New Sapphire 7950 CF with odd Boost results

[shyet]

I just bought two new Sapphire 7950's from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202026

The clock speeds (925/1250) doesn't change whether I have Boost on or off. What I did noticed though is that I'm getting better performance and GPU usage with Boost on. See picture:

Heaven Benchmark
Boost OFF

Heaven Benchmark
Boost ON

I also notice they have different BIOS:

BIOS with Boost OFF

BIOS with Boost ON

What exactly is going on here? I tried flashing 015.030 on to my 2nd card (replacing 015.029), but for some reason it didn't like it and the clocks would stay at 0MHz LOL.

Any suggestions?

 

[Law-II]

Hi

This looks like a software not reporting the correct core clock speed for the cards

SAPPHIRE 100352-3L has a base Core GPU clock of 850Mhz [boost 925Mhz] & Mem 1250Mhz quad pumped ddr5 [1250*4=5000Mhz effective clock]
Source here

Note: as with most if not all manufactures Sapphire reserve the right to change hardware specs at any time "General Card Specifications can vary due to component availability"; thus the change in bios version.
Source here
*Maybe the cards are running different memory modules *flashing the wrong Vbios may damage or shorten the cards expected lifespan and or the card will not function as intended.

Maybe contact SapphireTech and ask what changes have been made to the cards PSB that warrant a bios change. [an idea! not to mention that you have flashed one of the cards as it invalidates warranty]

Make sure Vga and Mobo chipset drivers are up to date and maybe test with Sapphire Trixx which ships with the cards ensure Ulps is enabled and check cards Not under load;
*If these cards have dual bios ensure they are in switch position #1 [*Do Not Flash card while in switch position #2 this is default backup]

nb: fill in system specs here

atb (all the best)

Law-II

 

[kn00tcn]

power limit +20% results in the same issue?

 

[shyet]

Thanks for the replies.

Wow, it's been so long, I still had my S939 specs. Specs have been updated.

Okay so I was curious to see how much power my system is now using with these new cards, so I slapped on my Kill-A-Watt and noticed it was using less power with Boost ON. I figured it have to be different voltages as the clocks were the same. I loaded up Trixx for the first time (since I couldn't get Afterburner to unlock voltages), and saw:

Boost OFF = 1.25V
Boost ON = 1.175V

WTF Sapphire. Are they shipping all their cards like this? Not only did they mess up on the clocks, but they got the voltages backwards.

The cards are working fine though, and I'm able to undervolt to 1.050 while running the same factory overclock, so I guess I'll be keeping them. Still disappointed in Sapphire as I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out.

 

[erocker]

I'm not seeing any "boost" in those GPU-Z screens. What is supposed to be boosted?

1.175 is stock voltage. 1.25v is Ghz bios.

Your card has clocks of a reference card.

When you mention that one card is 0mhz, that is correct. The 2nd card goes into a ultra low power saving state when not in use.

 

[shyet]

I'm not seeing any "boost" in those GPU-Z screens. What is supposed to be boosted?

1.175 is stock voltage. 1.25v is Ghz bios.

Your card has clocks of a reference card.

When you mention that one card is 0mhz, that is correct. The 2nd card goes into a ultra low power saving state when not in use.

You're not seeing any boost, because Sapphire seemed to have made a mistake on the BIOS. From what I understand, Boost is supposed to have a GPU clock of 925Mhz, and Boost off should be 850Mhz. In my case, it's 925MHz whether boost is on or off.

The one card ran at 0mhz when I flashed a different BIOS on it. I flashed the BIOS from card 1, onto card 2 (since card 2 was the one with lower GPU usage, and I thought this might fix it). But after flashing it, GPU-Z reported the card running at 0MHz even while running Heaven benchmark, which caused me to have very low framerate (14FPS compared to 70+)

What do you mean by "1.25V is GHz BIOS"?

 

[erocker]

There is a 7970 GHz edition. That card comes with a bios with 1.25v volts.

Like I said, your 2nd card is supposed to clock down to 0 when not in use. To get by this, you need to disable ULPS. This can be done through the registry or by using Sapphire Trixx. I've never once seen a card that has an extra boost. 3d clocks are 3d clocks and on your cards the 3d clocks are 925mhz. Meaning it has a 75mhz overclock from the factory.

 

[shyet]

I understand ULPS and I have it disabled. After flashing the different BIOS, the card would stay at 0MHz even with a 3D application running. I restored its original BIOS and now all is well.

My cards has the dual BIOS, one being stock 850MHz, and another with a push of a button 925MHz. In my GPU-Z screenshots, it shows both BIOS at 925MHz.

Just to be clear, we are talking about 7950's right?

 

[erocker]

Oh it has a button! Well that just complicates things lol.

So, I guess I should just ask... What clocks and voltage do you want your cards to run at?

Oh, and when you flash the bios, it will reset the ULPS thing, so you usually have to do that again.

 

[shyet]

Well, I wanted to run them stock at first for a few days and work my way from there. But Sapphire messed up on the BIOS and has the stock @ 925MHz and 1.25V.

I have it @ 925/1250 1.050V right now, and I'm happy with this. I'll increase them when needed.