Agreed

There are no bad cards - just poorly priced cards

Who said that? One of the tech reviewers.

Been reading that thread?



Damn, I had to defend ABT over there! And I think I did a pretty good job, haha!

No time to read any threads but our own now; AMD viral has been pushing premiums for nearly 3 months now. Thanks for the defense!

The Powercolor HD 7970 has arrived. Installing 12-2 drivers now and will start benching in a few.

What's a decent overclock with stock voltage?

They're trying to start their own "Go Premiums" meme. LMAO. You'll see them post it very often.

UGH, I cannot imagine more of these memes.. if any of them get more graphic in nature!



1200 MHz seems to be the average MAX number that most can overclock to on their 7970. I do not expect AMD to do any higher, since it's already a whopping 275 Mhz higher. 1150 MHz would be more realistic, though. The power consumption will be a bit higher (from average 210W max on the 925MHz 7970 to over 235W) regardless, even though it'd be diamond-sprinkle cherry-picked.

Are you talking on stock voltage?

i am not going to change the voltage. The MSI Lightning clocks at 1070/1400MHz. So i will start at 1075/1400MHz and bump up the core frequency by +50MHz until it fails; then drop it back.

Do i need to bump up the memory over 1400MHz? i am guessing that 1425 is absolute max and that it doesn't make a lot of difference over 1400MHz.

Mine passed at 1075MHz.

Next up, 1125. It is also the maximum overclock in the AMD control panel; so it it passes, it will be the OC that i test at - slightly higher than the Overclocked versions of the HD 7970.


Update. It DID NOT pass at 1125MHz running Vantage. Next up 1100MHz.
As a note even at load, the PowerColor's own cooling is doing a nice job of keeping the noise level down.

Interesting, thanks.. too many AMD trolls are claiming 1200+ MHz on stock voltage, which is far-fetched given the numbers and duplicate forum accounts.

1100MHz is stable with my card at stock (fan profile/voltage). 1105 is not; it locked up.
-- it depends on the card. Those with "only" 1100MHz are not likely to be bragging about it

Also the definition of stable comes into play. What some call "stable" means booting into windows long enough to take a pic with it at 1200MHz, the fan screaming at 100% and all of the windows open on a -20F night

i guess that i can share this with you about the upcoming evaluation.

It has been one of the most interesting evaluations that i have ever attempted to perform. i found myself regularly getting 4 hours of sleep after spending all day benching and then getting up early, eager if exhausted to start all over. And we are talking about 16 hour days devoted to the analysis and benches.

It's addicting like a great video game and after spending every day since Monday engrossed in it, i am nearly at the end of the benching. And i'll take a break tonight to get started on the writing of the evaluation and other kinds of testing (power draw, etc, etc)

LMK if there is anything else you want to see while there is still time to add it.