# HD 7970 Overclocked to 1.26 GHz: 28 nm Tech Really Stretches Its Legs



## qubit (Jan 1, 2012)

Welcome to the first TechPowerUp news post of 2012! Read on for a couple of impressive overclocking feats with the HD 7970 graphics card.

It looks like the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 could be a bit of a dark horse and a lot more potent than its stock specifications would suggest - excellent for creating a competitive graphics card market. The reviews at stock speeds show the flagship HD 7970 to be around 10-15% faster than NVIDIA's flagship GTX 580, which doesn't seem all that impressive since the GTX 580 has been on the market for over a year now. However, what the reviews haven't really shown, is what kind of an overclocking monster the HD 7970 is. It definitely looks like AMD could have easily beaten the GTX 580 by a much bigger margin than they did, had they wanted to and it makes one wonder why they didn't.

VR-Zone have spent the New Year weekend overclocking this beast, having reached a whopping 1.26 GHz core clock speed with their HD 7970 - and decent benchmark improvements to go with it. Also, with the fan at 100%, the card never got above a very comfortable 68 degrees centigrade while running Furmark, which is amazing considering how this test is specifically designed to heat a graphics card to the max - _but please see the update at the bottom of the article._ The stock cooler may be noisy, but it's certainly very effective: an excellent result which will prolong the working life of the card.



 

 





VR-Zone has tested the card with the latest Sandy Bridge-E Core i7 3960X 6 core CPU. This has a stock clock of 3300 MHz, but they overclocked it to a huge 4680 MHz (42%) to wring the best performance from the card possible. Now, there's an achievement right there. Note that they didn't reveal what CPU cooler was used to achieve this overclock.

The GPU-Z screenshot shows the core clock speed of 1267 MHz. This was achieved "with core voltage bumped from 1.15v to 1.25v using publicly available software and a special bios (9th Jan reveal), we got the core clock speed up to 1267MHz." The standard card is BIOS-locked to a maximum clock ceiling of 1125 MHz on the core and 1500 MHz on the memory, which it can handle with ease.

3DMark 11 Performance Preset (stock is P8227)






3DMark 11 Extreme Preset (stock is X2764)






ComputeMark (stock is 5920 marks)






Unigine Heaven 2.5 (stock is 69.6fps)






With results like these, AMD have set a high bar which NVIDIA will have its work cut out to beat and it'll be really interesting to see what Kepler brings to the table in the next few months. Also, overclocking legend Shamino has managed to push one of these cards to an astounding 1.7 GHz+ on LN2! Read about it here.

So, as of January 1st 2012, the HD 7970 extends its lead as the undisputed single GPU enthusiast card of choice for straight-line framerate performance and smooth gameplay in demanding games. A great way for AMD to start the year.

*UPDATE:* Notice how the Furmark screenshot shows the card achieving a mere 40fps at 1280x720? A card in this performance bracket can obviously do way better than this. This poor framerate will be down to the power throttling circuitry protecting the card under such conditions by slowing down the performance severely. If the throttle was disengaged the card would perform spectacularly for a short while and then likely cook itself to death, especially with this overclock. Thanks to one of our eagle-eyed forum members for spotting this.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## AphexDreamer (Jan 1, 2012)

You got Unigine and computemark mixed up. Just an FYI. 

That is crazy, 28nm working its magic.


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## qubit (Jan 1, 2012)

AphexDreamer said:


> You got Unigine and computemark mixed up. Just an FYI.
> 
> That is crazy, 28nm working its magic.



Fixed - thanks very much. 

Yes, I bet the 7970 is gonna fly off the shelves with results like this.


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## iLLz (Jan 1, 2012)

You know, at first I thought the original review for this card showed its performance to be kinda meh.  I mean, it is a decent performer, but with all the hype surrounding it, I thought it would perform much, much, better.  

But these overclocking scores are outrageous.  The architecture seems to really scale well with the overclocks.  Kudos, AMD, keep up the great work!


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## Lionheart (Jan 1, 2012)

Cant wait to buy one of these beasts, I'm going to go wait for non reference cards so I can get a good overclock while staying cool & quiet ^_^


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## Senupe (Jan 1, 2012)

AMD I  U, this kind of graphics cards are just amazing, even counting in the future driver improvements in single and crossfire setups this things are gonna blow everything in a huge ball of pixels


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## dj-electric (Jan 1, 2012)

GTX580 975MHZ gave me 7700 graphics score in 3dm11 P, do yo math
and im sorry i really had to:


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## Steevo (Jan 1, 2012)

iLLz said:


> You know, at first I thought the original review for this card showed its performance to be kinda meh.  I mean, it is a decent performer, but with all the hype surrounding it, I thought it would perform much, much, better.
> 
> But these overclocking scores are outrageous.  The architecture seems to really scale well with the overclocks.  Kudos, AMD, keep up the great work!



Typical AMD move, make something that is made to overclock like a mother, and let the results speak for it.



Anyone have a Windows 8 bench of this card yet?


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## Delta6326 (Jan 1, 2012)

I want one of these so badly. Only if the games I play could use this power, but the games I play my 2x 4850 can handle.


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## qubit (Jan 1, 2012)

Delta6326 said:


> I want one of these so badly. Only if the games I play could use this power, but the games I play my 2x 4850 can handle.



tsk, such distorted logic - you're an enthusiast. You don't _need_ a reason to want it and to have it! 

Look, my Sandy Bridge upgrade doubled my RAM from 4GB which was plenty, to 8GB, which was way more than enough. However, I had two more slots sitting empty, just looking at me and _crying_ out for more. So, £40 later, I was the proud owner of another 8GB and I've now got a monster 16 gigs in the PC!  Do I need all of it? Hell no, who cares!


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## LordJummy (Jan 1, 2012)

These are wonderful. I will definitely wait till kepler is reviewed before buying, but so far two of these is going to be my next step. They should allow me to push eyefinity to new limits, especially on water. mmmmmm.


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## eidairaman1 (Jan 1, 2012)

People always complain about the fan, I think of it this way. Compare a Prius/Insight/Leaf to a Camaro/Mustang/Challenger, More power means gonna be louder...


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## Shihab (Jan 1, 2012)

Cool numbers ! Now give me a discount.



Senupe said:


> AMD I  U, this kind of graphics cards are just amazing, *even counting in the future driver improvements* in single and crossfire setups this things are gonna blow everything in a huge ball of pixels



It's still AMD we're talking about here, right ?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 1, 2012)

qubit said:


> Also, with the fan at 100%, the card never got above a very comfortable 68 degrees centigrade while running Furmark, which is amazing considering how this test is specifically designed to heat a graphics card to the max. The stock cooler may be noisy, but it's certainly very effective: an excellent result which will prolong the working life of the card.



Take a look at the furmark screenshot, notice the 40FPS at only 1280x720?  Furmark is no longer a good way to measure power and heat characteristics because both nVidia and AMD throttle their cards immensely with Furmark and other programs like it.


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## qubit (Jan 1, 2012)

newtekie1 said:


> Take a look at the furmark screenshot, notice the 40FPS at only 1280x720?  Furmark is no longer a good way to measure power and heat characteristics because both nVidia and AMD throttle their cards immensely with Furmark and other programs like it.



I hate you sometimes.  Yes, I'd forgotten all about the throttling on modern top-end cards. I'll update the article regarding this.

EDIT: article updated.


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## LordJummy (Jan 1, 2012)

Shihabyooo said:


> It's still AMD we're talking about here, right ?



AMD has been providing decent performance updates via drivers for the past few years. The newer cards usually get significant performance boosts from mature drivers. There is a lot of false information regarding AMD's Catalyst drivers. In my experience they have been up to par over the past two years.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Jan 1, 2012)

My 580 stays under 58c at 1000 mhz in furmark with the fan running full tilt. Blower fans have been suitable for top clocks for awhile now, just never at acceptable noise levels. If you have like a separate room just for your pcs you're in luck, otherwise you better be deaf.


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## blibba (Jan 1, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> People always complain about the fan, I think of it this way. Compare a Prius/Insight/Leaf to a Camaro/Mustang/Challenger, More power means gonna be louder...



One word: Bentley.


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## blibba (Jan 1, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> People always complain about the fan, I think of it this way. Compare a Prius/Insight/Leaf to a Camaro/Mustang/Challenger, More power means gonna be louder...



How about a Bentley?

Take the new Mulsanne, for example. Not only is it more powerful than the Camaro, Mustang and Challenger, under strenuous usage it'll be a lot quieter than a hybrid. And, if they were all the same price, I know which I'd buy


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## eidairaman1 (Jan 1, 2012)

im talkin about vehicles that are affordable, heck can you even afford a bentley?


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## imitation (Jan 1, 2012)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> My 580 stays under 58c at 1000 mhz in furmark with the fan running full tilt. Blower fans have been suitable for top clocks for awhile now, just never at acceptable noise levels. If you have like a separate room just for your pcs you're in luck, otherwise you better be deaf.



I get like 45°C on my 5870@1GHz, i can barely hear it. There must be something wrong with your cooler?!
Just kidding... 

But seriously, who needs this much horsepower? A 5870 can handle any game out there at pretty decent settings and normal resolutions, so all i can think of are 3x1 or 3x2 Eyefinity setups. I doubt many people have those though...


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## blibba (Jan 1, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> im talkin about vehicles that are affordable, heck can you even afford a bentley?



Not in a million years.

But I guess my point is this: speed isn't the only factor, and you don't have to sacrifice noise for performance. Given the choice between a Mustang and a comparably priced Audi, for example, I'd pick the Audi. And a lot of the reasoning behind that is to do with the Audi being quieter and using less fuel. If I was in the market for a 7970, and there was a 7950 with a quality PCB and a near-silent aftermarket cooler for the same price or cheaper, I'd take the 7950.

Well, that's a lie - I'd bank the money. But you get the idea


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## eidairaman1 (Jan 1, 2012)

blibba said:


> Not in a million years.
> 
> But I guess my point is this: speed isn't the only factor, and you don't have to sacrifice noise for performance. Given the choice between a Mustang and a comparably priced Audi, for example, I'd pick the Audi. And a lot of the reasoning behind that is that the Audi is quieter and uses less fuel. If I was in the market for a 7970, and there was a 7950 with a quality PCB and a near-silent aftermarket cooler for the same price or cheaper, I'd take the 7950.
> 
> Well, that's a lie - I'd bank the money. But you get the idea



Ya and Its a connundrum because Ud pick the domestic car anyway...


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## blibba (Jan 1, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> Ya and Its a connundrum because Ud pick the domestic car anyway...



I'm British, so that'd be the Bentley...

But which was made where isn't really relevant to my point. I'm sure (I hope?) that there are U.S. built cars comparable to an Audi. 

If not, I wouldn't be prepared to sacrifice on getting what I want in order to reward some worker over another for the sheer good luck of being born in some particular nation, but that's a different story.


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## imitation (Jan 1, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> People always complain about the fan, I think of it this way. Compare a Prius/Insight/Leaf to a Camaro/Mustang/Challenger, More power means gonna be louder...



I hate to disagree. You can't compare a regular, civil car, to a muscle car that screams (literally) LOOK AT ME!!! I HAVE THEM HOARSEPOWERZ!!!
It is quite possible to build a powerful, yet silent car - look at the Audi A6 or BMW 5 series, they are both family-compatible, even with the 300+ HP engines. If you want them loud, you buy an aftermarket exhaust.
Now it's a whole different story on silicone - Intel builds CPUs that perform better than AMDs, yet they consume less power = less heat = less noise. It's all about what you want to achieve and how hard you try. If you want them silent, you buy an aftermarket cooler.


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## Super XP (Jan 1, 2012)

Shut Up AMD and take my money.
 on the OC...


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## m&m's (Jan 1, 2012)

qubit said:


> This was achieved "with core voltage bumped from 1.15v to 1.25v using publicly available software and a special bios (9th Jan reveal), we got the core clock speed up to 1267MHz."



The publicly software is in reality a beta of GPU Tweak... (Which is not available on the Asus Website at the moment)...

http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showpost.php?p=18969&postcount=22


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## OneCool (Jan 1, 2012)

Man this sucks!!! I wish I had the money to setup up a new gaming rig right now.Hardware is lookin good these days.


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## amd/atifiend (Jan 1, 2012)

meh, i don't hear anything out of my 6870's but then again i do have a set of swift tech blocks on em.

just go liquid and quit complaining. you can have your cake and eat it too. camaro+leaf+more power+more handling+more braking= AMG mercedes.

ill wait til these 2 6870's cant cut the mustard then get either 7xxx or 8xxx performance gpu for cheap


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## SteelSix (Jan 1, 2012)

Healthy oc's are a bonus. I'm equally stoked about ZeroCore technology. A long overdue feature IMO. If Kepler doesn't offer something similar, shame on nVidia!


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## Steven B (Jan 1, 2012)

This guy did it too: http://hwbot.org/forum/showthread.php?t=36837


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## Thefumigator (Jan 1, 2012)

OneCool said:


> Man this sucks!!! I wish I had the money to setup up a new gaming rig right now.Hardware is lookin good these days.



Tell that to me I'm still on this 4 year old lovely Phenom 9550 x4, with an nvidia 8200 IGP (hey, its still a very respectable system, also I can upgrade to a Phenom II X6 later)

I even received and old LCD monitor as gift and I can't plug it in because my mobo lacks a second video output


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## v12dock (Jan 1, 2012)

blibba said:


> Not in a million years.
> 
> But I guess my point is this: speed isn't the only factor, and you don't have to sacrifice noise for performance. Given the choice between a Mustang and a comparably priced Audi, for example, I'd pick the Audi. And a lot of the reasoning behind that is to do with the Audi being quieter and using less fuel. If I was in the market for a 7970, and there was a 7950 with a quality PCB and a near-silent aftermarket cooler for the same price or cheaper, I'd take the 7950.
> 
> Well, that's a lie - I'd bank the money. But you get the idea



Until your man juices get flowing and persuade you otherwise. America is the epicenter of pleasure we design cars to do just that


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## OneCool (Jan 2, 2012)

Thefumigator said:


> Tell that to me I'm still on this 4 year old lovely Phenom 9550 x4, with an nvidia 8200 IGP (hey, its still a very respectable system, also I can upgrade to a Phenom II X6 later)
> 
> I even received and old LCD monitor as gift and I can't plug it in because my mobo lacks a second video output



Dude im on a Aspire One netbook... although I do have a PS3 but its just not the same once you had a kickass gaming rig.... my last one was a Q6600,2 HIS HD2900xts in CF with Vista 64bit ,4gbs G.skill,no such thing as SSD in the main stream back then.. had a couple of 36gig raptors in raid0..OCZ 750 psu.... now im struggling just to put together a HTPC  with some old socket 775 parts....not going so good either


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## blibba (Jan 2, 2012)

v12dock said:


> Until your man juices get flowing and persuade you otherwise. America is the epicenter of pleasure we design cars to do just that



Wow. Let's not get into that.


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## OneCool (Jan 2, 2012)

Mustang Boss 302R..... done and done


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## wolf (Jan 2, 2012)

Steven B said:


> This guy did it too: http://hwbot.org/forum/showthread.php?t=36837



Looks like they were both using old drivers for 3DMark11! new scores @ ~1.25ghz is P12,000+


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## Hayder_Master (Jan 2, 2012)

Ok if we compare new EVGA GTX580 classifide 3Gb which is also with voltage tune can hit over 1.2Ghz with 7970, how much be the different ?
10% or maybe less


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## v12dock (Jan 2, 2012)

wolf said:


> Looks like they were both using old drivers for 3DMark11! new scores @ ~1.25ghz is P12,000+



These cards are just insane... 

Did you see this 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





3Dmark 11 P15063 @ 1700Mhz 
Faster than SLI 590 @ P13425 + 6990 Xfire @ P13734


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## SteelSix (Jan 2, 2012)

_"I asked two people at NVIDIA why Fermi is late; nVidia's VP of Product Marketing, Ujesh Desai and NVIDIA's VP of GPU Engineering, Jonah Alben. Ujesh responded: because designing GPUs this big is f**king hard."_

I keep thinking about that statement as this 4billion+ transistor GPU launches.


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## DarthCyclonis (Jan 2, 2012)

I'm not a fan boy either way.  I always buy the card with the best performance for dollar.  This card looks nice.  Good performance increase over the previous generation.  I only hope for pricing reasons that Nvidia and team Green has an answer for this.  AMD may be stinking it up in the processor segment but ATI has certainly paid off for them.


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## Jonap_1st (Jan 2, 2012)

dang,, 68C on stable 1,2Ghz overclock. 

can't wait for non-reference card from HIS or Sapphire


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## qubit (Jan 2, 2012)

Jonap_1st said:


> dang,, 68C on stable 1,2Ghz overclock.
> 
> can't wait for non-reference card from HIS or Sapphire



Don't forget the card was throttled by the protection power circuitry. Please see my article update.


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## vrzone (Jan 2, 2012)

hi there i was the guy who did it.

these were the furmark settings used:




even on the other benchies and BF3 (which walls the CPU to 99%), didn't see the temps go above the magical 66 degrees (toasty Singapore ambient), measured by onboard i2c sensor and ma fingers.

you can verify this with all the other overclockers who have cards


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## LiveOrDie (Jan 2, 2012)

> had they wanted to and it makes one wonder why they didn't.



Thats easy to answer why would ATI release a card which pushes the limits of the 28nm GPU when its only just be released doing it this way they can just release a faster clocked version and call it a 8970 after nvidia releases there next GPU all the 7970 is its just cock tease for nvidia to make them show there ballz.


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## qubit (Jan 2, 2012)

Live OR Die said:


> Thats easy to answer why would ATI release a card which pushes the limits of the 28nm GPU when its only just be released doing it this way they can just release a faster clocked version and call it a 8970 after nvidia releases there next GPU all the 7970 is its just cook tease for nvidia to make them show there ballz.



You may be right. It's certainly plausible.



vrzone said:


> hi there i was the guy who did it.
> 
> these were the furmark settings used:
> http://i.imgur.com/WAuyP.png
> ...



Yes, but the GPU would have been throttled back by the protection circuit wouldn't it? The framerate was quite low at 40fps.


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## vrzone (Jan 2, 2012)

qubit said:


> You may be right. It's certainly plausible.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, but the GPU would have been throttled back by the protection circuit wouldn't it? The framerate was quite low at 40fps.



since TPU has a card you guys can try the overclocked load temps with the fan speeds at 100%. I did check for performance improvement with every clock increment to check if there was throttling (not with furmark though)


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## qubit (Jan 2, 2012)

vrzone said:


> since TPU has a card you guys can try the overclocked load temps with the fan speeds at 100%. I did check for performance improvement with every clock increment to check if there was throttling (not with furmark though)



Interesting. Still, the framerate seems pretty low. I'm sure I had better than that with my cards at that sort of resolution and they're not as fast as this one.


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## theJesus (Jan 2, 2012)

vrzone said:


> since TPU has a card you guys can try the overclocked load temps with the fan speeds at 100%. I did check for performance improvement with every clock increment to check if there was throttling (not with furmark though)


My guess is that it only throttled in furmark.


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## Over_Lord (Jan 2, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> GTX580 975MHZ gave me 7700 graphics score in 3dm11 P, do yo math
> and im sorry i really had to:
> 
> http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/....jpg/618px-Over_9000_Vector_by_Vernacular.jpg



DIdn't it require 1 nuclear reactor to power it too? 


Anyways, what I really want to see is Sapphire's HD7970 Toxic, 1335Mhz core is like "HOLY COWS" to me


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## alwayssts (Jan 2, 2012)

A fairly clear picture is starting to emerge about 28nm and voltage in terms to laymen and regular cooling.

At stock 1.15v, the only review I saw that didnt use CCC to overclock achieved 1165mhz.  AMD mentioned to them 1200 could be possible at stock, ~1300mhz with voltage tuning.

VR-zone using 1.25v achieved an exactly linear increase.
1700mhz was 1.7v right?  Also pretty linear.

That crazy 1335mhz part would then infer a voltage of around 1.31-1.32. 

things to note:

1.  AMD used ~1.31-1.32v stock for 4890 on 55nm...see point #2.  One can always assume they would have wanted the same for 40nm had it not been leaky as hell above ~1.175v (6870/6970 stock voltage). AMD has shown a pattern of being conservative on stock voltage by about 5% on first-gen parts on a process...re 4870/5770/5870.  The 3000 series is an anomaly because of the lack of decap layer...hence why yields were so good.  Voltage was high...clockspeed not. 

2.  Intel suggests not running chips above 1.325v, as it has been shown to shorten lifespan of their cpus.  AMD may agree with this given their past voltage settings, guidance on 7970 overclocking, and that Sapphire pushed-to-the-max model.  This also may get VERY close to the 300W spec.

Now, TSMC aint Intel, and 28nm hkmg clearly aint 40 or 55nm...but rules of thumb are nice...and 28nm looks to put things back on course of where they should be in accordance to the AMD strategy of small dies with topped out voltages and clockspeeds while staying within tdp specs.  Because it appears so well organized, I would be very surprised if the fastest and highest voltage official tahiti sku we see is 925mhz @ 1.15v.  

I admire all the facets the ATi group looks at when designing a GPU.  Thrifty, practical scaling...just damn smart engineering.


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## hat (Jan 2, 2012)

qubit said:


> *UPDATE:* Notice how the Furmark screenshot shows the card achieving a mere 40fps at 1280x720? A card in this performance bracket can obviously do way better than this. This poor framerate will be down to the power throttling circuitry protecting the card under such conditions by slowing down the performance severely. If the throttle was disengaged the card would perform spectacularly for a short while and then likely cook itself to death, especially with this overclock. Thanks to one of our eagle-eyed forum members for spotting this.



Which means the overclock was probably unstable? I wonder what would happen if the throttling was disabled...


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## arroyo (Jan 2, 2012)

1.26 GHZ ... Great Scott!





That is more than 1.21 gigawatts!


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## _JP_ (Jan 2, 2012)

*Right meme, wrong comparison*

^that couldn't be more incorrect. :\


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## TheGuruStud (Jan 3, 2012)

Hayder_Master said:


> Ok if we compare new EVGA GTX580 classifide 3Gb which is also with voltage tune can hit over 1.2Ghz with 7970, how much be the different ?
> 10% or maybe less



about 150W difference, I imagine.

We all remember the original fermi. That is not AMD's goal. Sucking a full 300W the 7970 could run much faster.


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## dj-electric (Jan 4, 2012)

alwayssts said:


> A fairly clear picture is starting to emerge about 28nm and voltage in terms to laymen and regular cooling.
> 
> At stock 1.15v, the only review I saw that didnt use CCC to overclock achieved 1165mhz.  AMD mentioned to them 1200 could be possible at stock, ~1300mhz with voltage tuning.
> 
> ...



Please do not forget the PCB and it's effects on GPU overclocking, similar to those of a motherboard on CPU overclocking. as i was mentioning on the sapphire 1335Mhz thread, at some point the voltage needed for core operation at a certain frequencies can be much differant between two PCBs with the same core. For example, with the Radeon HD5850 (had 3 reference ones) i could squeeze exactly 835Mhz core clock while with a custome sapphire PCB (witch was created for the whole HD5800 series) i managed to get 925Mhz stable and that reflected on the results using voltage tuning. With the reference cards 1Ghz was achivable under voltages ranging between 1.26 and 1.3 while with sapphire cards that was reachable with voltages ranging between 1.16 and 1.18 witch is spectacular.

That lesson tought me that sometimes with the right PCB you can get some amazing results that you just wouldn't reach with a reference one


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## qubit (Jan 4, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> That lesson tought me that sometimes with the right PCB you can get some amazing results that you just wouldn't reach with a reference one



Oh yeah, absolutely. The whole thing has to work together to give you good results.

A better board will improve on things like voltage regulation (more stable); signal integrity; electrical noise; signal timings around the board (these can be critical); heat generation and dissipation and a lot more subtle effects, such as parasitic board capacitance.

This is why quality CPU motherboards cost so more for example, besides the extra features they offer.


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