Avoid Non-Refrence Cards!

G

geant90

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 6, 2011
Messages
464
As the title states, but; that is just my opinion. What caused this opinion is picking up a Diamond AMD Radeon HD 6870.

Im not sure if the actual board is a refrence design but the heatsink is not! The heatsink does its job so bad they had to disable some shaders through BIOS so it dosent overheat. And they still run at high temperatures.

The 6870 should have 1120 shaders but under GPU-Z shows 690 shaders.

So i flashed the 6870 with a refrence BIOS and now it shows up as 1120. card reaches 100C!

I eventually modded the card with 2 x 92MM fans applied some artic MX-2 and used some washers for more pressure on the GPU with an awesome success.

Heres the results

PSU:CoolMax v-600
MB:Asus M2N68-AM PLUS
CPU:AMD Athlon II x4 645 3.1ghz 2.0mb cache
RAM:G.Skill 4GB DDR2 1066 5-5-5-15 2.05v
GPU:Diamond AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB A6870PE51G
CASE: HP MicroATX

I have ran FurMark "720 Preset Bench" with bothDiamond 6870 bios two times each (total of four test) and will be compairing/posting the better of the two test per bios. Both Bios are from Diamond.

Stock BIOS with 960 Shaders:
jrdut3.png

26x.png


Flashed BIOS with 1120 shaders:
nq5ypy.png

579.png


If anyone picked up this crap one from bestbuy or anywhere, let me know! I can show pictures of modded card if anyone cares.
 
Looks like a Q&A issue. I am 100% sure no AIB would say it is X card, but actually does not have the specs to back it up. For the record there are plenty of non reference designs that are better then reference. For example MSI has the HAWK and Lightning, ASUS has their line of RoG card, and Gigabyte has their SuperOC cards as well.
 
Your card may be an exception, all the non-reference cards I have had cool better than reference design while in single card configurations
 
hey you can google, they sell it as a 6870, and it is, but they change the bios. Thats going on with even the 6850 that went from refrence to none refrence using the same SKU or identifier code.
 
You should never flash to a bios unless it is offered by the brand maker. Cards are sold the way they are for a reason. :p

I have also never seen a non-reference card perform worse than reference card.
 
Diamond brand in general sucks. Everytime I've ever bought a 'diamond' or S3 branded product I've regretted it. and I've been buying video cards for 2 decades.
 
Might have been a faulty cooler or something. There was a problem with some early 6870 with the same shader issue. had nothing to do with it being non-reference, as some were reference. There were even some 6850s with 1120 shaders sent out to reviewers.
 
I think it's important to mention the situation on the other forum you post in.

Basically, Diamond Technical Support saw this and said that Shader Processors are not something you normally see in GPUz and that 960 is correct for a 6870. How much bullshit is that? Oh, this is after they sent the person a replacement card.

It looks like Diamond is fucking their customers on purpose. The cards are a 6870 flashed to 6850 with a 6850 cooler on them.
 
Last edited:
I want a refund! Its false advertising i guess XP And no, I went through 3 of these cards. They all stink due to the poor quality heatsink so they have to lower its performance to not overheat.Hey they showed picture of the refrence 6870 that were all used to seeing and said that is what there selling me which it obviously isnt,don't i have a case here? Aswell as everyone else who bought the same thing? It isnt what i was paying my money for since the only way i can get what i actually want i would have to void the warrenty of a brandnew product.
 
I never had a problem with Gigabyte's non reference coolers, they all worked fine for me, temps are lower and run quiet compared to ATI's reference coolers, which I think is trash by the way but whatever works. Never used Diamond so I can't comment on them.
 
djgizmo said:
Diamond brand in general sucks. Everytime I've ever bought a 'diamond' or S3 branded product I've regretted it. and I've been buying video cards for 2 decades.
Click to expand...

Say what now? I assume that in all of your experience, you never happened to ran across this guy:

3dfxvoodoo1diamond.jpg


Or his perfect 2D pair:

ds3d2000prob.jpg


That combination provided me with YEARS of quality gaming...between the S3 ViRGE chip on the Stealth and the 3DFX chip on the Monster, I was able to smoothly play everything from Hyperblade to Myth with 3D-acceleration. True, the Canopus Pure3D was technically a better 3D accelerator, but a Diamond Monster/Stealth 2000 combo worked very well for quite a while.
 
Last edited:
bigdogchris said:
I think it's important to mention the situation on the other forum you post in.

Basically, Diamond Technical Support saw this and said that Shader Processors are not something you normally see in GPUz and that 960 is correct for a 6870. How much bullshit is that? Oh, this is after they sent the person a replacement card.

It looks like Diamond is fucking their customers on purpose. The cards are a 6870 flashed to 6850 with a 6850 cooler on them.
Click to expand...

this sounds more like a problem with bestbuy.. wonder if you take off the heatsink theres actually a sticker or silk screen on the card that clearly says its a 6850.. odds are there is probably one under there. it wouldn't surprise me to see bestbuy purposely advertising these as 6870's when they aren't.
 
Diamond of now is not Diamond of old.....Diamond is just a brand name now vs the old company.....
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
Diamond of now is not Diamond of old.....Diamond is just a brand name now vs the old company.....
Click to expand...

Correct. Diamond Multimedia was purchased by the now defunct S3 corporation. This new Diamond is Diamond in name only.
 
Are you kidding me? Some of the non-reference designs and cooling solutions are the best on the market.
 
check the box. If it says 1120 shaders then you have a pretty good case.
 
I learned this the hard way too. My old Diamond 3870 was one of the most disappointing cards I've owned or otherwise come into contact with. Seems almost like they buy up all the underperforming chips that other OEMs would toss or bin downwards, and use those for their products.
 
pojut said:
Say what now? I assume that in all of your experience, you never happened to ran across this guy:

[IaMG]http://www.ixbt.com/video3/images/3d-chronicles-1/3dfxvoodoo1diamond.jpg[/IMG]

Or his perfect 2D pair:

[IaMG]http://82.114.193.227/vga2/images/stories/palcal/diamond/ds3d2000prob.jpg[/IMG]

That combination provided me with YEARS of quality gaming...between the S3 ViRGE chip on the Stealth and the 3DFX chip on the Monster, I was able to smoothly play everything from Hyperblade to Myth with 3D-acceleration. True, the Canopus Pure3D was technically a better 3D accelerator, but a Diamond Monster/Stealth 2000 combo worked very well for quite a while.
Click to expand...
Damn man, you just threw me back to the 90's. :D
 
Long live Canopus Pure 3D!

Non-reference designs can be great when they had more time to R&D, when they're in the wild and get some feedback from the community.
 
This is a bs post, i have 2 reference 5870s from diamond, and although temps are two hi they have worked perfectly and run cool sinse the cards came out
 
might want to rename the thread title to "dont buy diamond brand cards" or something... thread is very poorly named as of this post, as others have said, some of the best cards are non-reference.
 
totally with you on this post. i got ripped off back when i used to run 2600 pros. wanted to add another card to my setup, accidentally went with diamond.... big mistake. (wasnt crossfire compatible)
 
^ Seriously, that pic of the Monster 3D reminded me of when I had that card back in my K6 rig.
 
non-reference cards are better but can be a bit risky if you are buying a crappy brand like diamond!
 
this is unbelievable. i was skeptical at first when reading the first few sentences, thinking how a manufacturer could do something like this, but then i saw the screenshots, furmark scores, and temps OP posted.

what makes it even worst is a diamond rep was in total denial of this. fukin BS
 
Like others have said, my non-reference 5850 runs silent and cool just like the other reference ones.
 
Dan_D said:
Are you kidding me? Some of the non-reference designs and cooling solutions are the best on the market.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, but even a company like XFX has some lower quality non-reference cards. I have also had bad luck with a HIS aftermarket cooler. On the other hand MSI has an excellent cooler in the Twin Frozr line and lots of other brands have some great non-reference designs. What is comes down to is research before you buy.
 
P450-6958-v01.jpg


Not the greatest looking card but it runs silent and cool. Full load on crossfire while gaming with some Metro 2033 and I barely push 70c and the fans hit about 50%. I loved the reference look on my 5870's but I just had to sell them, these things are beastly and out preform my old cards in Eyefinity Xfire by a pretty large margin.
 
Direfox said:
Absolutely, but even a company like XFX has some lower quality non-reference cards. I have also had bad luck with a HIS aftermarket cooler. On the other hand MSI has an excellent cooler in the Twin Frozr line and lots of other brands have some great non-reference designs. What is comes down to is research before you buy.
Click to expand...

Well it all depends on the company I guess. ASUS has a lot of engineering expertise and therefore I'd trust ASUS to design a great video card. And everything I've seen on the subject suggests they do. I'd love a pair of their GTX 580 ROG Platinum cards. Sadly, they only come with 1.5GB of VRAM as far as I know. Other cards like the MARS and ARIES are known for their excellence. Though their price puts them out of reach for most consumers.
 
Dan_D said:
Well it all depends on the company I guess. ASUS has a lot of engineering expertise and therefore I'd trust ASUS to design a great video card. And everything I've seen on the subject suggests they do. I'd love a pair of their GTX 580 ROG Platinum cards. Sadly, they only come with 1.5GB of VRAM as far as I know. Other cards like the MARS and ARIES are known for their excellence. Though their price puts them out of reach for most consumers.
Click to expand...

WOW I expected and thought the Asus ROG 580's were 3gb of memory.

what are they thinking lol
 
djgizmo said:
Diamond brand in general sucks. Everytime I've ever bought a 'diamond' or S3 branded product I've regretted it. and I've been buying video cards for 2 decades.
Click to expand...

I have a non reference Diamond 5870 and I haven't had any issues. I only paid $200 for it brand new and It's a decent overclocker. Diamond is as good as any other brand imho. Besides aren't all cards made by 2 or 3 manufacturers and then companies like Diamond and XFX just slap their stickers on them.
 
Harry1969 said:
I have a non reference Diamond 5870 and I haven't had any issues. I only paid $200 for it brand new and It's a decent overclocker. Diamond is as good as any other brand imho. Besides aren't all cards made by 2 or 3 manufacturers and then companies like Diamond and XFX just slap their stickers on them.
Click to expand...

No not all of them. Some companies actually make their own PCBs. Diamond does just slap a sticker on a board made by someone else.
 
Am I the only one who can't read OP's engrish? I hope he didn't type his responses to Diamond like that. No wonder he didn't get any results.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top