Yes, yes, yes, yes. When I'm using 2.3.0 all works perfectly!

Latest package should be used as Con reverted negative kernel changes. If further anomalies arise post here again .

Dia

No. cgminer uses the ATI Display Library to set clock speeds. You need specific windows-only tools to clock memory lower than the engine -150 limit. I don't have access to those functions to use with cgminer.

Afterburner doesn't work anymore if using the latest (12.3) drivers from AMD.
I'm not sure if it's still working with older versions of catalyst, since I just installed my 7970, and the latest drivers are all I've used.

This.

There are two ways to control a videocard:
* the right way
* and the hack way

The "right" way:
Using the AMD driver library you can send requests tot he card.  You can't control anything.  The card is free to ignore or modify any request as it sees fit.  

So it is more like this:
cgminer (via driver): "Video card #1 can you please change clock to 300 Mhz".
video card #1: "command is valid"
internal BIO check. 300Mhz is invalid, ignoring.

So why does AB "show" 300Mhz.  It doesn't.

AB, GPU-Z (main tab), Trixx, etc show what the card has been SET TO not what it is RUNNING AT.

The only three places I have found to always report correct values on what the card IS ACTUALLY RUNNING AT are:
* cgminer.  If cgminer says a card is running at 300Mhz, 30 Ghz, or 0.1 Mhz it probably is right.  It doesn't matter how weird you may think that is.  I can't remember a single instance where cgminer turned out to be wrong.
* (windows) GPU-Z Sensor tab.  Note the first tab shows what card is set at.  That is useless.  If you look on sensor tab it shows what card is running at.
* (linux) aticonfig

The "hack" way:
So how do tools like AB change the clock?  They bypass the drivers and write directly to the GPU BIOS.  This is why it often requires a new version before AB will work with newly released cards.  This also applies to things like how GPU-Z can read VRM temps or how radeonvolt can modify voltage beyond what is allowed by drivers.  The problem with this method is that it isn't universal.  RadeonVolt doesn't work on 5970 so I can't modify my voltage above what is allowed by GPU BIOS.  Maybe someday someone will hack a solution together for Linux, maybe they never will.  

The annoyance:
Since so many hacks exist but aren't universal and bypass the drivers one would think AMD would expand the official drivers to allow full range of clock adjustments, voltage adjustments, and sensor data readings.  Of course they won't.  In the meantime you can flash a card with custom bios to make it do just about anything.  Run at 100Mhz memclock, have "stock" core speed of 1.2Ghz, have a core voltage of 0.7V, etc.  Granted you can also completely destroy the card in an non-warrantied manner but it is possible to change just about anything.

Believe it or not I can actually shed some light on this, and since I'm in a much better mood as someone just kindly donated some BTC, I'll even answer in less than my usual appalling AMD-induced tone of late.

One of the things about the 69xx and now the 79xx architectures is the ability internally to underclock memory relative to running speed. There is a power-usage war going on now between manufacturers, and this is one place where AMD is working very hard (unlike fixing drivers, SDKs and so on). Since the GPUs are running the ram double channel, if the RAM bandwidth is not in full use, they can shut down one of the channels. This is why the power usage does not appear to be directly proportional to the RAM speed. So even though you can only decrease your clock speed to say 900, it might be internally running at 450. This is also why when you flash the bios and underclock the ram, it might crash at apparently satisfactory rates and 6970s are virtually never stable below 300 whereas 5xxx can happily run down to 150. Sure there is more power to be saved if you can actually flash their bios and turn them down to 300 since you are guaranteed to never actually jump between 300 and 600, but it is not universally half the ram speed and power consumption.  Bear in mind that most people do not touch the clock speed of their memory (except usually to increase it) but they do care about power consumption. This is also why it's so hard to pin down power usage on these things as they fluctuate wildly depending on the type of load rather than just the overall load. 100% GPU load could really mean anything and might or might not be high ram bandwidth.

The weather's hot here at the moment, but..

GPU 0: 718.2 713.3 Mh/s | A:5180  R:16  HW:0  U:10.00/m  I:11
74.0 C  F: 79% (4532 RPM)  E: 1200 MHz  M: 1050 Mhz  V: 1.170V  A: 99% P: 5%
Last initialised: [2012-02-24 17:38:34]
Intensity: 11
Thread 0: 357.7 Mh/s Enabled ALIVE
Thread 1: 360.4 Mh/s Enabled ALIVE

Running flat out since the day I installed it a couple of weeks back (note the +5% powertune as well).

Excellent update,  Running FASTer +2-3% AND cooler!  So happy!

Linux 11.04 SDK 2.4 cgminer 2.3.1

single rig open air no risers

GPU 0 5870   850/300 392 Mh/s I:9 82.5C
GPU 1 5770   850/300 193 Mh/s I:9 84.0C
GPU 2 6950   840/900 369.Mh/x I:11 73.0C

Efficiency 90%

Total avg 954.8 Mh/s  Was getting 925 with 2.2.7

Running for 2 hours now  Deepbit  w/Tripplemining fallback pools

Just a heads up.
VDDC isn't all power consumed by card.

There is also VDDCI (which handles things like PCIe interface, memory controller, and ancillary ASICS) and then a separate memory VRM which isn't adjustable/reported.

VDDC of 150W simply means the "cores" are using 150W.

See now this is dangerous. Do you REALLY  know how fast the "min" function is on all SDKs? Don't expect AMD to do the right thing and to guarantee it's as fast as &.