• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

7970/280x underperforming?

looks like The Stilt got pissed and jumped ship for some reason. All downloads are gone and post is locked. I was going to get the bios I needed for my card :-(
 
If anyone wants, im running stilt bios on my gigabyt, sapphire and HIS 7970s.
 
I had to perform lots of testing on my 7970 to find the optimal core to memory ratio. I found that to be ~0.58. Here's some of my test data (hash rate was from mining LTC, so scrypt):

Code:
GPU	Memory	Ratio	Hash Rate
870	1500	0.5800	565
885	1525	0.5803	585
900	1550	0.5806	600
915	1575	0.5810	610
930	1600	0.5813	623
945	1625	0.5815	633
957	1650	0.5800	641
972	1675	0.5803	653
986	1700	0.5800	664
1000	1725	0.5797	676
1015	1750	0.5800	685
1030	1775	0.5803	695
1044	1800	0.5800	705
1059	1825	0.5803	707
1073	1850	0.5800	712
1075	1850	0.5811	718

Once I deviate from my optimal ratio my hash rate plummets very quickly (eventually down to ~500). I did set powertune to +20% (may not even be necessary, but I didn't spend any time testing if it's stable without it), but I didn't mess with voltages, RAM timings, BIOS flashing, etc. Anyways, I hope this is somewhat helpful as I was quite frustrated with my sub-par 7970 hash rates until I did some digging and then testing and found how critical the ratio is.
 
I had to perform lots of testing on my 7970 to find the optimal core to memory ratio. I found that to be ~0.58. Here's some of my test data (hash rate was from mining LTC, so scrypt):

Code:
GPU	Memory	Ratio	Hash Rate
870	1500	0.5800	565
885	1525	0.5803	585
900	1550	0.5806	600
915	1575	0.5810	610
930	1600	0.5813	623
945	1625	0.5815	633
957	1650	0.5800	641
972	1675	0.5803	653
986	1700	0.5800	664
1000	1725	0.5797	676
1015	1750	0.5800	685
1030	1775	0.5803	695
1044	1800	0.5800	705
1059	1825	0.5803	707
1073	1850	0.5800	712
1075	1850	0.5811	718

Once I deviate from my optimal ratio my hash rate plummets very quickly (eventually down to ~500). I did set powertune to +20% (may not even be necessary, but I didn't spend any time testing if it's stable without it), but I didn't mess with voltages, RAM timings, BIOS flashing, etc. Anyways, I hope this is somewhat helpful as I was quite frustrated with my sub-par 7970 hash rates until I did some digging and then testing and found how critical the ratio is.
You may have the same card as me what is the model number?
Looks like you can benifit from The Stilt's modded bios files also.
if you have the Hynix MFR ram then you sure can as the factory bios has the memory timings all screwed up.
I spent all day yesterday messing with numbers right now at 975/1745 for 668KHS any other changes and I'm going black or gray with black lines
I'll try some of your numbers though

HA Going with your highest setting I get a red screen with black lines. Starting out closest to where I left off with 1015/1750 I'm @ 558khs
Funny how our cards are acting completely different.

Guess I will stick with my 975/1745 668khs until the stilt wakes up and finishes his new thread. Why someone would pull all their files and start a new thread so no one can get files until the thread is done who knows.
I understand making it clean and alphabetical by manufacturer but shit man why take the files down in the process?
 
Last edited:
You may have the same card as me what is the model number?
Looks like you can benifit from The Stilt's modded bios files also.
if you have the Hynix MFR ram then you sure can as the factory bios has the memory timings all screwed up.
I spent all day yesterday messing with numbers right now at 975/1745 for 668KHS any other changes and I'm going black or gray with black lines
I'll try some of your numbers though

HA Going with your highest setting I get a red screen with black lines. Starting out closest to where I left off with 1015/1750 I'm @ 558khs
Funny how our cards are acting completely different.

7970PE53G per my Newegg order history. All the above settings were 24 hour stable on my card. I didn't keep pushing it though as I expected I would soon run into issues like you mentioned with the lines.

Per amdmeminfo:

Code:
drudenhaus ~ # ./amdmeminfo 
AMDMemInfo by Zuikkis <zuikkis@gmail.com>
-----------------------------------
Found card:  1002:6798 (AMD Radeon HD7970 / R9 280x)
Subvendor:   0x1002
Subdevice:   0xb00
Memory type: SK Hynix H5GQ2H24MFR

The BIOS does pique my curiosity. That would explain why I need such a crazy ratio on my card since it would be compensating for poor timings used for the Hynix MFR chips.
 
WTF That is the same exact card! I dunno how we don't do the same hash and why I can't hash at the high ram you do. It overclocks like a dream for benchmarking but shit WTF!

Hehe how about this what is your temp?
 
WTF That is the same exact card! I dunno how we don't do the same hash and why I can't hash at the high ram you do. It overclocks like a dream for benchmarking but shit WTF!

Hehe how about this what is your temp?

I set the target temp in cgminer to 90C so it's virtually always 90C +/- 1C which does result in the fan running at a fairly high speed. The card just spews heat out the back of the system, which isn't actually that bad with the stupid freezing weather we have been having up here north of Chicago.
 
hehe 40C here got you up on that at least. What is your Asic quality? Open GPU-Z right click the title bar and select Read Asic quality are you on stock bios?
 
hehe 40C here got you up on that at least. What is your Asic quality? Open GPU-Z right click the title bar and select Read Asic quality are you on stock bios?

Stock BIOS. I'd have to reboot into Windows to run GPU-Z though, unless they have a linux version now (and I'm not at home at the moment).
 
Stock BIOS. I'd have to reboot into Windows to run GPU-Z though, unless they have a linux version now (and I'm not at home at the moment).

no biggie but that will probably be what sets our cards apart
mine is 75.1%
:rolleyes:

just tried the tahiti le bios and set the clocks the same and I get 2KHS less and use more electricity with the higher core voltage pretty lame lol
 
I believe I still have those files but they're on a hard drive in a stack of hard drives that I no longer use...
 
290 BIOSes are still up. Archived all of them just in case.
 
no biggie but that will probably be what sets our cards apart
mine is 75.1%
:rolleyes:

just tried the tahiti le bios and set the clocks the same and I get 2KHS less and use more electricity with the higher core voltage pretty lame lol

Not much higher: 81.5%.
 
I need stilt bios for 7970 with hynix mfr. my sapphire xfx and visiontek need the stilt bios. anyone have them? all his are deleted from drop box
 
Aren't you guys concerned about voiding your warranty by modding your GPU bios? With these cards being worth $500+ now even used, plus the extreme constant stress mining puts on them I can't justify the risk.
 
Aren't you guys concerned about voiding your warranty by modding your GPU bios? With these cards being worth $500+ now even used, plus the extreme constant stress mining puts on them I can't justify the risk.

You can always flash a stock bios back. The factory bios with MFR chips are all jacked up and all a modded bios does is correct those memory timings.

The only thing that can really hurt a gpu is extreme temps from over volting. Not to mention in less then a year you can make enough profit to purchase a new card and still have coin to spare. ;)
 
You can always flash a stock bios back. The factory bios with MFR chips are all jacked up and all a modded bios does is correct those memory timings.

The only thing that can really hurt a gpu is extreme temps from over volting. Not to mention in less then a year you can make enough profit to purchase a new card and still have coin to spare. ;)

If the card is toast, how are you going to flash the stock bios back? And the gains in KHash from stock to tweaked BIOS are substantial but would still take many months to cover the cost of a bricked card that you cannot RMA...
 
Depends on the manufacture you are RMA'ing from. I could probably buy a card and have it paid for by the time an RMA is completely finished.
 
If the card is toast, how are you going to flash the stock bios back? And the gains in KHash from stock to tweaked BIOS are substantial but would still take many months to cover the cost of a bricked card that you cannot RMA...

If you do a bad flash you simply put in another card or use the integrated and flash it back... If you either have extra cards or integrated output then there's no risk at all
 
Back
Top