AMD Radeon RX 6800 Challenger Pro OC: GPU Clock speeds different to default

[tim9800]

Hello everyone,

Recently I purchased a used RX 6800 card, ex-mining. I am now inspecting and testing the card for performance / stability issues, etc.

Yesterday I noticed on GPU-Z that the GPU clock speeds are different to "Default clock":

The default clock (1905 / 2140) is the same as stated on ASRock website for this card.

But I am not sure where GPU clock of 1394 and 2289 come from.. since receiving the card, I have not overclocked or modified the card in any way.

Is this evidence that the previous owner may have modified the card in some way? Should I flash the bios with factory bios, or perhaps there is a simpler explanation?

Thanks, tim

 

[AlwaysHope]

Looks like you got a modified bios on that card, even the TPU gpu database has all variants of the RX 6800 card having same memory clocks of 2,000MHz each.

 

[eidairaman1]

Looks like you got a modified bios on that card, even the TPU gpu database has all variants of the RX 6800 card having same memory clocks of 2,000MHz each.

Im here

That was easy.
Your files are below

TechPowerUp

Extensive repository of graphics card BIOS image files. Our database covers submissions categorized by GPU vendor, type, and board partner variant.

www.techpowerup.com

Hello everyone,

Recently I purchased a used RX 6800 card, ex-mining. I am now inspecting and testing the card for performance / stability issues, etc.

Yesterday I noticed on GPU-Z that the GPU clock speeds are different to "Default clock":

View attachment 301118

The default clock (1905 / 2140) is the same as stated on ASRock website for this card.

But I am not sure where GPU clock of 1394 and 2289 come from.. since receiving the card, I have not overclocked or modified the card in any way.

Is this evidence that the previous owner may have modified the card in some way? Should I flash the bios with factory bios, or perhaps there is a simpler explanation?

Thanks, tim

Download a bios above.

Follow this guide to restore the card.


Then Get the latest version of AMDVBFLASH/ATiFlash

https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ati-atiflash/

Then follow this:

For RX 5000-7000 Navi Series and I believe Vega Cards, maybe Fury...
AMDVBFLASH
Versions 3.31-5.0.567

Follow these steps carefully:

1. Open your "C:" drive in Windows, create a new folder, call it atiflash.

2. Extract the contents of amdvbflash_win_5.0.567.zip to the "C:\atiflash" folder (make sure everything is in C:\atiflash and not another folder)

3. Find the bios file you downloaded and rename the bios file to a r6800.rom

4. Move your bios r6800.rom to the "C:\atiflash" folder

5.Open the atiflash folder you just created, double click AMDVBFlashDriverInstaller.exe and allow it to install
YOU MUST INSTALL THIS FOR AMDVBFLASH TO WORK, YOU CAN UNINSTALL IT USING THE EXACT SAME .EXE

6. Open the start menu, type cmd, when cmd.exe appears right click it and hit "Run as administrator"

7. At the command prompt type in cd\ and press enter until only C:\> is on the screen.

8. Type in cd/atiflash and press enter, you should see C:\atiflash>

9. At C:\atiflash> type in amdvbflash.exe -i to identify your card with a 0, 1, or 2

10. At the C:\atiflash> prompt type in
amdvbflash.exe -p 0 r6800.rom -fa -fp (or 1, 2)

(there is a space between amdvbflash.exe and -p, a space between -p and 0, a space between 0 and r6800.rom, a space between r6800.rom and -fa, and a space between -fa and -fp)

Press Enter.

Follow directions on screen and if flash is successful exit the command prompt and restart, windows should show up on monitor

@tim9800

 

[tim9800]

Thanks for your replies and help @AlwaysHope @eidairaman1.

@eidairaman1 I went to this link and downloaded the driver with latest compile date. After successful flash, GPU-Z is now showing identical GPU clock and Default clock

Cheers !!

 

[KrazyT]

The case is resolved
I have a question, why does miners changes bios on the card ?
Is it really helpful ?

 

[Tatty_Two]

The case is resolved
I have a question, why does miners changes bios on the card ?
Is it really helpful ?

Simply put, running cards for mining 24/7 produce a lot of heat and use a lot of energy, tweaking them to get an efficient hash rate and minimise heat and energy use keeps costs and the risk of GPU failure lower.

 

[KrazyT]

Totally makes sense !

Thanks for your answer Tatty_Two

 

[eidairaman1]

Simply put, running cards for mining 24/7 produce a lot of heat and use a lot of energy, tweaking them to get an efficient hash rate and minimise heat and energy use keeps costs and the risk of GPU failure lower.

Not all miners use them in a cool controlled environment either though so getting a mining card is always a crapshoot.

 

[tim9800]

Another question re: clock speeds - I ran furmark overnight again with the fixed bios + HWinfo logging. The total logging time was around 10h 45m

I noticed in the graph of GPU clock, that there are large downward drops in clock speed. Again, is this normal (e.g. thermal throttling) or sign that something is wrong with the card?

Here are the temps + fan power. EDIT: Temps seem quite reasonable to me (~70 GPU temp, ~80 hot spot) so I don't think this can be explained by thermal throttling..

Notice the dips in GPU power draw as well. The card maxes out at around 211-213W:

 

[eidairaman1]

Ok you are putting unnecessary strain on the card using furmark, it's as if you are mining with it. If you are in doubt about the miner you bought from, swap the gpu thermal compound and get better pads. It is throttling which is normal once a temperature threshold is reached.

Furmark is a poor tool for testing gpus, So run games instead.

 

[Tatty_Two]

It appears that the lines that indicate throttling are around 100% GPU utilisation so there may be an element of power throttling as well but as has been said, Furmark is not really an indicator of real world usage as it attempts to put a full load on the card at all times, games don't normally do that.

 

[tim9800]

Okay thanks again for the advice.

I am going to run some more realistic benchmarks + games hopefully soon.

Also, I figured out that the issue likely wasn't the bios.. in fact it may have been MSI afterburner changing clock speeds on start up.

I noticed that after bios flash, that the GPU speeds went back to the strange values mentioned in OP. So I checked on MSI afterburner (which I had forgotten) and the exact clock speed was set there.

I have returned afterburner to default and now all is well