Help overclocking my 6970

Solarstarshines said:

Thornton said:

badger906 said:

erm.. might i ask why you want to? up until a few weeks ago your card was one of the fastest single Gpu's around, only beaten by the 580gtx and the new 7970 (or what varients out now).

It would be a pointless achievement at best, you wont see improvements in game play as your already getting more than enough frames to spare. just my 2 cents well pence.. being a brit lol

1 word "BF3" it K.I.L.Ls my frame rate, sweet 60-65 down to 47-55

Not always the Gpu that bottlenecks things

Have you tryed Oc'ing the Cpu instead of the Gpu that might be why it is dropping cpu can't keep up even though i have the same chip i have mine oc'ed to 4 Ghz

im OCing to 3.7 and it is running around 55-60 at any given time, its great, periodically im lucky enough to go higher than 60, i would love to oc mine to 4, ive seen people with a 965be go as high as 4.7. but i will need to wait till i have a better heat sink, im OCing with a stock heat sink (i know O_o) but i have multiple fans on it and it runs nice and cool so i dont think much of it. i am ocing both, i find i can run at a faster frame rate with higher cpu, but the frame rate seems prety static, where the graphics lets me get an extra boost while playing on "High" quality, i want to be able to run 60fps at "Very High" at some point

smarteyeball said:

Thornton said:

thank you very much. although, i will not be able to use 3d mark, it does not support 5760x1080, last time i ran it it screwed up my resolution horibly, had to restart without even seeing my score and then reset my drivers (not fun).

You should be able to set a custom resolution, but it's been a while since since I had an Eyefinity setup but I don't recall if ran any of the 3D mark in Eyefinity.

Heaven supports it though.

For simplicities sake, stick with a single screen while initially testing.

so if i understand you correctly, just start slowly lowering the core and increasing the ram. id like to play with the voltage a little also, im assuming the same rules apply as to CPU, only go up in .12-.25 increments.

Basically you're looking for for the 'wall' of both the core and memory separately. The point where it runs out of oomph and starts to misbehave. It doesn't matter which one you start with really, as long as one is stock and the other overclocked.

When you find the wall, you can focus on the other and finally test both together. By doing both together from the start as you've noticed, it's hard to pinpoint which is unstable.

And yes, the voltage rules apply to the GPU as well. You could go balls to the wall and start out maxed, but end up pumping more voltage than necessary. Doing it incremental gives you an better idea of what the card can do at any given clock speed.

You can even use profiles to allow for varying overclocks depending on game or task, so it doesn't have to run at full OC speed when it doesn't need to be.

okay so i found somthing interesting, my origonal 930x1425x1175 was close, if i ramp iether of the clock or the memory higher i lage horridly, which i find odd cuz i see people who OC WAY higher than i am with less than half the problems. i have it setup now, 930x1425x1185. not much of a voltage difference, and im really not sure whether or not im actually seeing less taring. so im just a bit comfused at this point i think. why am i having graphics lag, and taring when im not even clocked as high as some other people who run it just fine? somthing is screwed up in my combination somewhere im sure. ill start from scratch later, see if i can go higher, i run my fan at 40% and its kinda loud, but still not bad and it keeps me at 60o-70o at any given time. as for 3d mark, they no longer have a free version exactly. i cant change the resolution past 720p, besides, they are all pre defined resolutions.
ill try that O. one you mentiond to see if that works

smarteyeball said:

Thornton said:

thank you very much. although, i will not be able to use 3d mark, it does not support 5760x1080, last time i ran it it screwed up my resolution horibly, had to restart without even seeing my score and then reset my drivers (not fun).

You should be able to set a custom resolution, but it's been a while since since I had an Eyefinity setup but I don't recall if ran any of the 3D mark in Eyefinity.

Heaven supports it though.

For simplicities sake, stick with a single screen while initially testing.

so if i understand you correctly, just start slowly lowering the core and increasing the ram. id like to play with the voltage a little also, im assuming the same rules apply as to CPU, only go up in .12-.25 increments.

Basically you're looking for for the 'wall' of both the core and memory separately. The point where it runs out of oomph and starts to misbehave. It doesn't matter which one you start with really, as long as one is stock and the other overclocked.

When you find the wall, you can focus on the other and finally test both together. By doing both together from the start as you've noticed, it's hard to pinpoint which is unstable.

And yes, the voltage rules apply to the GPU as well. You could go balls to the wall and start out maxed, but end up pumping more voltage than necessary. Doing it incremental gives you an better idea of what the card can do at any given clock speed.

You can even use profiles to allow for varying overclocks depending on game or task, so it doesn't have to run at full OC speed when it doesn't need to be.

i downloaded heavin, ran a few bench marks, and find this really rather odd, im encountering lag with and without overclocking, i think just as bad without. i pulled a 673 with overclocking, and 671 without. it whould be MUCH higher than this in my opinion, and why in the world im lagging, well, i need some help finding that out too. i think the lag issue is is odd because it just spontaniously started happening, i looked through task manager, processes and services, somthing im unaware of is running my ram up from 3.2gb, to 4.1, some times as much as 5gb. other than that, i gust dont get it lol, i think im gong hysterical

smarteyeball said:

Is this screen tearing using Eyefinity? And does the screen tearing look like the top half of the screen is out of sync with the lower half?

It sounds like a V-Sync issue. V-Sync was permanently broken when I used to run Eyefinity, maybe it still is

Alternatively, do your monitors have a 'Game Mode' function, and if so, are they enabled? Game mode also introduces tearing.

which i find odd cuz i see people who OC WAY higher than i am with less than half the problems
when im not even clocked as high as some other people who run it just fine?

The higher the clock speed, the 'smoother' it should be. Try lowering/disabling XAA (anti-aliasing). This has a big impact on both frame rate and VRAM usage, particularly in Eyefinty.

Also is your 6970 a 1GB or 2GB version?

somthing im unaware of is running my ram up from 3.2gb, to 4.1, some times as much as 5gb

Sounds like a possible memory leak. To attempt to try and find out what the culprit is:


Task Manager>Processes then select View>Select Columns... and tick Memory - Private Working Set and CPU Time



It might help show what process is hogging both the CPU and Memory.

i know SQL is hogging my cpu so i turn it off, ill look into my ram issue, the taring is similar to what you described, sounds like they havent done much with the V-Sync issue, i looked it up, people are saying if it is using tri-buffer, leave it on, most games use quad-buffer though, so does that mean i should turn V-Sync off? im using the 2gb sapphire BFBC2ed (you proly din' need to know that part about BFBC2, but special ed.s sometimes change specs here and there). im finding this taring when i watch youtube videos also, especially vimeo, idk what the deal is with the whole, start-stop-start-stop issue with the video quality.
i changed my graphics from use application settings to override application settings and set them to "2x standard" with "morphalogical filtering" off.
i have my sample quality at Super-sample AA so i dont get that choppy MW2/3 effect, leme know if i need to turn that down to adaptive multi sample or multi sample.
i have set the anisoropic filtering to 2, i was using application setting, dk how that was working out, leme know if you think i could get away with turning that up cuz on 2x it looks REALLY crappy.
im leaving my "standard 3d settings" at "use application settings" but am able to turn that off if you think it would be necessary.

back to the taring issue, the part i find really odd, is its not taring in the game, its taring er'y where else, the game is still running just fine besides the laggyness and the sudden frame rate drops

smarteyeball said:

Is this screen tearing using Eyefinity? And does the screen tearing look like the top half of the screen is out of sync with the lower half?

It sounds like a V-Sync issue. V-Sync was permanently broken when I used to run Eyefinity, maybe it still is

Alternatively, do your monitors have a 'Game Mode' function, and if so, are they enabled? Game mode also introduces tearing.

which i find odd cuz i see people who OC WAY higher than i am with less than half the problems
when im not even clocked as high as some other people who run it just fine?

The higher the clock speed, the 'smoother' it should be. Try lowering/disabling XAA (anti-aliasing). This has a big impact on both frame rate and VRAM usage, particularly in Eyefinty.

Also is your 6970 a 1GB or 2GB version?

somthing im unaware of is running my ram up from 3.2gb, to 4.1, some times as much as 5gb

Sounds like a possible memory leak. To attempt to try and find out what the culprit is:


Task Manager>Processes then select View>Select Columns... and tick Memory - Private Working Set and CPU Time



It might help show what process is hogging both the CPU and Memory.

oh, no game mode that i am aware of also

smarteyeball said:

Thornton said:

sounds like they havent done much with the V-Sync issue,

One thing to check would be to use the frame rate counter Fraps.

If V-Sync is set to ON in the app (forcing it in CCC never worked for me) and the framerate still jumps over 60fps and maxes out a 120fps, it's still broken.

In single screen mode it shouldn't shoot past 60FPS.

i looked it up, people are saying if it is using tri-buffer, leave it on, most games use quad-buffer though, so does that mean i should turn V-Sync off?

Leave triple buffering on. It only affects OpenGL and not DirectX (which 97% of games use).

Quad buffering is only used for 3D (HD3D, iZ3D)




The important part is that it's a 2GB model. 1GB models really struggle with Eyefinity.




You don't mean buffering do you? It loads a bit, plays - stops until it loads, plays, stops, loads, plays?

The tearing is another factor.





Just use the one you are most happy with performance/quality wise. MSAA probably has the biggest hit on performance.




lol, it certainly would

@ 1920x1080 the card can handle x16

In eyefinity, x4 or x8, even x16 depending on the game.

With Eyefinity there are usually a few sacrifices needed to attain smoothness.

Anti-Aliasing @x2 or even off. MLAA Off. AF x4-x8 SSAO (Ambient Occlusion low/off

im leaving my "standard 3d settings" at "use application settings" but am able to turn that off if you think it would be necessary.

I always found with CCC that the "use application settings" was best. For those options that aren't available in game, you can always attempt to override them in CCC.

back to the taring issue, the part i find really odd, is its not taring in the game, its taring er'y where else, the game is still running just fine besides the laggyness and the sudden frame rate drops

Just to clarify, this is all happening using the Eyefinity setup/resolution?

►Have you tried single screen / breaking the eyfinity group to see if the tearing happens when the monitors are in extended mode instead?

►When did this tearing first start?
From the day you installed the card, overclocked the CPU or overclocked the GPU?

►If it only happened after overclocking the CPU, set it back to stock for now.

►What previous card did you have before the 6970?

It might be worth doing another driver uninstall/driversweep and re-installation if not already done so.

ty, i was using a 5770 before this one, i may try using the microsoft default 3 monitor setup, i rarely use eyfinity except for few veriouse things. i praticularly liked it for DA:O and DA][. ill try that. this happens whan my graphics is OCd, some times rarely when its not, and by rarely i mean almost never, i think there was a possibilty it was happening before OC, but i just never noticed because it was not often enough.

smarteyeball said:

Thornton said:

sounds like they havent done much with the V-Sync issue,

One thing to check would be to use the frame rate counter Fraps.

If V-Sync is set to ON in the app (forcing it in CCC never worked for me) and the framerate still jumps over 60fps and maxes out a 120fps, it's still broken.

In single screen mode it shouldn't shoot past 60FPS.

i looked it up, people are saying if it is using tri-buffer, leave it on, most games use quad-buffer though, so does that mean i should turn V-Sync off?

Leave triple buffering on. It only affects OpenGL and not DirectX (which 97% of games use).

Quad buffering is only used for 3D (HD3D, iZ3D)




The important part is that it's a 2GB model. 1GB models really struggle with Eyefinity.




You don't mean buffering do you? It loads a bit, plays - stops until it loads, plays, stops, loads, plays?

The tearing is another factor.





Just use the one you are most happy with performance/quality wise. MSAA probably has the biggest hit on performance.




lol, it certainly would

@ 1920x1080 the card can handle x16

In eyefinity, x4 or x8, even x16 depending on the game.

With Eyefinity there are usually a few sacrifices needed to attain smoothness.

Anti-Aliasing @x2 or even off. MLAA Off. AF x4-x8 SSAO (Ambient Occlusion low/off

im leaving my "standard 3d settings" at "use application settings" but am able to turn that off if you think it would be necessary.

I always found with CCC that the "use application settings" was best. For those options that aren't available in game, you can always attempt to override them in CCC.

back to the taring issue, the part i find really odd, is its not taring in the game, its taring er'y where else, the game is still running just fine besides the laggyness and the sudden frame rate drops

Just to clarify, this is all happening using the Eyefinity setup/resolution?

►Have you tried single screen / breaking the eyfinity group to see if the tearing happens when the monitors are in extended mode instead?

►When did this tearing first start?
From the day you installed the card, overclocked the CPU or overclocked the GPU?

►If it only happened after overclocking the CPU, set it back to stock for now.

►What previous card did you have before the 6970?

It might be worth doing another driver uninstall/driversweep and re-installation if not already done so.

i "changed" my type of eyefinity display, its not true eyfinity anymore, concept is the same, but it should lower my GPU/GRAM by a particularly noticeable amount. instead of running 3 1920x1080 displays as 5760x1080 im now running just 3 extended displays which should speed things up hopfully. i once AGAIN updated my trixx drivers, ill try running some benchmarks later