Is this considered unstable behavior?

[earwicker7]

This seems like a no-brainer (I'm guessing the answer is yes), but is the following unstable behavior?

Basically, I'm overclocking my HD7970s, and I've got the core to 1220, with voltage at 1.112 and temps around 45 degrees. Using MSI Kombustor, it's not crashing/locking, but I'll do one run and it will only use 95% (or some random number) on one of the GPUs, and 99% on the others, then the next run they will both be at 99%, then back to one being lower.

Is that the cards being unstable, or is it some weird MSI Afterburner beta bug (it's Beta 14)? I've never encountered this before. I'm sure the answer is to just up the voltage a bit, but I like to take things slow when overclocking (haven't fried anything yet).

 

[GhOsT1321]

I do not believe that that should be considered unstable. IME video card stress programs usually use nearly 100%, sometimes as low as mid 90s.
Have you tried it with the cards reverted to their default clocks?

 

[PP Mguire]

This seems like a no-brainer (I'm guessing the answer is yes), but is the following unstable behavior?

Basically, I'm overclocking my HD7970s, and I've got the core to 1220, with voltage at 1.112 and temps around 45 degrees. Using MSI Kombustor, it's not crashing/locking, but I'll do one run and it will only use 95% (or some random number) on one of the GPUs, and 99% on the others, then the next run they will both be at 99%, then back to one being lower.

Is that the cards being unstable, or is it some weird MSI Afterburner beta bug (it's Beta 14)? I've never encountered this before. I'm sure the answer is to just up the voltage a bit, but I like to take things slow when overclocking (haven't fried anything yet).

I'm more concerned about this. You surely would have noticed an increase in heat when bumping from your other clocks and voltages. Are you measuring load or idle temp?

As to the question at hand, dual card setups are never 100%. You will see less than 100% GPU activity.

Also, use GPUZ for monitoring usage and temps for a more accurate reading.

 

[earwicker7]

I'm more concerned about this. You surely would have noticed an increase in heat when bumping from your other clocks and voltages. Are you measuring load or idle temp?

As to the question at hand, dual card setups are never 100%. You will see less than 100% GPU activity.

Also, use GPUZ for monitoring usage and temps for a more accurate reading.

45 degrees is the load temp. It's 32 degrees idle. I'm running water on a three-fan radiator, so I usually get pretty low temperatures. I double checked with GPU-Z.

 

[earwicker7]

I figured out what was going on with this... there is a power limit setting in the beta version of afterburner that was set at 0%... when I turned it up to 20%, it didn't happen. I was limiting my maximum wattage, so the cards were throttling down.

This means my overclock can now go much higher, as the behavior wasn't instability!