Is AMD saving high ASIC chips to the 7990 or something else??

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Drangueos

Limp Gawd
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Is AMD saving high ASIC chips to the 7990 or what???

I got my hand on many cards since 7900 series were launched.

January 2012 - 7970 - 81% asic
March 2012 - 7970 - 79%
June 2012 - 2x 7950s - 77% and 73%
July 2012 - 7950 - 68%
September - 7970 - 72%
October 2012 - 7970 - 66%
December 2012 - 7950 - 63%
January 2012 - 7970 - 68%
February 2012 - 2x 7970 Ghz - 67% and 63%
March 2012 - 3x 7950 Boost - 63%, 61% and 54%

Does anyone know the reason for that???
 
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Higher Asic does not = hgher quality. It just means it requires less volts for a similar core clock. This is only a good thing up to a point as high asic cards tend to not like high volts. So a low asic card of aroundg 60% may take 1.3v while a high asic card of 90% will hard lock at 1.2v for example. All of the 7970 Matrix Platinum editons are low asic cards so they can reach higher stable OC at higher volts.

If you want the highest potential overclock a low asic card will usually be better. If you want lower power usage and are happy with a moderate overclock then high asic is better.

Excample taken from my two exisiting cards.
7950 69% Asic. Can take 1.3 volts and OCs to 1230/1700. Temperatures stay at 70c 75c during gaming with 55%-65% fan speed. Does 1000MHz at stock volts (1.031)

7950 90% Asic. Any higher than 1.8v and it seriously overheats to 90c + and starts throttling between 2D and 3D clocks. 1175/1450 max stable clock at at 1.13v. Temperatures range from 70c - 80c and 50%-70% fan speed. Locks up completely at 1.28v. Does 1075 at stock volts. (1.031v)
 
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I understand that, but doesn't lower asic mean that the card will need more voltage and more current, so it will draw more power?

the 81% asic 7970 that I 1st got, could do 1200 with 1.17v and 1250 with 1.2v
the 63% asic 7970 can do 1180 with 1256V to do 1200 it needs 1.3v.

so running both at 1200mhz one needs 0.13V more and believe or not, it uses 30W more from the wall, because I have a power monitor.

If all companies want their cards to perform fast with least power as possible, I would call lower asic as a bad thing.

I'm my opnion, I prefer high % asic.
 
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This only applies when overclocking. At stock speeds there will be no difference in power usage between low asic or high asic cards as the BIOS will ensure volts are identical.

To be honest some people put far too much stock in asic = better quality or better OC potential. I have uses loads of 7970s, GTX680s and 7950s and have yet to find that higher asic = higher OC potential.
 
ICDP said:
This only applies when overclocking. At stock speeds there will be no difference in power usage between low asic or high asic cards as the BIOS will ensure volts are identical.
Click to expand...

I disagree, I have 2x 7950, same brand and sequential serial numbers but one has 77% asic and the other one has 73% asic and they have different default voltages.
The 77% is 0.993V and the 73% is 1.031V and the 73% uses a little bit more power.
 
Strange, I have a 69% asic and 90% asic and both use 1.031v as stock. Though this still doesn't change the fact that high asic does not necessarily equate to higher quality. Once you get to really high asic such as 90% you start to notice the high asic have less leakage so they overheat very quickly with excessive voltage. This is why the ASUS RoG 7970 Platinum editions have low asic quality. They are designed to have higher OC potential and to take up to 1.4v. A low asic card will take more volts before it craps out.

High asic does not equal higher quality or guaranteed higher OC potential. I have had plenty of HD 79x0 cards on test and found no correlation between asic score and OC potential. So it is wrong to conclude that quality is dropping or that the asic scores on AMD HD 79x0 cards are dropping. I purchased my 90% asic 7950 in late January and my 69% asic 7950 in early Dec. I also purchased a 7970 WF 3X in March last year and it had a 64% asic. Though I wouldn't conclude asic quality is rising based on such a low sample.
 
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Lower asic % = higher leakage chip = so it can take a higher voltage. But a higher leaking chip requires a higher voltage to operate at the same frequency, so power consumption is increased.

But probably the official 7990 will use high asic chips, to run on lower voltages and draw less power.

btw how is the asic on dual gpu cards? like the 6990, 590, 690 and 7990 (non reference), do they show only 1 for both chips or 1 for each?
 
ICDP said:
So it is wrong to conclude that quality is dropping or that the asic scores on AMD HD 79x0 cards are dropping. I purchased my 90% asic 7950 in late January and my 69% asic 7950 in early Dec. I also purchased a 7970 WF 3X in March last year and it had a 64% asic. Though I wouldn't conclude asic quality is rising based on such a low sample.
Click to expand...

I was asking that, because on the experiences that I had.
Looking on the cards that I got, you could conclude that, but looking on yours can't :p
 
According to Alexey Nikolaichuk (the author of RivaTuner and MSI Afterburner), the correlation between voltage and quality is as follows (7970 non ghz):
ASIC quality < 75% - 1.1750 V;
ASIC quality < 80% - 1.1125 V;
ASIC quality < 85% - 1.0500 V;
ASIC quality < 90% - 1.0250 V;
ASIC quality &#8804; 100% - 1.0250 V
 
They are what the OEM uses as stock 3D volts.

They do not apply to OC, and GHZ edditions.
 
The Mac said:
They are what the OEM uses as stock 3D volts.

They do not apply to OC, and GHZ edditions.
Click to expand...

That is very interesting.

My Sapphire Dual X 7950 card with 56% ASIC needs 1.156V for stable base clocks 925/1250.
However, I guess the 925 on the core is out of the box boost clock, its 850 for the 7950 by design.
 
My experience leads me to believe that high ASIC score works better.

ASIC score is directly related to the electrical conductivity quality of the gpu.

Direct from TPU the authors of GPU-Z.


ASIC quality, designed for NVIDIA Fermi (GF10x and GF11x GPUs) and AMD Southern Islands (HD 7800 series and above), aimed at advanced users, hardware manufacturers, and the likes. We've found the ways in which AMD and NVIDIA segregate their freshly-made GPU ASICs based on the electrical leakages the chips produce (to increase yield by allotting them in different SKUs and performance bins), and we've found ways in which ASIC quality can be quantified and displayed.
Click to expand...


-
-TechPowerUp
Click to expand...




My Sapphire 950mhz Ediiton has a ASIC score of 89% and will run 1300/1800 mhz with only 1.22v.
My Sapphire Vapor X HD7950 has ASIC score of 57% and doesn't over clock with stability at all.

The problem is that no matter what BIOS switch or latest and greatest TRIXX, Modded TRIXX, or MSI afterburner voltage control utility I use there is no change to voltage when I make adjustments and clock speeds on core don't stick. The voltage always goes to 1.25v under load.


Based on what I have been seeing most of the newer cards have poor ASIC scores and they don't hold a low voltage over clock.


The older cards that came out early summer 2012 had much higher ASIC scores and those cards over clocked great with ambient temp cooling.


My theory is that BOOST cards can't hold a stable decent over clock because of poor ASIC score and to get over this weakness the clocks fluctuate to keep the card stable.


These new BOOST cards with high default load voltages are only going to negatively effect stability, heat up card, put more wear and tear on cards. The reason the voltage are locked so high on many BOOST cards with low ASIC score is because the card needs a super high voltage to operate. IMO.


I used to think that ASIC score didn't matter much but over the last few months I have been seeing a trend of poor performance in the new BOOST cards and they are locked with high default voltages around 1.25v.


My Vapor X with HD7950 will also not hold any type of over clock.

You can open up GPU-Z and run it in the back ground and monitor your voltage to see if it has locked voltage and what voltage is is stuck at. With GPU-Z you can also monitor your core speed to see if your over clock setting is sticking.



Really looks like AMD video card builders are scraping the bottom of the trash can looking for GPUs to put in HD79XX cards.

At least some builders like Power Color and Sapphire and making HD7870 Tahiti built cards, this type of salvaging of faulty gpus and selling for less money seems more honest than sticking the faulty gpu on a HD79X0 card and selling it at a much higher price.
 
well, there are a couple issues there:

1. It sounds like you have a voltage locked card.
2. Depending on how you are measuring the target voltage, it may or may not be correct after a change to the vcore. - To the best of my knowledge, only AB measures correctly. Most other programs use ADL which will not regester a change in vcore over bios default.
3. if you measure Vddc (vdroop) and it occationally goes higher than your reported Vcore, see #2.

@Qdeamon19 - Those voltages are for stock 7970, NOT 7950. 7950 are lower, as there are less rendering units..
 
I literally just installed my Sapphire Flex 7950 (100352FLEX-2) yesterday. I needed it to run my four screens, works perfectly for that too. I OC'd it in CCC to 1000/1450. Not even trying to push it yet. Here's GPU-Z while all four screens are on and watching the TV show "Revolution"....lol. Thought I'd share as I'm late to purchasing a 7000 series card.

yeMUwSB.png
 
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