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Matrix 5870 Xfire...Dissapointed/Rant

A

AlvinMaker

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Messages
288
Well-

I have finally resolved all my BSOD issues, as it turned out it was related to one of the SATA ports on my mobo. Now that my system is FINALLY stable, I thought I would get to some OC'ing on my pair of ROG 5870 Platinums.

Much to my dismay- and I understand, "mileage may vary" with OC'ing- these do NOT seem to be a "good batch". From ALL of the reviews, it seemed people were hitting at LEAST in the 950 range without overvolting, and with a little extra juice, up to 1050 and beyond.

My experience, after NUMEROUS tests and trials... These will NOT go beyond 920 with stock 1.2 voltage, and even pushing to 1.375, I STILL cannot push much beyond 975, and at that voltage, of course, things start to COOK.

My fault for expecting what all the review samples got, but I am a bit dissapointed in these from an OC standpoint. Yes...they are FAST out of the box. But I could have bought a couple of vanilla 5870s and OC'd em and got where I am now. The extra money is a waste, IMO (not to MENTION, iTRACKER2 is having a compatibility issue in Windows error log- something related to ATIDGLLK.sys not loading. Uninstalling , it goes away, but these ONLY appear to allow voltage contral with itracker. No afterburner for me)

The positive NV Surround comparison here on HardOCP may be enough to push me to these on the 'bay, and move on to an SLI 480 rig. (anyone out there X-firing a pair of these, and have good OC results??)
Bummer- :(
 
Never buy into OC variants of cards, not worth it, as you found out.

I can get them speeds out of my 5970, it's the cheapest way to get 5870 crossfire, as long as you have a good PSU.
 
What fan speeds are you at? 58xx overclocking responds better to temperature than volts.
 
I had set a custom temp profile in iTRACKER. 50% up to 80, then 80% after that.

Come to think of it, the one thing I DIDN'T try was jacking up the fan speeds when OC'ing at stock voltages. I was letting the "auto" mode do it's thing. I'll try that as a last resort.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Never buy into OC variants of cards, not worth it, as you found out.

I can get them speeds out of my 5970, it's the cheapest way to get 5870 crossfire, as long as you have a good PSU.
Click to expand...

I usually don't buy into "extreme" variations of cards...But these seemes to CONSISTENTLY hit in the high 900's in all the review samples. I had a 5970 prior to these- On AIR, with fan jacked all the way (hair dryer mode!), I couldn't hit higher than 850, stable.

So I am still getting more out of these, but thought I would have a little more headroom than I do.

I'll try the suggestion on modifying fan speeds. Worth a shot.
 
AlvinMaker said:
I had set a custom temp profile in iTRACKER. 50% up to 80, then 80% after that.

Come to think of it, the one thing I DIDN'T try was jacking up the fan speeds when OC'ing at stock voltages. I was letting the "auto" mode do it's thing. I'll try that as a last resort.
Click to expand...
Bolded what I believe is the issue. In my experience, it's been very difficult to keep 58xx cards stable at 1GHz+ above 75C.
 
Mr. K6 said:
Bolded what I believe is the issue. In my experience, it's been very difficult to keep 58xx cards stable at 1GHz+ above 75C.
Click to expand...

Thanks MrK6-

Haven't broken any records yet, but since crankin' the fans up to 85%, I have run numerous WH loops (5040x1050 Enth, DX9&10 etc...) and haven't had a crash or blip up to 945 at stock voltage. As I stated before this is well beyond where I was before with stock fan profile (around 920 was the ceiling).

I'll be continuing to test throughout the weekend. Probably have some results to post Sunday night. Thanks for what SHOULD have seemed obvious to me...;)

(temps are now BARELY getting over 60C, whereas before I was in the mid 80s- also, I am using WH, Heaven, etc... as Furmark seems to heat up my GPUs more than any actual game does. )
 
Mr. K6 said:
My pleasure, glad you got them working up to par. Make sure to post your final results :cool:.
Click to expand...

Well- nothing earth shattering, but better than before.

Looks like 940 is the ceiling at stock voltage. Testing memory next. Then I'll push voltage a touch and see what headroom is left. More results to come. (I had hit 985 with 1.35, I believe, before my machine started really acting up. But some of the crashes may NOT have been due to my gpu OC'ing, so now that I have my system rock solid again, there may be some OC room left... fingers crossed. :cool: )

-I noticed something curious about Afterburner after I re-installed itracker2 for voltage control. AB is incorrectly reporting the memory clocks. They are showing on the slider at 1200mhz?? Stock on these is 4800. Oddly enough, the VOLTAGE is stock at 1.200, so mabye it's getting things jumbled up because of the custom BIOS??

Also, that being the case, and I am using IT2 again, are there any inherent issues with still running AB for monitoring purposes? I REALLY like having all my clocks/temps/etc... displayed on my Logitech LCD, and I can't do that with IT2 (and I can't seem to make the "keep on top" thing work for the IT2 monitor)

Thoughts?
 
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The memory is calculated as 1200Mhz*2*2. Depending on th program, it'll be shown as 1200Mhz or 4800Mhz, but both are right.
 
To OP:

The price of the 5870 Matrix cards I would have bought two GTX 480s first.
I guess we all get caught up in the bling of certain parts sometimes.
Reference design is always the best way to go.
 
WorldExclusive said:
To OP:

The price of the 5870 Matrix cards I would have bought two GTX 480s first.
I guess we all get caught up in the bling of certain parts sometimes.
Reference design is always the best way to go.
Click to expand...

In hindsight, I most likely WOULD have gone that route.

Main reason I didn't... I am an Eyefinity "devotee", and didn't realize "N" was literally days away from having Surround support. I wasn't ready to part with my multi-screen goodness, so I went with the best option I thought I had at the time- the two fastest 5870s on the market (with the much appreciated 2GB ram for the crazy high resolutions)

Oh well- now that I have the fans cooling properly, things are looking a little better. Still benching like crazy, trying to find the "sweet spot". Running some tests now at 1GHZ core, with voltage bump to 1.4, to see if I am stable. Also trying to keep em in the mid to high 70s, temp wise. Not a fan of the 90 degree boiler room! lol. ( for those curious, these things SUCK some power. I am pulling 800+ watts at full tilt! Phew!! )

I'll most likely keep em for a spell, enjoy the "geek tweak" factor, and then on to the 'Bay to replace with GTX480s (or the 6XXX series, whatever is the baddest boy on the block when I am ready...;) )
 
SO-

Update of sorts...

After a TON of WH loops, as well as a solid hour of ACTUAL gaming in JC2, A2OA, AVP, etc..., I am sitting right now on 995/5000 at 1.4v, fans at 90%. Yes, it is loud, but temps are MAX 82, mostly staying in mid 70s. And I do my heavy gaming at night with my Surround cans on, so the noise is not an issue. (and for kicks I pumped it to 1010 at the new voltage, and it hasn't hiccuped yet- we'll see how far past, if any, it can go. But even so, 995 is OK by me)

Better than before, that's for sure. I wish I had more feedback on what voltages are safe. Of course the slider goes all the way to 1.6, but I am VERY gun shy about pushing past 1.4 (it really wants that much juice- anything below yielded crashes- sometimes they took a while, but still got lock ups below that. Been at 1.4 over an hour and solid)

Most reviews seem to be hovering in the 1.3ish range- although I DID see one review sample that they cranked to 1.54! Not sure if that's reasonable or not. I go through GPUs as much as the next guy, but not sure how comfortable I am since that is the ONLY instance i have seen of someone pushing it that high. Could they really need THAT much power? Any feedback is much appreciated. And thanks again for what SHOULD have been common sense to me...Guess I got so carried away and stressed about my other system issues I forgot my "OC 101" ! ;)
 
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I would be scared to push an 5870 past 1.35v without watercooling. 1.4v is quite a large increase over stock. You should be fine where your at for now, but as you push the voltage higher you increase the chance that the chip will fail. Hopefully the Matrix chips are binned to accept the higher voltages without much problem.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
I would be scared to push an 5870 past 1.35v without watercooling. 1.4v is quite a large increase over stock. You should be fine where your at for now, but as you push the voltage higher you increase the chance that the chip will fail. Hopefully the Matrix chips are binned to accept the higher voltages without much problem.
Click to expand...

I was concerned with that myself, but wasn't sure how far they really intended it to be pushed. Not to mention, there is also PCI bus voltage, which I don't know enough about to fool with yet.

All told, I will probably stay at 935/5000. which it hits no problem without voltage increase. The performance gain from 900 - 1000 was only like 3-5 FPS at the most in the games I tested. Not worth the extra heat/wear/and NOISE. (hair dryer!)

My next will move will be to GTX480s , most likely tri-SLI, as it appears they scale much better for multi-screen gaming, which I am hooked on! :D
 
AlvinMaker said:
I was concerned with that myself, but wasn't sure how far they really intended it to be pushed. Not to mention, there is also PCI bus voltage, which I don't know enough about to fool with yet.

All told, I will probably stay at 935/5000. which it hits no problem without voltage increase. The performance gain from 900 - 1000 was only like 3-5 FPS at the most in the games I tested. Not worth the extra heat/wear/and NOISE. (hair dryer!)

My next will move will be to GTX480s , most likely tri-SLI, as it appears they scale much better for multi-screen gaming, which I am hooked on! :D
Click to expand...

You should try tri crossfire. Running 3 480s will require alot of power and will require moving alot of cool air to keep those cards cool.
 
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