HIS HD7950 IceQ Turbo Overclocking

Before I start overclocking I like to get a little bit of information, firstly I like to establish operating temperatures and since we know these are within a comfortable threshold and the IceQ cooler is capable we can quickly move on. Next I like to know what the voltage and clock limits are, so I fired up HIS' iTurbo overclocking utility. Now, I don't know if it is a bug or whether it is a feature of this version release (V 1.1.1) but there seemed to be an infinite range of adjustment with the GPU and Memory clock sliders in the iTurbo Overclock tab (image below). I could set both of the sliders as far right as they would go and hit the apply button and then the slider limit would extend again and allow for higher clocks to be selected. With this capability I know I can squeeze every last drop of performance out of the HIS HD7950 IceQ Turbo 3GB. With a lot of time to tweak this companion tool might well set some speed records.

Raising the vCore (VDDC) to 1.135V and the memory voltage (MVDDC) to 1.680V, I was able to push the GPU to 1065MHz (+165MHz) and the memory to 1500MHz (+250MHz - 6GHz effective) which required very little effort at all. I am impressed by the capabilities of the HIS HD7950 IceQ Turbo 1GB video card. Running FurMark while the GPU was running at these speeds produced a lot of heat so I decided to call it a day, with better cooling (Water/DICE/LN2) I imagine this card will overclock like a beast, there were no signs of artifacts and I really wanted to keep going but feared that I would damage the GPU.

Armed with a 165MHz GPU core overclock and a 250MHz memory overclock, we went back to the bench and ran through the entire test suite. Overall we saw an average 13.20% increase in scores (at 1920x1080 resolution), with performance mostly on par with (and sometimes besting) 1680x1050 scores. This is very good considering the card is factory overclocked already.

We also re ran temperature tests at the overclocked speeds at the same ambient temperature of 23°C. The IceQ Cooler on the HIS HD7950 did not fail but was definitely at its limits, pushing the temperature up with FurMark saw the GPU load temperature rise to 86°C (auto fan). Next I tested at 100% fan speed and the temperature dropped to 82°C, chopping a mere 4°C off the top.

That's all of the testing over, in the next section I will deliver my final thoughts and conclusion.

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