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This post is outdated all the new BIOSs can be found in this post.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

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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.

Now on Youtube. For real this time.

Now don't worry I'm not going to drop the blog. I'm only gonna put things on Youtube if it makes sense for me to do them that way. For now that means terribly draw explanation videos however in the future there will be some other content. All the content on Youtube is going to be entertaining to some extent unless its a full blown guide. Here's a link to the channel.

I will not abandon the blog. Just right now I'm kinda learning to live on my own and as you can guess I'm not that great at that. However I have now moved most of my equipment from the CZ to the UK and if overclockers.co.uk get my latest order together I will be churning out guides about a bunch of stuff really soon. I'm also waiting for a guy to send me a better 5960X which should clock to 5+Ghz and that will let me finally trash 3Dmark because the Fury Xs are having my current 5960X for lunch.


Also you may have noticed that the blog is ad free again so you know go and press that donate button if you want more content.

There is a possibility of shirts so if you'd want one leave a comment down bellow.

Say hello to the TITAN Strangler + some benching data and thoughts on the Fury X.

Well that's how I dealt with having to cram 3 radiators onto an open air test bench. They are literally just sitting there All the pipes are twisted 1 time over and then held together by some velcro straps to make sure that none of the radiators falls of the bench. It looks pretty bad but it works just fine so I have 0 plans to change it.

Here's the parts list off the top of my head so some name may be incorrect:
i7 5960X
4x4GB Geil Super Luce 3400 16-18-18-36 1.35V DDR4
Rampage V Extreme
3 way Power Color Fury X
EVGA G2 1600W PSU
Dimastech Easy V3.0 Metallic grey
3TB Western Digital Black
480GB Crucial BX200(The first time I have an SSD in a desktop)
Thermalright TY143 fans
Phanteks PH-TC14PE (with the 2.5K RPM fans it handles IBT even at 1.25V core voltage)

My only regret right now is the RAM. The default XMP doesn't work with the RVE at all. I have managed to manually time and clock it to a variety of settings however due to this being my first time with DDR4 and X99 I spend more time trying to get all 4 sticks to boot up than actually running benchmarks(dual channel vs quad channel is a big deal).

My IKEA furniture was supposed to arrive today but due to a mess up on my part I didn't actually get any of it and so I'm continuing with benching from the kitchen counter. The monitor is an AOC G2460VQ6. As far as I know it's the cheapest Free Sync 24" monitor. The colors and viewing angles are pretty good and it starts up way faster than any of my ASUS monitors so I'm happy with it. It also came with a very complete accessory pack including a DP HDMI and VGA cable. However the DP cable turned out to be really dodgy once I started to push over 1200mhz core clocks and ended up running the rest of my benching with HDMI. I don't particularly need Free Sync on this monitor because it is my secondary to the 2560X1080 LG 29UM67 which I'm using because I hate the curve that the 3440x1440p Free Sync monitors come with.

From behind






When I go for my serious attempts I will be running all 3 cards without the shrouds and this fan will be helping with keeping the VRMs cool.

And this mess of wires and tubing is where the system gets the Strangler name from. I do have an idea how to clean this up however my budget for computer parts has reached an O.

!DONATE NOW TO RELIEVE THESE POOR POOR FURY XS OF THEIR SUFFERING!
(don't actually do that. 155 people donating 5$ would just lead to me buying another Fury X causing further suffering)

Now seriously the cards are running just fine like this however it is an awful mess. Now then lets get to the part where I talk overclocking.

Some overclocking of the Fury X
First thing first the Cooler on the Fury X is a freaking beast. The room had an ambient temperature of 20C according to the heating controller and these cards were running sub 40C even after I fed them +174mv (how to get more voltage in Trixx using a hex editor by /u/Meretrelle). I was running all 3 cards in Crossfire the whole time I was overclocking but I was overclocking them one card at a time.
All 3 cards were running +174mv on the core with +50% power limit and 100% fan speed. The first card is running PCI-e 3.0 X16 from the CPU, the second is running PCI-e 2.0 X4(this does not affect scores at all!) through the chipset and the third is running PCI-e 3.0 X8 from the CPU. This configuration has the lowest possible heat density and puts less strain on the CPU's system agent than running all 3 cards from the CPU's PCI-e.
The primary managed 1250mhz core 572mhz HBM it finished 3Dmark Fire Strike without going over 37C°. This card also ran without any artifacts until I started overclocking the other 2.
The secondary did 1200mhz core 555mhz HBM and ran at the same temps as the first.
The third card did 1210mhz core and 566mhz HBM and ran at the same temps as the other 2.

My best score for the session was 31 761 points because of a huge CPU bottleneck caused by  losing 2 channels of RAM and running only 4.67Ghz. To be fair I wasn't really focusing on getting a high score and was more interested in the maximum GPU clocks.


My other observations so far are:
At 4.67GHz the 5960X can't keep up with the FuryXs which led to absolutely terrible FPS scaling.

Running more than 1GPU from the CPU PCI-e lanes limits the RAM overclocking capabilities.

The RVE's retry button is god send allowing me to get RAM settings that I would otherwise abandon to boot.

Booting all 4 sticks of RAM is really hard. To get my best settings to start with all 4 stick I had to use 1.935V RAM voltage. I also confirmed that the RAM is indeed Samsung based.

To get the best FPS scaling the HBM clocks of all 3 cards need to be somewhat similar running 572/500/500 and 572/555/500 was a disaster but there was a nice jump when I clocked them all up to 572/555/566. I hope to find a way to get all 3 cards to run 600mhz HBM.

I need to test the new AMD Crimson drivers to see if they don't lower the CPU bottleneck that I have right now.

35.2K Fire Strike is definitely within reach of 3 Fury Xs however the CPU power needed is way higher than what a 3 way TITAN-X setup needs. (4.7GHz on T-X vs ~5Ghz on Fury X)

There is a possibility that the apparent stability of the system during testing was caused by the CPU bottleneck leading to the GPUs not being used 100%. Testing with Fire Strike Ultra will either confirm or refute this theory.

Running low temps on the Fury X seems to be the key to high clocks and getting good voltage scaling.

I might be able to rip up some single GPU scores if one of the cards will hit 1300mhz on air


My Opinions(may change as time passes)
IMO the Fury X is a budget/ambient overclocker's dream. However an overclocker's dream and should not be mistaken with a gamers dream. This is because card is incredibly fun to overclock. It is however not "easy" to overclock unlike the GTX 980Ti where the ASIC is everything and you either hit 1550mhz or you don't. The Fury X scales with everything. If you can run it colder. It clocks higher. If you give it more voltage. It clocks higher. Now there are many cards that do this. However the Fury X is the first card where the card already comes with pretty much everything you need.
Voltage Scaling ☑
Temperature Scaling ☑
Beastly VRM ☑
Great Cooling ☑
Basically Unlimited Software Voltage Control ☑

The only things missing are low CPU overhead and high core clocks. However if you just look at percentages the average 980Ti does 25% over stock. My best Fury X did 19% and I didn't think I maxed it out yet(I didn't try more than 1250mhz). 25% or 1312mhz core is probably doable on a Fury X and if it is I'll do it. I approach GPU like games. It's no fun without any challenge. However too much challenge is also bad. The Fury X hits the happy medium. 

Well the Fury Xs blew me away and left me with a great big stupid smile on my face I think I got my moneys worth. Now I just need to get the RAM to behave and the CPU to not die in 3Dmark Physics.

BTW: None of this is "gaming" style overclocking. I consider an overclock good if it finishes the benchmark I really don't care that it might crash if I run it for an hour or 2 because I only need it to work for the 2ish minutes that 3Dmark needs to run. I will do a proper 24/7 overclocking guide for the Fury X some time soon. I will also be helping with some modded BIOSs for the Fiji cards with the goal to run higher HBM voltage and power limits along with more stability oriented power play tables.

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.

It's official I'm gonna build a 4 way Fury-X system.

 Prepare for reviews statistics guides and more importantly me going to town on the 4 way GPU rankings at HWbot.

This system will be fulling two of my dreams:
- Use a system with 4 GPUs
- Use a system with 2 PSUs

I like to give pet names to my permanent systems. The 3960X is called CPU Cannon. The FX 6350 is called MASSFX(I want to put an 8 core in it one day). I wonder what I'll call this one because I only give the names after I'm done with the build. Octopus seems like a candidate because of the CPU and all the water tubing for the Fury Xs.

Either way I'm not dead uni is going fine and this blog will be back in a several weeks(admittedly these are buidlzoid weeks so they share similarities with months).

In other news I now write gaming peripheral reviews for TechPowerUp.com so the monthly blog budget just got more substantial and I will not run into stupid problems like: doesn't have the right value potentiometer.