XFX R7970 DD

I got a XFX R7970 Black Edition

Its a reference board, with a special cooler. The cooler keeps the GPU colder than reference coolers, but lacks cooling of PWM chips, which makes the card one of the weaker Radeon 7970 cards.

I am aware of a cheat that ATI/AMD people uses to get high 3dmark11 scores, and that is to disable Tesselation in the CCC under Games. Doing that, and by not posting the real 3dmark11 url, makes it possible to hide the cheat. I do post the URL, to show that I did not cheat.

My overclocing experience so far:

Complete computer crash, vertical lines all over the screen.

Memory has been pushed too far, try upping the memory voltage - might need more than you think (more than a bump or two in voltage) so keep going even if you do not see any difference in stability.

Lots of triangles on the screen, and weird graphics

GPU needs more voltage. Up the voltage and it should disappear.

Small black/white squares in different spots on the screen

Memory needs slightly more voltage

Computer locks (ctrl+alt+del works)

Heat or serious voltage issues, maybe related to the PWM chips. Your GPU isnt willing to go higher under present conditions. Your GPU might be 40C, only but thats still too much for to run stable. Try too cool it harder or push the voltage further.