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The Radeon VII Owners Thread

Soldato
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Thanks - that's my other train of thought. I also got my R VII on launch day, and my most expensive gfx purchase to date. Only really noticing noise now that I recently upgraded to a freesync monitor and card is being pushed hard all the time.

Card defaults to 1060mv, and I runs fine at 970mv but becomes unstable at 960mv.

I keep on hearing of big jumps in GFX card performance and power consumption savings between generations but normally dissappointed. Will see what happens this time around.

As mentioned a few posts back, installing the whql drivers seems to have stopped the sudden high speed fan hikes while playing control (which was very annoying and distracting), although fans do wind up quite a bit generally.

Edit: On this hot day, jtemp is hitting 112c (edge temp 77c) and card is throttling a little. Also have the issue with the air going into the chipset fan, which is also getting toasty and ramping up beyond 5k rpm. :O I guess watercooling would move the heat away from the board too.

Personally I just undervolt mine to 970mv, set max fan speed to 48% and enjoy a relatively quiet gaming experience. I prefer the card throttling rather than being loud.

Would never go back to a small chipset fan these days, last I had one was on a Nforce2 chipset I believe, really loud due to the RPM they have to spin at. Any 200W+ card will heat up the chipset. I decided to vertically mount my card for aesthetic reasons, though it did reduce my Samsung NVME SSD + chipset temperatures quite a bit, here's a picture (bad picture due to reflection, but you get the idea :p):

UMyMOc3.jpg
 
Associate
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I wouldn't spend money on making the Radeon VII quieter or cooler at this point. Edit the fan curve to a volume you can tolerate, and find your lowest stable voltage.

AMD and Nvidia's next gen series will have low midrange cards (think 3060, rx570) that will be faster than the Radeon VII while most likely using 100-200W less power (so much cooler running too).

Just my $2 as a RadeonVII owner from Day 1 (feb 2019).
Thanks - that's my other train of thought. I also got my R VII on launch day, and my most expensive gfx purchase to date. Only really noticing noise now that I recently upgraded to a freesync monitor and card is being pushed hard all the time.

Card defaults to 1060mv, and I runs fine at 970mv but becomes unstable at 960mv.

I keep on hearing of big jumps in GFX card performance and power consumption savings between generations but normally dissappointed. Will see what happens this time around.

As mentioned a few posts back, installing the whql drivers seems to have stopped the sudden high speed fan hikes while playing control (which was very annoying and distracting), although fans do wind up quite a bit generally.

Edit: On this hot day, jtemp is hitting 112c (edge temp 77c) and card is throttling a little. Also have the issue with the air going into the chipset fan, which is also getting toasty and ramping up beyond 5k rpm. :O I guess watercooling would move the heat away from the board too.

Morning, Dave2150 has a good point on water cooling this late in the day. I see it a valid option if you got the B grade parts so £80/£20 (£100 with a backplate) Looks like they save sold now though!? To set up a loop in general for future systems makes sense with a CPU in the loop. At that point it would have been like £100 to add the GPU into the loop. It's becoming a very funny time currently with rumours of future products also daily on the likes of videocardz. If you are planning on keeping the VII long term its worth doing or if you're thinking of Navi 21 or Nvidia 3000 series it would be a non starter in my eyes.
 
Soldato
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Card arrived. Anyone get horrendously low FPS when alt-tabbing sometimes? I thought it might be the card not returning to max clock speeds but the overlay with 20.5.1 tells me it's at almost 1800Mhz core clock, so it's not that.
 
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Card arrived. Anyone get horrendously low FPS when alt-tabbing sometimes? I thought it might be the card not returning to max clock speeds but the overlay with 20.5.1 tells me it's at almost 1800Mhz core clock, so it's not that.
Morning,

Your issue is listed in Known Issues for the driver:
"Radeon RX Vega series graphics products may experience a system crash or TDR when performing multiple task switches using Alt+Tab."

Also this one:
"Radeon RX Vega Series and Radeon VII graphics products may experience performance drops when Performance Metrics Overlay is open while a game is running."

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-20-5-1
 
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Going to start with 990 mV and 60% max fan speed and see how I get on for stability.
Anything under 1000mv would be good for temps. Its surprising how much difference it makes to temps dialling the voltage down. Same can be said about Zen 2 aswell. I settled for 1140mhz HBM myself. I'd get your voltage set and tested first and give the HBM a go after that. If you have 3D mark the stress test is very useful at ratting out if you've gone too low on the voltage. My daily settings are 949mv 1140 HBM (default 1060-1063mv).
 
Soldato
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9,850
Its never been good going for a 3D workload to desktop 2D, crappy software holding hardware back as always lol.
What default voltage did you card come with?

Radeon VII owner from day one. Never had an alt tab issue, and I use that extensively with windows/apps/games over two monitors.

Using my system for work as well as gaming, so countless hours of use in my case. Only issue I've had was a hardware acceleration bug in the 2020 drives, which was fixed several weeks ago.
 
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Radeon VII owner from day one. Never had an alt tab issue, and I use that extensively with windows/apps/games over two monitors.

Using my system for work as well as gaming, so countless hours of use in my case. Only issue I've had was a hardware acceleration bug in the 2020 drives, which was fixed several weeks ago.
And core overclocking is long time dead and burried!
 
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? Not sure what you mean by this. Undervolting yields more performance compared to overclocking on the Radeon VII, assuming your using the stock cooler.
After 19.7.5 dialling in any custom core clock speeds just don't hold. If it's done in 3d made (in game) it holds for a matter of seconds and falls off, then slightly reduces the clock too. For example 1800mhz stock gets 1750-1760 when it falls off turns into around 1710 ish. I used to run a sweet spot settings of 1900mhz @ 1000mv. I now use 1800 @ 950mv, gets very good temps on water which is the nice part.
 
Soldato
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9,850
After 19.7.5 dialling in any custom core clock speeds just don't hold. If it's done in 3d made (in game) it holds for a matter of seconds and falls off, then slightly reduces the clock too. For example 1800mhz stock gets 1750-1760 when it falls off turns into around 1710 ish. I used to run a sweet spot settings of 1900mhz @ 1000mv. I now use 1800 @ 950mv, gets very good temps on water which is the nice part.

Ah fair enough, cheers for info. I'm happy enough with mine just running the undervolt and custom fan curve. Had the card coming on 16 months and it hasn't missed a beat performance wise, hoping big Navi is something special :)
 
Soldato
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Can anyone remember what thickness of thermal pad is needed for the VRM area on these cards ?

Ive just had a bit of a disaster of a water leak, first water leak ever, thankfully I spotted it just in time and managed to flick the power switch off on my PC just in time, anyway, ive stripped everything down and cleaned the board and other parts down with Iso Alc, praying it all still worked, I took the R7 apart and cleaned it all up, ive applied AS5 to the core and covered the SMD's in nail polish, however, the thermal pad over the VRM's is in a right mess, it could really do with replacing.

The PC is back up and running now and all is well, but looking to get a couple of these to replace whats left of the stock ones: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/thermal-grizzly-minus-pad-8-20x-120x-1-0-mm-2-pack-th-017-tg.html
they come in all thickness's, so wasnt too sure which to go for.
 
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by my pc. :D
Depends on what you are using - stock cooler seems to use 2mm thick pads all around, although there is a nice components inprint in them when removed. If you're using aftermarket cooling it may vary. The ek block I just fitted seems to use 1mm pads.
 
Soldato
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Depends on what you are using - stock cooler seems to use 2mm thick pads all around, although there is a nice components inprint in them when removed. If you're using aftermarket cooling it may vary. The ek block I just fitted seems to use 1mm pads.

Thanks, I am using the stock cooler, ive actually just stripped it down again and given it all a good clean up, I found a fairly decent pad and measured it up, it 1.5mm, so ive ordered some new 1.5 x 20 x 120 pads, 2 of, most of them are pretty broken up.

Before when I cleaned it up, I used AS5 on the core, my junction temp was through the roof, ive just put the last of my liquid metal ultra on it and about to give it a run for its money, see what the temps are like now.

Strange thing I did notice when I opened it up again, im not sure if its meant to be like it, but where you have the grey thermal pads on the VRM, where they make contact with the cooler, there seems to be more of that black graphite thermal pad there rather than them making direct contact with the heatsink, should have taken some picts.
 
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Soldato
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Way better now, before the junction temp was peaking at 115oC now its hitting a max of 98oC, core temp didnt go over 60oC, running a lot smoother too, its under volted to 989mv, ive done what I can with the remainder of the thermal pads for now, i'll just have to wait for the replacements to come and ordered some TG conductonaut too for the core after I open it up again.

https://imgur.com/edVofoS
 
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Soldato
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Wow, been reading through this thread slowly, and I actually discovered something called the washer mod, took the card and installed 4 of these that I had laying around in my nuts and bolts tin, they are 0.6mm thick: https://imgur.com/bJkp5iG

shaved another 8oC of the junction temps, I was waiting through the benchmark for it to go above 90oC, it never did, so quickly took a screenshot towards the end: https://imgur.com/ZLyzJCp

WOW, that will do I think: https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/47548119
 
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