4890 Refuses to Overclock. Thoughts?

G

Gorilla

[H]F Junkie
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So yesterday I picked up a XFX 4890 from Best Buy because I was able to get it for $148 which I thought was a decent price. I figure that some day I'll go with a 5870, but for now I just needed something with a little more power than my 8800GT has (plus my budget doesn't really have room for a $400 card right now).

Anyway, I had always heard about the amazing overclocking potential that the 4890 has, so I was a little surprised when using Riva Tuner to bump up the core clock from 850 to 860 resulted in complete instability. Just taking it up that measly 10MHz causes the core temp to jump from 37.5C to 42.5C at idle, which seems really really extreme to me. A 1% overclock results in a 15% jump in idle temperatures??? As soon as I try to run a game or a test (3dmark or furmark) my system locks up and I have to reset. If I leave it at default settings it will run like a champ for hours, but the slightest overclock kills it.

So..... is this just a fluke card that just doesn't have headroom for overclocking?

I had read a guru3d review about the 4890's potential and they got a stable overclock of 971MHz. Obviously not every card can do that, but mine can't even get to 860MHz without crashing and burning.

Oh and the only game that I've really been using to test stability has been Arkham Asylum.

So, thoughts? Suggestions? I don't really need to overclock my card, but I bought it with the expectation that I would be able to.

Oh and one last point/question. When I start up my computer I get an error message saying that my driver isn't compatible with Catalyst Control Center and that I should get a newer driver, but I'm already using the latest driver.
 
Not sure, but I saw a 4890 for $200 too (not as cheap as $150 which is actually a deal) but $200 seems to be the going rate for them which is surprising to see at bestbuy... cause the 4850 was like $180... 4670 $130... etc....
 
I suspect it's your PSU -- it's far from high quality, and the power requirements between your OCed CPU and the attempted OC on the 4890 are probably pushing it over the edge. Also note you may have to overvolt the GPU a little to get a good OC out of it, which will raise the power requirements even further. Get a quality PSU and I suspect the problem will go away.
 
You really think that level of hardware is straining that PSU? I can't see that a 10mhz difference with or without voltage causes instability where there was previously rock solid performance for hours on end.
 
guitarslingerchris said:
You really think that level of hardware is straining that PSU? I can't see that a 10mhz difference with or without voltage causes instability where there was previously rock solid performance for hours on end.
Click to expand...

A quality 600w psu should be able to handle it along with the cpu overclock but,,,
 
silent-circuit said:
I suspect it's your PSU -- it's far from high quality, and the power requirements between your OCed CPU and the attempted OC on the 4890 are probably pushing it over the edge. Also note you may have to overvolt the GPU a little to get a good OC out of it, which will raise the power requirements even further. Get a quality PSU and I suspect the problem will go away.
Click to expand...

Any thoughts on how I could test this without actually buying and installing a new PSU?
I thought that maybe I could drop the OC on my CPU completely (stock voltages and clock), to free up power, but that didn't help. After I got rid of the CPU OC, I bumped the GPU core OC to 870 and was greeted by a system lockup about 2 minutes into Arkham Asylum.

Also, how would I go about upping the GPU voltage? I haven't seen that option anywhere in Rivatuner.
 
Setting up RivaTuner to overvolt the 4890 is a pain in the ass, but doable. It's a little too involved for me to type out from memory here -- hit Google and do a little looking around.
 
JapaneseGorilla said:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/XFX+-+ATI+Radeon+HD+4890+1GB+DDR5+PCI+Express+2.0+Graphics+Card/9566025.p?id=1218125775469&skuId=9566025&st=4890

They actually had like three xfx cards on sale a week or two ago, but I was able to get it at that price through a combination of discounts. One was the best buy employee discount, the other was discounted gift cards that you can get through Kroger owned stores right now.
Click to expand...

Does it look like this one?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150438&cm_re=hd_4890-_-14-150-438-_-Product
 
JapaneseGorilla- your PSU should be fine. While OCZ StealthXStream PSUs aren't the greatest, your system probably draws on the order of 350W under load with an overclocked dual core and a 4890. I thought I read somewhere that XFX significantly cut costs on their latest 4890 (makes sense since margins are getting lower) by using cheaper components, simper PCBs, resulting in cards that have difficulties overclocking. If you have a non-reference card such as the one DeadSkull linked to, that may be the issue.

EDIT: here's the thread:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1472542
 
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DeadSkull said:
Does it look like this one?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150438&cm_re=hd_4890-_-14-150-438-_-Product
Click to expand...

I believe it does look exactly like that one. Not sure what the difference is between the two, other than the one letter difference in model numbers.

kniah said:
JapaneseGorilla- your PSU should be fine. While OCZ StealthXStream PSUs aren't the greatest, your system probably draws on the order of 350W under load with an overclocked dual core and a 4890. I thought I read somewhere that XFX significantly cut costs on their latest 4890 (makes sense since margins are getting lower) by using cheaper components, simper PCBs, resulting in cards that have difficulties overclocking. If you have a non-reference card such as the one DeadSkull linked to, that may be the issue.

EDIT: here's the thread:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1472542
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. If that is indeed the case, too bad. In all honesty, I don't actually need any more performance out of the card at the moment, but I bought it with the expectation that I would be able to (I was also expecting audio over HDMI, but that's my fault for not researching it before I bought it). The funny thing is that there is a review on the bestbuy site from a guy who claims to have purchased 3 of these from best buy and has gotten 100MHz overclocks on them. Maybe XFX has changed them since then, who knows (or the guy could be full of crap, but he did take the time to write a massive review).
 
that bad thing is, all across the web oc results are hit and miss with this new revision. some have great results, some dont. I was getting crappy oc results, anything over 875 results in crashes in 3dmark at some point. I took the card back to bestbuy, exchanged it for another one at a different store and still get the same crappy overclocking results. that tells me i have another issue somewhere, probably my psu. Another thing also, people say this psu and that psu is enough, but by the time you add in floppy drivers, dvd burners, multiple harddrives, case fans and whatever else your running, that psu is gonna be struggling if its not a quality psu, especially running higher end cpu's and videocards.
 
This may be a long shot, but since you went from a 8800GT did you run driver sweeper?
 
Well, after work today I picked up a second one of these cards. While the new one doesn't OC a ton, I was able to get it running stably at 890/1000. Not a great overclock, but this definitely seems to suggest that it is an issue with this specific XFX model and not my PSU.
 
My 2 old XFX 4890 XT edition OC up to 985 without voltage add...

and that was a non-reference design board too..

I guess the newly design one that have been significance cut down..... like what HIS did...
 
Both of the new XFX 4890s from bestbuy fail to go past 875 stable for me. I'm glad I have until Jan 31, 2010 to return them - I hope more information about whatever nvidia is releasing is out by then.
 
I have two ASUS 4890's that were Open Box from new egg and they only can be pushed to 900 so I'm sure there are a lot of weak 4890's out there.... :(

I'm happy with them and they will run just fine for the next year or two.
 
I could only OC mine to 890/1100, but it didn't really have an effect performance-wise. I just gave up and left it stock.
 
I'm going to side with Kniah on the difference in PCBs. My reference HD4870 with the digital vregs does 870 on the core while my non reference one analog vregs tops at 805. Really like the original reference boards with digital vregs myself. Newer boards have a cheapish look/feel to them.
 
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