Notes on modding HD7990's BIOS

Sharing is caring so here's some info of questionable quality on HD 7990 BIOS modding. I haven't tested any of the modifications yet and even it I did the usual applies to BIOS modding. If you kill your stuff due to a mod gone wrong it's not my fault so mod responsibly.

The HD 7990 Buildzoid edition. Since this photo I've replaced all the thermal pads. Changed thermal paste and changed the mounting hardware. I still haven't done the cap mods. In it current state it did this score:

 So it's already pretty fast. However pretty fast is just not enough. Ideally I would like to push the card beyond 1200MHz core maybe all the way to 1300MHz. Now I haven't really tested the limits of this card. Really that 5.9K Heaven score was me taking it "easy" during some late night testing. I expect to hit the card's power limit pretty hard some time soon so I figured I would look into modding the BIOS for MOAR POWER. Since I started digging in the BIOS I figure that I might as well also look into seeing if I could figure out how memory timings on the card work. Here are the notes on that:

HD 7990 reference
Power limit is set with 2 values
Min power
Max power
these are X% apart from the stock TDP. X% is the overdrive power limit slider

EXP
300W BIOS 20% = 360W max and 240W min
300W BIOS 50% = 450W max and 150W min

Power limits are found in this:


D9 00 05 00 E8 03 58 00 00 80 07 00 10 00 00 02 0A 2C 00 00 69 00 DB 00 05 23 01 0A 00 32 01
42 01 3D 03 00 00 C6 16 00 00 58 01 6D 01 73 01 00 00 A1 01 00 00 B3 00 00 00 77 00 00 00 60
EA 00 00 88 01 20 03 00 00 14 00 40

In this stock 7990 BIOS B3(179W) is the Hi limit and 77(119W) the Lo limit. I assume the current limit is also somewhere in that block. If you want to set a value greater than 255W it would look like this:

D9 00 05 00 E8 03 58 00 00 80 07 00 10 00 00 02 0A 2C 00 00 69 00 DB 00 05 23 01 0A 00 32 01
42 01 3D 03 00 00 C6 16 00 00 58 01 6D 01 73 01 00 00 A1 01 00 00 2C 01 00 00 04 01 00 00 60
EA 00 00 88 01 20 03 00 00 14 00 40

This gives you a 300W high limit and a 260W low limit. Which I think will translate into 280W stock.
I find that the original 179W maximum power limit of the reference HD 7990 is kinda concerning especially once you consider that the Vcore VRM for each of the 2 GPUs is only 4 phases. On stock settings the maximum current through them works out to only ~149A at 1.2V. I think 200A is probably safe however without a datasheet for the Volterra power stages I would recommend proceeding with extreme caution while carefully monitoring VRM temperatures(GPU-z supports VRM temps for the ref HD 7990).

MEMORY STUFF

Timing Straps
A timing strap is composed of 48 bytes
98 AB 02 = 02AB98 = 1750Mhz
77 71 33 20 00 00 00 00 31 62 7C 47 80 55 11 11 30 A7 1A 07 00 4C 06 01 22 22 9D 00 6C 0F 14 20 6A 89 00 A0 00 00 01 20 19 12 2F 36 48 28 31 15

C4 7A 02 = 027AC4 = 1625MHz
77 71 33 20 00 00 00 00 10 5A 7B 41 80 55 11 11 2E A5 99 06 00 4C 06 01 22 11 9D 00 6C 0F 14 20 6A 89 00 A0 00 00 01 20 17 11 2B 31 42 26 2F 15

F0 49 02 = 0249F0 = 1500MHz
77 71 33 20 00 00 00 00 CE 51 6A 3B 70 55 10 10 2B A2 18 06 00 4A E6 00 22 00 9D 00 64 0E 14 20 6A 89 00 A0 00 00 01 20 15 0F 27 2D 3C 23 2C 14

1C 19 02 = 02191C = 1375MHz
77 71 33 20 00 00 00 00 AD CD 69 37 70 55 0F 10 29 21 98 05 00 4A E5 00 22 EE 1C 00 64 0D 14 20 5A 89 00 A0 00 00 01 20 14 0E 24 2A 38 22 2A 14

48 E8 01 = 01E848 = 1250MHz
77 71 33 20 00 00 00 00 8C C5 58 31 60 55 0F 0F 25 1E 17 05 00 48 C4 00 22 CC 1C 00 5C 0B 14 20 4A 89 00 A0 00 00 01 20 12 0D 20 25 32 1F 26 13

74 B7 01 = 01B774 = 1125MHz
55 51 33 20 00 00 00 00 6B BD 57 2D 60 55 0D 0E 22 9C 96 04 00 28 C3 00 22 BB 1C 00 53 0A 14 20 BA 88 00 A0 00 00 01 20 10 0C 1E 22 2E 1D 23 12

A0 86 01 = 0186A0 = 1000MHz
55 51 33 20 00 00 00 00 29 B5 46 27 50 55 0C 0D 1E 99 05 04 00 26 A2 00 22 AA 1C 00 4B 08 14 20 AA 88 00 A0 00 00 01 20 0E 0A 1A 1E 28 1A 1F 11

90 5F 01 = 015F90 = 900MHz
55 51 33 20 00 00 00 00 29 31 46 24 50 55 0C 0D 1C 18 A5 03 00 26 A1 00 22 AA 1C 00 4B 07 14 20 9A 88 00 A0 00 00 01 20 0D 0A 18 1B 25 19 1D 11

80 38 01 = 013880 = 800MHz
55 51 33 20 00 00 00 00 E7 AC 35 20 50 55 0B 0D 1A 97 34 03 00 24 81 00 22 AA 1C 00 4B 06 14 20 9A 88 00 A0 00 00 01 20 0C 08 15 19 21 18 1B 11

40 9C 00 = 009C40 = 400MHz
33 31 33 20 00 00 00 00 84 94 22 10 F0 54 09 06 0F 0B A2 01 00 23 80 00 22 AA 1C 00 12 01 14 20 8A 88 00 A0 00 00 01 20 06 05 0B 0C 11 0C 10 0D

Well that's all for this. Hopefully you find this useful for your own BIOS modding. Though to be completely honest I mostly wanted to post this so I would have an easily accessible online backup of my BIOS modding notes because I keep forgetting how I did stuff the last time I modded a certain BIOS. I will probably be posting more notes like this for other cards.

Possibly the last batch of custom Fiji BIOS

And here is the most likely final batch of custom BIOS. Now including a BIOS for the Fury Nitro and a newer version of the Fury X BIOS which should be better than the old version.

The BIOSs offer raised power limit and a 3D load voltage of 1.3V. This leads to better overclocking capabilities and better performance than the stock BIOSs running similar amounts of voltage in Trixx/Afterburner/GPUTweak. The power limits on all the BIOSs are 400W and 350A you should not need to raise the power limits but can if you wish to do so. The newer Fury X BIOS is based of the latest AMD provided BIOS and seems to clock better than the last one I made but I haven't fully tested it yet(it is safe to use).

Here is  a download link for them: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v18py3rhbef8rmx/ProFijiBIOSs.zip?dl=0

In other news I've done a quick test run of Firestrike with 2 cards and the results are looking promising. The cards aren't fully finished but at this rate I should be able to break 40K graphics some time soon. With some work on the 5960X I can probably get into the top 20 for 3Dmark Firestrike on HWbot. Currently I'm number 65 on the Firestrike rankings for 2 cards. Here's a link to the score: http://hwbot.org/submission/3185463_ 

Mind you I got that score with 0 artifacts so there was still some room in the cards left to push it but it was 3AM and I got the results I wanted to see. Also the 5960X was only 100mhz above my daily OC since I wanted to test the GPUs not mess around with CPU stability issues. Once I have everything working 100% I will be live streaming the overclocking sessions. I'm coming for you 3 way TITAN-Xs and once I'm done they will rename Firestrike to Furystrike.

MFW I get 38.8K GPU score in Firestrike

Also for those of you who watch the youtube channel do not worry. I have not forgot about you, there will be content soon I promise.


If you enjoy reading AHOC and would like to see more content please make a donation using the button in the top left corner. All donations will go towards producing more content. If there is something specific you would like to see you can leave it in a message with your donation or in the comments bellow.

More Custom Fiji BIOSs

So I noticed that I forgot to include the 3584 core BIOSs in the last BIOS pack. Those are now included. I also got my hands on a Windforce Fury BIOS so those of you who have can now enjoy the magic of overpowered BIOSs. Also apparently the 3776 core and 3840 core BIOS for all Fury cards were name swapped this should now be fixed. Enjoy!

For those who do not know what the custom BIOSs are

Here's the dropbox link

I'd like to make a "pro" BIOS for the Nano however I do not want to set peoples GPUs on fire so I need a Nano to test with. Even as much as I like to think that I'm a famous overclocker. I'm not and so while I can ask AMD/Sapphire/Powercolor.... bla bla bla for samples I don't get them. I think you get the idea of where this is headed. I need money. There's a donate button in the top left of the page.

BTW if you're wondering about my voltmoding progress with the Fury X. Then I got good and bad news.
The Fury X I started with still works. The bad news is that it's currently stuck at +20% Vcore and I can't really bench the card till I fix that. I do know how to fix that because I already did the same thing to my 290X. The problem is that the fix isn't very tidy and I'd like it to look good. It also doesn't help that the fix makes the Volt mod less sensitive. So I'm currently thinking about how to fix the card the best way.

Here's a silly Fury X for the time being

Also I'm considering throwing the Fury Xs on Dry ice if things go well on the stock cooler. Should be pretty awesome based from what Joshy Ocuk told me at The Big Freeze. Apparently HBM absolutely loves cold and at around -70C I won't even have to do much to keep the card happy since the cold bugs are bellow -100C°.

R9 Fury and Fury X high voltage high power BIOSs

This post is outdated all the new BIOSs can be found in this post.






So as you can clearly see from the image above I have a really awesome desktop background. It started out as a picture of some fire which I...

Ok now seriously my desktop looks pretty great but what is actually important is that the GPU-z window. As you can see the BIOS version says: BZBIOS.FrX.1300mv.400W. This is because it's my own BIOS which unsurprisingly sets the stock load core voltage to 1.3V, sets the stock power limit to 400W and sets the current limit to 350A. This beautiful BIOS does not see the negative FPS scaling that software setting core voltage does and while it still doesn't give us a real 1.3V it does give you a good boost in overclocking headroom and sustained my best card at 1175mhz. You can also run +25mv on top of this BIOS to get even more overclocking headroom but with no FPS loss. On the new 16.3 drivers there seems to be a bug with HBM overclocking on this BIOS. If this is also the case for you with this BIOS say so in the comments bellow so that I can go and make BIOSs with already applied HBM overclocks. I've made BIOSs for every Fury and Fury X that I could. So for now that means the STRIX and the Tri-X Furys and all Fury Xs since those all use the same PCB. I've also made them to support the different unlock levels from 3776 to 4096 SPs for the Furys.

DISCLAIMER: By downloading the following zip file you agree that I am in no way responsible for any damage that happens to your GPU by flashing these BIOSs. 

Dropbox Download Link

These modded BIOSs are only possible due to the efforts of all the people over in this OCN thread. If you would like to learn how to make your own BIOSs just read that thread.

Now if you're wondering about my progress with crushing the HWbot Firestrike leader boards then I have good news. With this BIOS I have finally managed to beat the highscore I set on my Fury Tri-X. Also I will be buying all the voltmodding equipment I need soon and based on the fact that this BIOS mod works so well I do not expect to run into anymore issues with scaling. Also I have acquired an oscilloscope so I will have even more detailed testing results to work with which will hopefully further speed up progress.

If you want more content check out the Facebook Page or the Youtube Channel.
If that's still not enough content for you then consider donating and help me make more.