Extreme Cooling HIS Radeon HD7970 Benchmarked on LN2 powered by Corsair AX1200

[thebanik]

It seems such a long time that I have posted in the Overclocking section, but I guess in reality its not that long, anyways a few weeks ago got hold of HIS HD7970 from Tirupati Enterprise. And have been testing it on air, though it was a great card on air but on LN2 it proved to be a dampner. It has a CB (Cold Bug) of -25C, which means around -25C it would crash even from within windows, and if you restart then it has a CBB (Cold Boot Bug) of -18C which means if you are any lower than -18C then there would not be any display. Keep hitting my head till the time I figured out the temperature issue, once that was done it was pretty easy to move on, though was not able to push much higher volts because of the above mentioned issues. Anyways got a few results from yesterdays benching to share but first the specification of my rig :

CPU : Intel SB i7 2600K was running at 5610 Mhz on Dry Ice.
Motherboard : Gigabyte P67-UD7-B3 - Awesome board, has been with me for a long time now, almost a year, and has gone through atleast 60 CPU changes and still going strong. Thumbs up to Gigabyte.
GPU : HIS HD7970 3GB - Star of the show, very strong graphic card, though AMD needs to work on its drivers. Was able to run it at 1480/1790 Mhz on LN2 but at just a temperature of around -15C to -20C.
PSU : CORSAIR AX1200 - Not an expert on PSU's, all I can do is put them on their knees to see how much further they can go. Have not budged yet this PSU,
RAM : GSKILL Trident 1600Mhz CL6 : Got them back from RMA recently, could easily do 1900Mhz CL7 but was not having a great time initially during the session so did not want to put the RAM under the list of components to troubleshoot, hence put them on CL8 during the session.
SSD : 2 x Corsair Force 3 120GB SSD
CoolerMaster Benchtable - An inseparable part of my bench sessions,
CoolerMaster Quick Fire Mechanical Keyboard - Small and a very function Mechanical Keyboard, . Love it
CORSAIR Vengeance M60 - Reviewed the mouse recently here, Fits my palm perfectly and does not need special attention to do its job, just how I like it,

Now lets get on with the results and though they are pretty good but need a SB-E CPU to crack the top 10 in the below benchmarks, hoping to get my hands on the CPU pretty soon though :

For the lazy geeks, who would not like to scroll down, here is a summary of the session :


1) Unigine Heaven : 3219 Marks, ranked #15 in the World globally
2) 3D Mark 11 : 12908, ranked #24th
3) 3DMark03 : 181394, ranked #26th in the World, 5th Top Most score for 7970
4) 3D Mark Vantage : 43500, ranked #73,


1) First up Unigine Heaven : 3219 Marks, ranked #15 in the World globally

thebanik`s Unigine Heaven - Xtreme Preset (DX11) score: 3219.77 DX11 Marks with a Radeon HD 7970

2) Next up 3D Mark 11 : 12908, ranked #24th

thebanik`s 3DMark11 - Performance score: 12908 marks with a Radeon HD 7970

3) An old benchmark nevertheless very important for overclockers, 3DMark03 : 181394, ranked #26th in the World, 5th Top Most score for 7970

thebanik`s 3DMark03 score: 181394 marks with a Radeon HD 7970

4) And last 3D Mark Vantage : 43500, ranked #73, but this is a specific benchmark which gets a huge boost with Sandy Bridge E. With that in hand can get the scores sky high,

thebanik`s 3DMark Vantage - Performance score: 43500 marks with a Radeon HD 7970

And just for tradition sake a few frosty pics.

By thebanik at 2012-02-11

Bear with me just for a shortwhile more while I thank all the companies who support/have supported me which makes me keep going further. Was not able to find the logo of Tirupati Enterprise sadly which provided us with the sample of HD7970 graphics card.

[vijayninel]

Brilliant run banik, I do hope ATI further tweaks those drivers.

[thebanik]

Originally Posted by vijayninel Brilliant run banik, I do hope ATI further tweaks those drivers.

Yup I hope too, there XP drivers are still not finished. Imagine a product out in the market for more than a month and still no proper drivers for XP neither any updated drivers for any other OS. Its pure horse power though which is making the cards brilliant.

[Jaydip]

Do we need such power on single screen full HD gaming ? now i m playing all the games with MSI HD 5770 on max setting on 1600*900 (20) with 2500k on 3.7ghz and P67 PRO ASUS scores are impressive though good work bro banik

[thebanik]

Originally Posted by Jaydip Do we need such power on single screen full HD gaming ? now i m playing all the games with MSI HD 5770 on max setting on 1600*900 (20) with 2500k on 3.7ghz and P67 PRO ASUS scores are impressive though good work bro banik

Only in India are enthusiasts still stuck with 1920 x 1080 and below resolutions. All around the globe Enthusiasts have moved on to Eyefinity and monitors with 2560 res. Though I do agree resolutions at or below 1080p do not require the top end hardware anymore. Mid end suffices for most of the games. Also ofcourse my passion is not to test a hardware for gamin, but to stress them as high as I can,

[rajan1311]

very nice... seems like you finally got the GPU pot..

all the best, 100% sure you can take it above 1.6GHz

Btw, how much did you hit on air?

[thebanik]

Originally Posted by rajan1311 very nice... seems like you finally got the GPU pot.. all the best, 100% sure you can take it above 1.6GHz Btw, how much did you hit on air?

Yeah got it quite a while ago. Tested GTX580 earlier as well with pretty decent results.

On air, I was able to do 1350Mhz thats why the LN2 results were a bit disappointing but cannot help with those kind of CB/CBB temps, On this card sure cannot take it to 1600Mhz. also it does not help that most of the other guyz are on SB-E.

[buBleZ]

Excellent scores banik! No workaround for CB bug?

[thebanik]

Originally Posted by buBleZ Excellent scores banik! No workaround for CB bug?

Thanks.......Sure there will/can be, but this card has to be returned back, so cannot do any soldering/physical changes......

[nikthegr8]

nyc benches

[JD666]

man... it would've been a PITA making sure the temps stayed around the -10 mark!! how did you manage??

[MOZ]

Do you still need the V.Mod and the OCP removal mod. Let me know, I'll be in Khanpur tomorrow.

[thebanik]

Originally Posted by nikthegr8 nyc benches

Thanks,

Originally Posted by JD666 man... it would've been a PITA making sure the temps stayed around the -10 mark!! how did you manage??

Actually No, just that finding the right temperature was a bit of work but after that it was much easier to maintain such low (or high) temperatures rather than -150C which needs constant pouring.

Originally Posted by MOZ Do you still need the V.Mod and the OCP removal mod. Let me know, I'll be in Khanpur tomorrow.

Not sure man, need to check with Tirupati if they would be fine with it.

[uniquegamer]

Banik sir you are awesome .
I am curious that how did you get the LN2 stuff and the cpu/gpu pots , they are available in some shops or you arrange them from some industries .

---------- Post added at 02:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 PM ----------

BTW some nice scores.As you say The 7970 has some CB bugs did you tried with watercooling blocks for proper temp for ocing beyond 1.6ghz.

[thebanik]

Originally Posted by uniquegamer Banik sir you are awesome . I am curious that how did you get the LN2 stuff and the cpu/gpu pots , they are available in some shops or you arrange them from some industries . ---------- Post added at 02:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 PM ---------- BTW some nice scores.As you say The 7970 has some CB bugs did you tried with watercooling blocks for proper temp for ocing beyond 1.6ghz.

LN2 is readily available in every city (medical industry uses it a lot, alongwith maybe a few other uses). As for Pots, you either can make them on your own (its a hollow copper cylinder after all with some intrinsic design at the bottom) or get them imported from other enthusiasts who have access to the right tools. Hit up XS to find such Pot manufacturers.

lol, waterblocks cannot give the temperature needed for volts that are required for such clocks. Even with CB and CBB temperatures were -15C to -20C on load,

The best clock I have seen on water is like around 1360-1380Mhz.