[SOLVED] Help with XFX RX 580 Core Clock Speed

[amccormick318]

So I recently put a new PC together and the PC itself is working quite well! However I noticed while running GPU-Z and compareing the clock speed of your average RX 580 8 GB, that mine has a less then stellar clock speed. The card itself was a replacement sent for a faulty RX 580 by XFX themselves, so I kind of doubt it might be a Mining card which seems to run the speed mines running at. However I have also seen that It could be a BIOS issue, so I was hoping someone could give me some tips or information on what I can do to get my card to run up to snuff.

As I said before the card is a XFX RX 580 8 GB, clock speed currently is 1150 with a memory speed of 2100, tho it looks like its supposed to run in the ballpark of 1340. BIOS version on GPU-Z is 015.050.002.001.000000. The card itself doesn't appear to struggle at any point and hits 144 fps on quite a few games, but its irking me knowing that I could be getting more performance out of my card.

Another thing to note, as of the release of the 2020 revision of AMD's driver software, using their Automatic overclock system only tunes to card up to 1210.

 

[tennis2]

This is very common.

Quick & dirty solution - Go into AMD Settings - Global Settings - WattMan settings and move the "Power Limit %" slider to +30% or so. (I haven't installed the big Adrenalin 2020 update that came out today)

More elegant solution - Follow this guide to set manual voltages for each performance state. If you provide all 7 frequencies displayed for your card, I can give you corresponding voltages to enter.

 

[amccormick318]

Thank you for the response! I rather do the more elegant solution and I will gladly take you up on your offer. I am currently at work but once I am off I will get those values for you and post them here.

Thank you very much, it's appreciated.

Edit: Out of curiosity, what kind of speed do you think I can Target while doing this?

I am hoping to get around 1400 if possible, but honestly just hitting the 1340 the card is supposed to hit is good enough for me as well.

 

[amccormick318]

So I believe I found the issue. After finding my exact make/model, my 580 IS A XFX RX 580 XXX Edition. And the lower core clock speed could likely be contributed to being set to Mining mode via the Dual BIOS switch.

That being said, where would I locate this exact switch? Vidoes on that model are scarce or vague. I know I just need to flip the switch away from the power connectors (the right) and it should seemingly fix the issue.

 

[tennis2]

The dip switch is next to the 8-pin power terminal.

1400MHz is possible @ around 1150MHz.

 

[amccormick318]

Well i found the switch, annnnnd... nothing came of it. So i suppose it was never used for mining at least?

Its still running at 1150, but I am off work so here at those frequencies your requested for the manual overclock.

State 0: 300
State 1:600
State 2:900
State 3: 997
State 4:1021
State 5:1052
State 6:1091
State 7:1150

Thank you again for all the help, you have been very helpful. I look forward to trying this out and seeing the results!

 

[amccormick318]

My bad, I somehow marked it as solved. Still wanting to try the manual overclock. Sorry about that.

 

[amccormick318]

So yet another update and this time its great news! So I got ahold of XFX support and after some work, the card did require a BIOS Flash. After a quick flash, the Core Clock speed is now 1366, with AMD Adrenaline 2020 Auto OC engaged it currently runs at 1436.

That being said i'm still very interested in your custom set values Tennis2 if you still don't mind helping me out. If your values will run at the same level or higher with better power consumption and less heat, i'm more then willing to put those values in and listen/learn to anything you have to share!

 

[tennis2]

Wow, nice!

I'll get you those voltages on this post when I'm done with work. I'll need the new performance state frequencies then.

Out of curiosity, what voltage is getting applied at 1366MHz/1436MHz on Auto voltage?

 

[amccormick318]

Not a problem, thank you again! You have been very patient and helpful.

 

[tennis2]

Do you have an updated frequency list?

 

[amccormick318]

My bad, I meant to get those but kid wore me out and I went to sleep. Let me go find those for you.

 

[amccormick318]

Well I'm a quite sad now. I don't know what happened. I went to go attempt to find those values for you, accidentally turned off the auto over clock and turned it back on. My PC black screened and now my PC is running like it's about to launch into orbit and won't reboot.

 

[amccormick318]

Well I'm a quite sad now. I don't know what happened. I went to go attempt to find those values for you, accidentally turned off the auto over clock and turned it back on. My PC black screened and now my PC is running like it's about to launch into orbit and won't reboot.

Ok so, I can't tell if my card is bricked now or what happening but I noticed my Razer keyboard, mouse, etc are ligghting their custok colors that only occur when the PC is fully booted up

So... Now what do I do? I flipped the Dual Bios but it's just doing the same thing.

 

[amccormick318]

And to add to the further confusion, I unplugged the card to verify if the PC and the other components are ok (they are), turned the card back on and...it booted like normal.

It's running at it's base core clock of 1366 and I am very hesitant to touch the Auto OC now.

If you can tell me where to find the base Voltage for it in 1366 I'll gladly get you that and much much much.... Rather go your route if I touch OC on it.

 

[amccormick318]

I apologise for the frantic chain posts. I was quite upset from going from my PC running at the top of it's game to possibly a bricked card to now an utte mystery (to me).

As you can tell OCing isn't my specialty and after some research it seems like maybe AMD'S Auto OC pushed the card too far?

I can't seem to find why toggling the BIOS switch didn't help however or why a simple unplug from the PSU fixed the issue.

Tennis2 if you are still game for helping me with your Undervolt/OC I am still game, also curious if you might know what the heck happened.

Edit: So i found the Voltages now, heres the Voltage for each of the states.

State 0: 750
State 1: 769
State 2: 887
State 3:1100
State 4:1181
State 5:1150
State 6:1150
State 7:1150

This is in Manual mode but with Default settings, not the AMD recommended OC.

 

[tennis2]

Hmm, your frequency states are wonky now (states 5-7 all at 1150MHz). I expected to see State 7 at 1366MHz. No matter. In WattMan, you have control over the voltage AND frequency at each state.

*Disclaimer - These settings may not be stable on your exact card (silicon lottery). But they have a pretty high success rate. If you experience a black screen that lasts anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds and then it drops you back in your game, it means the driver crashed (because a setting was insufficient) and has reset back to "Auto" for everything. Since we're feeding less voltage than Auto/Stock would, there's no danger to your card in any of this.

Frequency / Voltage
State 1 - 600MHz / 825mV
State 2 - 900MHz / 870mV
State 3 - 1075MHz / 910mV
State 4 - 1150MHz / 935mV
State 5 - 1200MHz / 955mV
State 6 - 1275MHz / 1020mV
State 7 - 1366MHz / 1120mV

Memory voltage = 950mV
Once you confirm that's all stable, you can set Memory Timing to Level 2.

The above voltages are slightly conservative (about 15mV higher than average on states 3-7). So if you want to go whole hog:
Frequency / Voltage
State 1 - 600MHz / 825mV
State 2 - 900MHz / 870mV
State 3 - 1075MHz / 900mV
State 4 - 1150MHz / 925mV
State 5 - 1200MHz / 940mV
State 6 - 1275MHz / 1000mV
State 7 - 1366MHz / 1110mV
Memory voltage = 930mV Timing Level 2

If you'd like to get to 1400MHz, plug that into State 7 instead and give it 1150mV.

Save your settings as a profile (at the top of the WattMan page) so you don't have to re-enter this stuff if a driver crash happens. Also, setting the profile in the game-specific ("Profile WattMan") settings is usually more reliable than doing it in Global only.

Windows Fast boot oftentimes borks up Global WattMan settings on cold boot. To fix this, simply restart (not shut down) your machine and everything should come back normal.

 

[amccormick318]

Thank you for those values! I'm not at home right now but once I am I will give those a try.

I think I will try the 1400 mhz, that's odd my frequencies seemed all janked up, but with what's happened so far I'm just wanting my card to run well and not put me through another incident like what happened above.

Out of curiosity with that profile above, the card should run much cooler/efficiently right? If it was your 580 what MHz would you set your card too? I was at 1430 before the whole card spaz out dibacle.

 

[amccormick318]

I went with your whole hog settings at a max of 1400, memory timing is set to Level 2 and so far so good! Everything seems to be running very smoothly!

 

[tennis2]

1. Yes, the card will run cooler with these settings than with "auto" voltage at the same frequency. You're going to be saving about 30W here.
2. My personal machine (in signature) has an MSI GamingX RX480 8GB. I ran it at the factory 1305MHz for the first 2.5 years. For the past ~6 months (and because I'm on a 1440p monitor) I've been running it at 1400MHz. I could push higher but most Polaris chips top out around ~1500MHz. Sure, that's an extra 7%, but once you get past ~950mV, the voltage curve steepens considerably so you're drawing a lot more power/heat/noise above ~1250MHz. At 1400MHz/1150mV, my RX480 runs at ~73C @ 1100rpm fans. It's basically inaudible (the lowest rpm of the fans is 900rpm). And I can play less demanding games (using AMD Chill since I have a VRR monitor, FRTC if you have a fixed refresh monitor) without the GPU fans spinning at all. I strike a balance, but I prefer quietness over max OC. Don't want to climb the steep part of the voltage curve too far.

 

[amccormick318]

Thank you again for the reply, it did just reset on me and blinked out the manual settings. Oddly enough I saved the profile but loading it just seems to do nothing.

I've put back in the same "whole hog" values but at 1366 and am going to run that for a while. But so far things seem quite promising.

 

[tennis2]

The profile loading is what gets borked by Windows Fast Boot on a cold boot (first startup after a shut down). Restarting your PC should straighten that out.

Again, the values I gave (especially the "whole hog" ones) are ballpark numbers to get you close. The first set should have a higher probability of being stable. Every card/chip is a little different. Just like CPU overclocking, you test test test, adjust adjust adjust until you get stable settings for your particular chip. It's slightly easier to test/adjust with power saving options off, since that simply runs your card at State 0 or State 7 basically. Once you get that ironed out, power saving features will have the card playing around in the other performance states so it's a little more challenging to figure out what specific frequency/voltage setting made the thing crash. Graphing out (scatter plot) your frequency/voltage curve is very helpful in tweaking. That way you can see if one of your settings above/below the trend line. Also you can use the graph to interpolate/extrapolate other points along the curve you're trying to set.

I should also point out that some games are...rougher with stability than others. One of the worst games I've tested is Shadow Warrior 2. With as much testing as I've done to get my numbers stable in most/all games, I have to run Shadow Warrior 2 at "Auto" voltage or it crashes the driver. No idea why. Of course some programs/games are more stressful than others (ie for RAM testing, I once had a system run 20 hours of Prime95 without a RAM fault, but F@H caught it in less than 5 minutes every time. Similarly, F@H is quicker to suss out unstable GPU settings than FurMark). But that game is really an outlier. This is where saved profiles and "Profile WattMan" comes in handy.

 

[amccormick318]

I'll go back over that undervolting guide and use these as good launchpad numbers then, thank you!

I did try both profiles and it crashed on both, but i'm not deterred. Just going to try at it and hope I can get a good successful Undervolt. You have been incredibly helpful, thank you again very much,

 

[tennis2]

I did try both profiles and it crashed on both, but i'm not deterred. Just going to try at it and hope I can get a good successful Undervolt

Then your specific chip is probably a bit under the average (in my experience), but they're all only guaranteed to run at the "auto" voltage settings. I've seen people go lower than the voltages I've used, while others can barely get a 10mV undervolt. Graph out your settings to expedite your search for stability!

It seems like a good amount of work at first (and it is). And the time required depends on how close you want to get to the tipping point (the settings I use for my personal card are within 10mV of instability on most/all frequency states because I like to tinker). But this is pretty much a one time effort. Once you find the curve your GPU sits on, you're done until you get a new GPU. I use F@H GPU-only folding to test my GPU settings. For initial testing, I let it churn during the day while I'm around to periodically check back in. Then when I get close, I let it fold overnight while I'm sleeping, etc etc. That's the nice thing about synthetic testing. This is the same rough iterative procedure as most people use when testing CPU OCs with Prime95 or the like.

 

[amccormick318]

Currently I am having some stability with the following

Frequency / Voltage
State 1 - 600MHz / 825mV
State 2 - 900MHz / 870mV
State 3 - 1075MHz / 910mV
State 4 - 1150MHz / 935mV
State 5 - 1200MHz / 955mV
State 6 - 1275MHz / 1020mV
State 7 - 1400MHz / 1150mV
Memory voltage = 930mV - Automatic

Attempting it on Memory Level 2 doesn't tend to stay very stable