MSI Afterburner lying?

[Imreallycool]

Alright so I have a weird situation. Since day one I haven't been able to unlock the voltage for my graphics cards in my build http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HZb64D. Now jump ahead a year I tried to do it again. Low and behold MSI afterburner will finally allow me to adjust the voltage! It even states in the program that its running at the higher voltage. Now here's the problem... No where else does it list that the cards are running at a different voltage. Not in HWMonitor nor Speccy. It's very confusing I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or not. A little more information, I'm changing the core voltage from its default 1.256 to 1.3. There is also a slider for "power limit%" I have that set at +20. I'm not exactly sure how those 2 overlap? There are also sliders for memory voltage which is unlocked but I haven't touched and one for Aux voltage and I have no idea what that does and its locked. Any information you give would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

There's "locked" and "locked". MSI afterburner gives you access to a very, very small range of voltage adjustment basically just enough to let us all feel that we are accomplishing something. nVidia for example has put some very strong limitations on what vendors cab do voltage wise but in their legal agreements with the vendors and in the design of the card. These days, you need to use a modified BIOS and / or physically modify the card to truly "unlock" voltage without restriction.

I don't find HWMonitor or speccy as consistent as HWiNFO / GPU-z

What card are you overclocking ?

 

[Imreallycool]

There's "locked" and "locked". MSI afterburner gives you access to a very, very small range of voltage adjustment basically just enough to let us all feel that we are accomplishing something. nVidia for example has put some very strong limitations on what vendors cab do voltage wise but in their legal agreements with the vendors and in the design of the card. These days, you need to use a modified BIOS and / or physically modify the card to truly "unlock" voltage without restriction.

I don't find HWMonitor or speccy as consistent as HWiNFO / GPU-z

What card are you overclocking ?

I've got Sapphire Vapor-X 7970Ghz edition in crossfire from my build that I posted. I have gpu-z open(one for each card) but I don't know which voltage in it is the correct one(there are 3) I would assume that its the VDDC?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Oops I missed the partpicker list ....as I recall that is correct (just remember to set to record max number not current or average....I use HWiNFO64 as my primary tool because it makes all other hardware specific programs redundant....easier to use 1 than 4 so that's my Go To resource

I don't have any AMD cards here ... so I can't go in and check your other data.

 

[Imreallycool]

There's "locked" and "locked". MSI afterburner gives you access to a very, very small range of voltage adjustment basically just enough to let us all feel that we are accomplishing something. nVidia for example has put some very strong limitations on what vendors cab do voltage wise but in their legal agreements with the vendors and in the design of the card. These days, you need to use a modified BIOS and / or physically modify the card to truly "unlock" voltage without restriction.

I don't find HWMonitor or speccy as consistent as HWiNFO / GPU-z

What card are you overclocking ?

Oops I missed the partpicker list ....as I recall that is correct (just remember to set to record max number not current or average....I use HWiNFO64 as my primary tool because it makes all other hardware specific programs redundant....easier to use 1 than 4 so that's my Go To resource

I don't have any AMD cards here ... so I can't go in and check your other data.

This is extremely confusing. So I downloaded HWiNFO64 and even though it lists both my cards in sensors it has 3 separate categories for each gpu (one standard, one GPU core, and one GPU memory). Each categories has there own voltage readings and they do not match. Can you help me make sense out of these?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Ok, let me use an analogy.... Your PSU has 3, 5 and 12 volt rails, each with a specific purpose,

The 3.3 volt rail powers chipsets, some DIMMs, yada yada yada
The 5 V rail powers disk drive logic, low-voltage motors, blah blah blah
The 12 vilt rail powers 12 V motors, high-output voltage regulators, AGP/PCIe cards, etc

They are not "supposed to match" because each subsystem uses a different voltage ... each is labeled describing what it feeds.

One voltage is the 12v signal to the card .... should be close to 12 volts.
The VRM controls the voltage to the GPU which will generally be about 1.0 - 1.3 volt
The VRM controls the voltage to the memory which will generally be about a third of GPU voltage

Note, some Mobos include sensors which can interfere with these readings. HWiNFO generally warns you when this will happen and you can disable HWiNFO from reading them. If you do this, you will generally see an increase in GPU voltage to what you see in Afterburner.

 

[Imreallycool]

Ok, let me use an analogy.... Your PSU has 3, 5 and 12 volt rails, each with a specific purpose,

The 3.3 volt rail powers chipsets, some DIMMs, yada yada yada
The 5 V rail powers disk drive logic, low-voltage motors, blah blah blah
The 12 vilt rail powers 12 V motors, high-output voltage regulators, AGP/PCIe cards, etc

They are not "supposed to match" because each subsystem uses a different voltage ... each is labeled describing what it feeds.

One voltage is the 12v signal to the card .... should be close to 12 volts.
The VRM controls the voltage to the GPU which will generally be about 1.0 - 1.3 volt
The VRM controls the voltage to the memory which will generally be about a third of GPU voltage

Note, some Mobos include sensors which can interfere with these readings. HWiNFO generally warns you when this will happen and you can disable HWiNFO from reading them. If you do this, you will generally see an increase in GPU voltage to what you see in Afterburner.

Thank you! that was incredibly helpful! My psu also has a 7 volt rail any idea what that is for? Also Why do they repeat those 3 rails with each spot http://imgur.com/CWuRRc7 is the link for the first gpu if you could kind of do a breakdown I'd appreciate it.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

12 volts comes from 12v to ground
5 volts comes from 5v to ground
3.3 volts comes from 3.3v to ground

7 volts comes from 12v to 5v

I don't see that double thing that you have there with that 2nd and 3rd groupings on my builds here.... I see GPU #0 and GPU #1 as the builds are all SLI ... I don't have any AMD builds here to look at.

The 1st two groupings are normal.... if you widen the 1st column you should see that the readings are coming from two different sensors.

The names are kinda self explanatory

Fan rpm is the rpm of the fan(s)
GPU Clock is GPU clock speed
GPU Memory Clock is ... well you get the idea

VRM voltages (input is in / output is out) and so on

 

[Imreallycool]

12 volts comes from 12v to ground
5 volts comes from 5v to ground
3.3 volts comes from 3.3v to ground

7 volts comes from 12v to 5v

I don't see that double thing that you have there with that 2nd and 3rd groupings on my builds here.... I see GPU #0 and GPU #1 as the builds are all SLI ... I don't have any AMD builds here to look at.

The 1st two groupings are normal.... if you widen the 1st column you should see that the readings are coming from two different sensors.

The names are kinda self explanatory

Fan rpm is the rpm of the fan(s)
GPU Clock is GPU clock speed
GPU Memory Clock is ... well you get the idea

VRM voltages (input is in / output is out) and so on

So for the value im altering in msi afterburner which says "core voltage" that wouldn't be the VDDC it would be the gpu vrm voltage out? from the 2nd category which is GPU core? I tried to detail what I'm asking in this picture http://imgur.com/xpqJudI