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This post is outdated all the new BIOSs can be found in this post.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

Fury X testing results

Optional intro

I hate power management algorithms. Sure they save you some power but they make overclocking a nightmare. The smarter they try to be the worse they are. Back when this blog first started I wrote a really long and terrible rant about Nvidia's boost algorithm and AMD's beginnings of what is now know as power tune. The TL;DR of that article can be: Nvidia's is dumb because you can't set core clock and AMD's is dumb because it's broken. Well Nvidia's hasn't changed and AMD's is possibly more broken now then ever before.

I promised a Fury/ Fury X overclocking guide some time ago. I also promised to whoop the ass of Nvidia GTX 980 Ti SLI setups in 3Dmark. If you follow me anywhere where I can be followed you are aware that I haven't delivered either and the facebook followers should know that I've complained that I can't even beat my old Fury score because AMD's drivers are garbage.

Well today I will show you what the problem is.

End of optional intro

TESTING METHOD
I used free cam mode in Unigine to park next to a wall so I could quickly track FPS changes. I was running Unigine Heaven at very low settings so that I was getting about 274FPS at stock clocks. I was running Unigine windowed and had Trixx open so I could change settings and immediately see the FPS changes. After every batch of readigns I checked that the FPS at stock clocks was still the same.

Here are the results in all their glory:

The core clock and HBM clock scaling in Unigine at 1440x900p is unsurprisingly garbage however what is surprising is the voltage scaling. You can see that even though I did not touch core clock or HBM clock, FPS goes down as I raised core voltage. Also note how power limit did nothing to prevent this drop in FPS. Basically AMD's power tune is as usual completely freaking broken.

Now I would like to see if this is the case for all Fury Xs so if you have one could you do me a favor and just check what happens to your FPS if you're at stock clocks and set core voltage to +96mv and to +198mv. you can mod Trixx to do that using this guide and post your findings in the anonymous comments bellow this post. You will need to run at least 55% fan speed to prevent the VRM from overheating.

For me this perfectly explains why running a 1225mhz core clock with +175mv scores lower than stock clocks in 3Dmark.

Luckily I can just hard mod the card for more power however I'd rather not do that and so I started doing a little investigating. First thing I found is that my PowerColor Fury Xs have 2 100% identical BIOSs. This goes against what some reviewers said about the Fury X coming with a 350W and 250W BIOS. So I've started searching for a 350W BIOS in hopes of getting rid of at least some of the negative scaling. I've also tried to contact AMD about providing a custom 600W BIOS but I doubt I will get a response much less an actual 600W BIOS. So I'll probably end up soldering 600ohm resistors in place of the 300 ohm resistors used for current sensing.

BTW for all those wondering about Fury X VRM temps. They are directly related to core temperature(duuurrr they share a heatsink) so if you're running stock setting and the core is at 70C the VRM is between 90-100C. If the core is at 40C the VRM will be at 60-70C.

Update:
So I've tried several custom BIOS with power limits as high as 768W and got no benefit. I also tried the clock blocker program also no benefit. I'm going try a 65000W BIOS but at this point I don't think it will make a difference. 

DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DON'T LIKE PEOPLE COMPLAINING
As you've probably noticed the table is missing 2 of my favorite data sets. Real world core voltage and power draw are both missing because someone stole my parcel which contained the equipment for measuring those. I still can't believe that the UK doesn't offer pay on delivery. I'm also in limbo about ordering anything else because the idiots running deliveries here would probably leave that in front of my door too.

R9 380 Nitro Volt mod guide

As you all know I wanted to make an Sapphire R9 380 Nitro(review of the card) volt mod guide. However me being me I royal messed up my R9 380 and had to leave for the UK before I fixed it. However a kind gentleman on Facebook has provided PCB pictures. They aren't exactly what I need however they are good enough to do the guide with. Lets get to it.

DISCLAIMER: Everything past this point will void your warranty! If the GPU stops working due to you doing any of the things described bellow I am at no fault what so ever.

So first lets breakdown that PCB into what's important.

There isn't much to modding the card. Hook some sensing wires to the memory and core voltage VRMs and pull a GND from where ever you want to. I highlighted some good candidates in brown.

 

First up core voltage and core current limits. The current limit is simple to disable just cut the 2 traces highlighted in green. Now your card will think it's pulling 0W regardless of what the powerdraw actually is. So power related throttling is history. However it does make it easy to blow up the VRM by running Furmark since there is nothing to stop the card from pulling too much power. This should only be a risk when going over 1.45V core voltage. To cut the traces I suggest digging into them with a needle. This picture also shows how you could try modding core voltage however I recommend that you avoid soldering onto a pin or trace because it is really hard to not screw up. 

Instead solder a 22K(+/-5K) ohm variable resistor from the red point to ground. This will give you free control over core voltage. I recommend not going over 1.35V on air cooling for daily usage. For benching 1.45V is my ceiling. More than that seems to rapidly degrade 28nm GPUs.

The VRAM is an easy mod. All you do is hook a 220K(+/-50K) ohm variable resistor from the pin highlighted in orange to ground and you'll have VRAM voltage on manual control. There is no power limit for the VRAM so you don't have to worry about that. I don't rember the stock voltage of the VRAM on the 380 but don't go over 1.7V for daily usage. On sub zero 1.85-1.95V should be optimal.

Practical Tips
Use a fine chisel tip for all the soldering. A needle tip will make everything much harder because the tip of the pen won't actually melt anything.

If you have a temperature regulated iron set it to 240-250C for everything.

When you finish soldering one of the connections to an SMD component I recommend using plastidip to hold it in place. Hot glue is harder to apply without breaking a weak soldering joint and is very bulky which might prevent you from fitting the heatsink back on the card.


Please donate if you want to see more guides! I can't do mods on GPUs I don't have and unfortunately I'm not important enough to get free samples yet...
If just 200 of you were to donate 5$ I would be able to do almost any GPU you're interested in.

Overclocked Power Draw Calculator

Back in 2012 when I first started this blog(there aren't any posts left from then because it was literally just me ranting about everything in existence) I figured out how to calculate overclocked power draw. Over the years I have tested the equation and tried to perfect it. I failed to perfect it. However I have found all it's flaws and so I feel safe in releasing a program that does the calculation for you. The usage should be self explanatory. However I recommend you read the README.txt to understand the flaws. Like everything else I make it's still written in Java. Java 7 might run it but you will most likely need Java 8.

Download Link

Pic of it in action:

Donate if you want to see the app get better! With enough funds I can make this take operating temperature and architecture into account and possibly extend the functionality to include some degradation rate estimates. I could also make it a whole system power draw calculator but I think that's unnecessary because there are plenty of those on the net already.

R9 Fury Tri-X and Fury X Vmod Guide.

Wow am I sloooooow. I promised a Fury Vmod guide in August. It is now September. But hey better late than never. This guide will work for ALL reference PCB Furys. That means any Fury X and the Sapphire Fury Tri-X and the Powercolor Fury. If you have the ASUS STRIX use this guide from Xtreme Addict. Another way to get some extra performance out of the Fury is to try unlock extra cores on it.

VRM overview
The Fury has 4 VRMs. The HBM and Vcore are controlled by the IR 3567B the AUX and 0.95V voltage are controlled by other controllers which I can't find because none of part numbers for the ICs that could be voltage controllers return anything. That also means that I won't be covering how to mod the AUX and 0.95V voltage. If you're on air or water cooling this doesn't matter. For LN2 users you'll have to figure out how to get 1.05V on the 0.95V VRM output your selves because I don't have the resources to figure it out.


DISCLAIMER: Everything past this point will void your warranty! If the GPU stops working due to you doing any of the things described bellow I am at no fault what so ever.

Modding

 Before starting with any volt mods you need a way to measure you voltages. So hook up one wire to any of the GND points, one wire the Core voltage points and one wire to the HBM voltage points. This will allow you to use a multimeter to check the voltages because software does not pick up on the increase in voltage due to volt mods. Also there is no software voltage reading for the HBM or AUX voltages. For AUX it doesn't matter. The stock voltages are 1.2V core and 1.35V HBM.


Now for the actual volt modding. The 3567B is a very very smart voltage controller. It's so smart that if you try to hard mod the power limit you end up with this and run the risk of burning the VRM. Instead just max the power slider in you overclocking software(Sapphire Trixx 5.0.0 goes upto +50% and supports HBM overclocking). To get core voltage under control hook up a 100ohm variable resistor(potentiometer or trimmer) to any of the red points and to ground. To limit the maximum core voltage to 1.8V put a 7ohm resitor in series with the variable resistor. If you want a maximum voltage of 1.5V use a 14ohm resistor. For the HBM hook up a 220ohm variable resistor use a 50ohm resistor to limit the maximum voltage to 1.62V.



Practical tips
Use a fine chisel tip for all the soldering. A needle tip will make everything much harder because the tip of the pen won't actually melt anything.

If you have a temperature regulated iron set it to 240-250C for everything except when trying to solder onto the GND pins of the PCI-e connector. Those act like massive heatsinks so I suggest you raise your pen temperature to 300C.

When you finish soldering one of the connections to an SMD component I recommend using plastidip to hold it in place. Hot glue is harder to apply and very bulky which might lead to you not be able to fit the heatsink back on the card.

Route wires from the 3567B between the PCI-e power connectors. This will hold them in place without the need for more glue/plastidip.

Some results.

Due to budget constraints I do not have 100ohm nor 220ohm potentiometers. So I improvised a dipswitch voltage controller. However they seem to be much higher resistance than the values of the resistors I used to make them. My maximum core voltage is 1.3V and with it I can run 1165mhz core clock this is a 65mhz increase over the 1100mhz that I was getting on stock volts. My maximum HBM voltage is only 1.37V and it didn't improve the HBM overclocking capabilities of my card in the slightest I'm still stuck at 570mhz HBM. So I think HBM doesn't scale with voltage on air cooling or I'm just not giving it enough voltage. Keep in mind that SK Hynix specs HBM to run at 1.2V so over volting it much more than 1.35V might not be the best idea. For the core you can run 1.3V if you keep it sub 80C and if you keep the core sub 60C you can run it at 1.4V. If you set the fans on the Tri-X to 60% you should have no problem keeping the card sub 60C. For benchmarking you can run an extra 100-150mv on top of the safe 24/7 voltage for a given temperature.


Some tips for Tri-X owners
Sapphire used some weird thermal paste on the VRM heatsinks and core. For the core do whatever you usually do when you repaste a GPU but for the VRM heatsinks you can use 0.5mm thermal pads. They will contact the MOSFETs just fine and are cheaper than the 1mm and 1.5mm thermal pads.

Tip to lower or even eliminate coil whine.

Apply hot glue or plastidip on the marked sides of the inductors. If the first time you still get coilwhine you can apply more plastidip/hotglue.

I would like to thank techpowerup.com for allowing anyone to use their PCB pics. My attempts at PCB pictures are better for making desktop backgrounds than Vmod guides:

Thank you to Cooler Master for powering this blog.