug 16, 2012)

It's slower than my 900Mhz BIOS 7950.


----------



## rvalencia (Aug 16, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Testing this BIOS on "non-reference" PCB...will report result, etc in a couple of days, if not sooner...
> 
> 
> Now, to BF3!!!


I tested the new BIOS on my Sapphire 7950 and it caused some issues with Eyefinity and display ports.


----------



## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Aug 16, 2012)

Anybody else dropping down a forum user's System Specs and see if they have an nVidia card whenever they comment something negative about AMD?


----------



## rvalencia (Aug 16, 2012)

Bjorn_Of_Iceland said:


> Anybody else dropping down a forum user's System Specs and see if they have an nVidia card whenever they comment something negative about AMD?



From http://www.pcpartspicker.com/parts/video-card/#c=71&sort=a5

The new BIOS would be pointless for ~33 percent of the 7950 (@900Mhz/950MHz) line items in pcpartspicker.com


----------



## karnage (Aug 16, 2012)

Would have liked to see this card on the 660 ti reviews


----------



## Sir Alex Ice (Jan 23, 2013)

I tried this update on my Sapphire HD7950, which GPU-Z sees as having the same Device ID as the ATI HD 7950, different sub vendor though being Sapphire.
Well, it bricked my HD7950, luckily I had an older VGA which I used as primary while I forced a reflash of the original BIOS in my Sapphire HD7950. It would seem Sapphire support is crap, it would have been much more professional from their side to put a download link for the needed BIOS update in the page of each HD7950 they make.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Jan 23, 2013)

Sir Alex Ice said:


> I tried this update on my Sapphire HD7950, which GPU-Z sees as having the same Device ID as the ATI HD 7950, different sub vendor though being Sapphire.
> Well, it bricked my HD7950, luckily I had an older VGA which I used as primary while I forced a reflash of the original BIOS in my Sapphire HD7950. It would seem Sapphire support is crap, it would have been much more professional from their side to put a download link for the needed BIOS update in the page of each HD7950 they make.



You know all of them don't put their bios code up as its a risky task for the end user to do anyway. I'm not sure why you are trying to defame the company via libel. I hope you learned your lesson the hard way because honestly you didn't know what you were doing and you bitched that the bios flash failed.

If the card isnt broken in the first place don't fix it.


----------



## qubit (Jan 23, 2013)

Sir Alex Ice said:


> I tried this update on my Sapphire HD7950, which GPU-Z sees as having the same Device ID as the ATI HD 7950, different sub vendor though being Sapphire.
> Well, it bricked my HD7950, luckily I had an older VGA which I used as primary while I forced a reflash of the original BIOS in my Sapphire HD7950. It would seem Sapphire support is crap, it would have been much more professional from their side to put a download link for the needed BIOS update in the page of each HD7950 they make.



So you flash the card with a bios that wasn't designed for it and then actually blame Sapphire for your mistake when it breaks? You've blown the warranty and don't deserve any support, so how good or bad it is becomes irrelevant.


----------



## Sir Alex Ice (Jan 23, 2013)

This BIOS was advertised as good for HD7950 following standard PCB. Clearly this is not the case as it is not working for a Sapphire with the same identical device ID.
I think you watched one too many episodes of Ally McBeal or Damages, but at least you enriched your vocabulary with big words like "libel"
Here's the funny thing: it's not libel if it's damn true! Sapphire is making fine VGA, especially considering they are pretty much the cheapest ATI option on the market. But after sales support is clearly lacking.


----------



## erocker (Jan 23, 2013)

I use a Sapphire reference card and this flash worked fine.  What process did you use to flash your card?


----------



## W1zzard (Jan 23, 2013)

Sir Alex Ice said:


> the same Device ID



same device id does not mean "reference design"

*ALL* HD 7950 cards, no matter the design have the same device id


----------



## qubit (Jan 23, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> same device id does not mean "reference design"
> 
> *ALL* HD 7950 cards, no matter the design have the same device id



Dude, you've quoted something I haven't said - click on the link against my username in the quote. Editing snafu, methinks.


----------



## W1zzard (Jan 23, 2013)

qubit said:


> Editing snafu, methinks



yeah, i just picked some random poor dude who said the text i quoted nearby my mouse cursor 

fixed


----------



## qubit (Jan 23, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> yeah, i just picked some random poor dude who said the text i quoted nearby my mouse cursor
> 
> fixed



lol 

btw, I thoroughly disapprove of your new title. I think Evil Tyrant was much better and I might just adopt the quantum version of it on my forum.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Jan 24, 2013)

erocker said:


> I use a Sapphire reference card and this flash worked fine.  What process did you use to flash your card?



Funny how he never responded back, I call derogatory speech out of that person. COUGH Libel Cough


----------



## Sir Alex Ice (Dec 1, 2013)

I still want the power boost this bios should bring. I am wondering if the fact that I did not unlock the rom beforehand caused the update to fail.
I have some adventurous bios update for a 7850 on youtube, and it worked apparently fine by switching to the 2nd bios and unlocking it.


----------

