Graphics Cards

[higgih01]

There seems to be a lot of interest at the moment in Radeon VII owners checking their card's stock voltage as a guide to how good their silicon quality is as the starting point for tuning their cards. 

I wanted to check if the following is the correct way to check my Radeon VII's stock voltage:  

1. Open Global Wattman in Radeon Settings and ensure it is set to the default settings

2. Hover your mouse over the right hand end point on the orange curve in the Frequency ve Voltage chart.

3. Read the displayed values which show your card's stock voltage.

My card indicates 1801mHz and 1115mV, which I am guessing makes 1115mV my stock voltage (see attached image). I have seen these values from other Radeon VII owners range from around 1050mV (very good) to 1150mV (not so good). Mine is on the higher end of mid-range and may limit my card's ultimate overclocking or undervolting performance. 

Is the above the correct way to measure a Radeon VII's stock voltage?

  

[khun_doug]

I believe what you are looking at is the maximum voltage set in the manual curve for frequency vs voltage. That voltage can be changed by raising or lowering the point on the graph. This is where you manually overclock and under/overvolt your GPU.

There is a free utility called GPU-Z that measures metrics from the GPU while in use. What I did to see how things were looking was to start GPU-Z on a second monitor, and then do some testing on the primary monitor. If you only have one monitor you can start GPU-Z and then run tests over top of it, and then go back and look at the results. The one tab in GPU-Z has a running graph for everything it measures so you can go back and examine the results. You will be surprised at how well that tool measures power draw, activity, voltage, plus a plethora of other stats.

There may be other tools that report the voltage as the GPU is being used. Some are motherboard specific, There is another tool called HWInfo64. That could well be worth a look as I know it too reports on a load of voltages, frequencies, and temperatures.

[higgih01]

Hi khun_doug. Thank you for your comprehensive reply. My question was slightly different to your answer. It was part question and part invitation for other Radeon VII owners to check their stock voltage, i.e. the voltage that their dies would need in order to reach 1800mHz. There is a theory going around that the Radeon VII was constructed from MI50 dies that did were not good enough for professional MI50 use (and professional pricing), but they could be used for a consumer grade product. This has lead to a high variability in die quality, and Wattman allows for owners to get some insight into the quality of their Radeon VII die ahead of any overclocking or undervolting that they might want to do. I have read that a stock voltage under 1100mV is considered good and anything at 1100mV or over is starting to materially affect how much overclocking that users can expect to get from their Radeon VII. I am certainly not trying to promote some crazy conspiracy or be critical of AMD in anyway. I love my Radeon VII. It's just technically interesting to see via Wattman the voltage required to get my die to 1800mHz under stock conditions being 1115mV in my case, others will have a different value. I know and use both GPU-Z and HWInfo64 - but really appreciate you mentioning them.      

[khun_doug]

Wow, that is curious. I never heard the theory. However, I do know from some research that there is wide range of variability in the overclocking. I am including a link to an article on Reddit that includes a link to a spreadsheet where owners are recording their clock speeds and voltages. Looking over that spreadsheet you can clearly see a wide range of voltages and speeds.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/aql671/radeon_vii_owners_undervoltingoverclocking_results/ 

As for the stock voltage, I am curious how the Auto Undervolt effects things. In 19.2.3 I was able to use Auto Undervolt. Then in 19.3.1 my card would go unstable and I had block monitors and a dead PC with Auto Undervolt. Since 19.3.1 and now in 19.3.2 I have two settings I operate with. On games and utilities (like MadVR) that make a demand on the GPU I use a clock of 1870 with a voltage of 1093. Another setting that seems to work well for Forza Horizon 4 is a clock of 1900 with a voltage of 1119. But those numbers are representative of GPU only. Those values are just as likely to unobtainable by some, and some have gone much higher than the clock I was able to reach. I know that trying to go over 1900 on my GPU does not seem possible.

I agree on being pleased with my R7. I came from a GTX 1060. The R7 is a whole new playing field for me!

[chapstickbomber]

Yes, that is the way to check stock voltage.

Mine was 1034mV initially, but now says 1038mV. I got a pretty good sample. I can max out the core clock (2200) at the max voltage 1218mV, IIRC.