Topic: Lets Solve the unreliable 7970 issues.... (share your observations/input) - page 4. (Read 26022 times)

Really thinking it has something to do with the BIOS.  

Here are settings:

Good cards (all the exact same x 4, repeatable settings on each one) - core 980, mem 1720, concurrency 24000, intensity 19, worksize 256 = ~700kH/s

Bad cards (all different, if I switch the settinsg between cards they will NOT DUPLICATE)

#1) core 1022, mem 1244, concurrency 8192, intensity 13, worksize 256 = 590kH/s
#2) core 1048, mem 1692, concurrency 16384, intensity 13, worksize 256 = 578kH/s
#3) core 1102, mem 1580, concurrency 12480, intensity 13, worksize 256 = 580kH/s
#4) core 1122, mem 1364, concurrency 8192, intensity 13, worksize 256 = 606kH/s  <---- best performing of the "bad" cards I received.

There has to be a logical answer for this weirdness.

I've got the same card and had the same experience. 700kh/s not overclocking at all with your listed settings, I can push it higher, but maybe only to 725 or so. I'm just leaving it at stock clocks now, since it draws considerably more power for essentially the same hash rate otherwise.

Not sure why, but if you use anything other than -I 13, the hashrate takes a nose dive.

For the "bad" performing card(s), have you tried using smaller thread concurrencies and two threads?  That is, --thread-concurrency=8192, -g2, -I13?

I have two Gigabyte 7970 GV-R797OC-3GD cards and can't get the high-concurrency, single-thread, settings to work.  With every version of cgminer that I've used in the 2.11.x releases, the above settings give ~750 khps.

I know this is not exactly what you were looking for, but from what I've seen, not many people are trying similar settings.  I'm curious if it works for anyone else.

This is EXACTLY it.  

I have both versions (good/bad) but would hate to fubar a $400 card if there is some critical difference.

Can you install MSI Afterburner and share what it titles the card on the headline of the GUI?  Is it "7900 Series" or "7900 Lightning?"

All of my "good" 7970s show up in Afterburner as "7900 series." - easily hit 700k.

All of the "bad" ones show up as "7900 Lightning" in Afterburner. - at least so far.

If we can find out what Afterburner is seeing to make this difference we will be on our way to solving the problem.

Same here with XFX 7970.. PITA to get 550KH/s out of them.

I think it's BIOS related but i'm currently not willing to take the risk and flash a wrong/other bios onto a 300$ card...

I'm not sure if they are technically all the same.. Someone with a fast card should flash the same bios onto a slow card and compare.. IF they are technically 100% same..

I have a 7970 dualx sapphire and it does fine, will hit 700-720 when pushed hard.

afterburner shows it as a "7900 series"

my cgminer settings:

--thread-concurrency 21712 --intensity 20 -g 1 -w 256

I own a few 7970s, all made by Sapphire.

The generic version 7970s all do 700kH/s out of the box within 20mins of tuning - they LOVE big thread concurrency (.57 ratio, all that, works perfect!).

The 7970 "GHZ editions" do about 550kH/s out of the box with hours of tuning and no two are alike, they HATE big thread concurrency.  In fact I cannot even duplicate results across these "GHZ" cards as each one must be fine tuned by hand painfully to get it to 600kH/s.  One of them is maxed out at 1022c/1244m.  The next one will max out with completely different settings.

All the bad cards can ONLY work well with Intensity/Aggression of exactly 13, move it up and kH/s dives.

One thing I have noticed - MSI Afterburner ALWAYS "sees" the good 7970s as "MSI 7900 Series" on the top of the app.

MSI Afterburner sees the "bad" 7970s as "MSI 7900 Lightning"

So - There is a definable difference, and why is the premium card performing worse?  Is this a software issue?  Was there a revision made to the GHZ editions that is freaking out cgminer and reaper?

What is different about a card that Afterburner defines it as "7900 Series" vs. "7900 Lightning?"

Please share your 7970 experience - there is NO reason GHZ and premium editions should under perform stock standard versions - I and many others here judging from PMs I have gotten about this would love to see it solved once and for all.

My theory at this point is that there is a bug in reaper/cgminer as they just don't like the premium iterations of 7970s.  The reason I state this is I cannot duplicate results across multiple "bad" 7970s, but results are immediately duplicated on the "good" older models.