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XFX5850 OC'n help... please :)

M

Momo

Gawd
Joined
Mar 3, 2005
Messages
869
Hey folks, i've got an XFX 5850 from a few years ago.
I'd like to get a little more out of this card.

However, with even an extra 25mhz on the GPU & RAM, Furmark makes my ATI driver crap out after 15 mins or so.

... i never see artifacting in furmark. Just the driver dies.

What am i doin wrong? ;) GPU shark shows the VDDC @ 1.088v when stress testing. I take it that is stock? not sure how i'd adjust that, or if i should have to.
 
What OC utility are you using? Overdrive? Afterburner?

What do you mean, the driver craps out? Does the computer blue screen with a ATL driver error?

If you have other than a first release XFX model 5850, you will probably NOT be able to adjust the GPU VCore, nor do you want to. The non-reference XFX materials are a bit cheaper made than the reference models.

System specs?
 
i'm not sure which XFX one i have, sorry. It's the reference design though.

I'm using the ATI driver Overdrive utility to overclock.

My system is an i7 920 @ 3.8ghz, 1.265v, 100% stable.

corsair HX520w PSU.

... i have to admit, i only tried OC'n both RAM and GPU. I dropped the RAM to 1075, and kept the clock @ 775, and it's been stable for 23minutes now.

When i say the driver dies, the screen goes black and recovers @ the proper resolution, and it tells me the ATI driver has stopped working and recovered. No BSOD at all.

what did I miss?
 
is there a gold standard for time required to run a furmark to consider an OC stable?
 
overdriver stops at 775. Boooooo.

I've tried MSI afterburner, but never been able to get it to acept custom clocks.
 
well, MSI got working. i guess the previous guide that i was using forget to mention something in the cfg file edit.

780 core is the max i can run furmark. 785 locks up immediately. I've set it to 775.

Just me, or is that kinda sad for a gpu OC?
 
sounds about right. I read all kinds of folks with numbers way way way better than this.
 
omg, Nicklemarr, please dont go, literally, from thread to thread only contributing 'this' to them (you just did in another thread of mine, 30 seconds ago). That's just a waste of everyone's time.


If i go and bump some random other thread, will you "this" that too? lol... too strange.
 
so confused. Now i'm running Furmark @ 775 / 1200, no artifacting.


... so, anyone, gold standard for stability on overclocked cards? half an hour of Furmark, and stable 3dmark runs, or what? what's the point at which it's considered stable?
 
yikes. video driver artifacted all over when opening a Chrome window with furmark going at 1200mhz on the RAM.

Dropped it to 1150.


To those that said thier XFX5850's stank at OC'n, what did you end up with for an OC?
 
ok, lesson learned.

If anyone ever asks you how to test their overclocked video card for stability, just tell them to try one or two of their favourite games first. One of them will likely cause a crash, even when something like Furmark does not for half an hour @ 100% load.

What a waste of time, Furmark is, aside from finding the max temps you will see on your system under 100% load. Does that really well, at least!
 
If you go to guru3d, you will find a thread about unlocking the "unofficial" overclocking in AMD cards using Afterburner.

Remember to disable Overdrive if you want to OC using Afterburner.

Unless your card is a version 1.0 reference card, it probably wont OC very much.....I have a revised XFX 5850, and while a good stout card, it wont OC very much.

Furmark is just a program. My judge of OC is always an intense 10 or 15 minute stretch of my favorite game. Log the temps and FPS using Afterburner.
 
yeah, i think i've got a revised card then.

With pretty much any OC a game of Dirt2 locks up within a minute or two.

Furmark runs without artifacts though :rolleyes:
 
Yeah, don't use Furmark to test for stability. It's good to figure out thermals, as you mentioned, but that's about it. I'd cool it on the RAM clocks and focus on getting the core up there. Keep the RAM at the stock 1GHz and start pushing the core. Add volts as well, that's MSI Afterburner has the option right there. Anything under 1.2V is fine, and I wouldn't go above 1.3V 24/7 on air, even if your temps are good (<80C). Remember to check your VRM temps as well (keep them below 100C, preferably below 80C).
 
ok, well, i'm trying 1149mv @ 800mhz core
running furmark for a while, temps seem to top out @ 84-85c core, 89c-90c VRM? and 84c VRAM?

Seems decent to me. This is with a custom fan profile, which has it at 44% to maintain these temps.
 
Momo said:
how do i check VRM temps exactly?
Click to expand...
Sorry, I should have mentioned that :p. I think GPU-Z is the quickest way to check VRM temps - http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/
Momo said:
ok, well, i'm trying 1149mv @ 800mhz core
running furmark for a while, temps seem to top out @ 84-85c core, 89c-90c VRM? and 84c VRAM?

Seems decent to me. This is with a custom fan profile, which has it at 44% to maintain these temps.
Click to expand...
Very decent, keep pushing. To put your mind at ease, the VRM's are rated for 110C continuous operation and the core is spec'd to run at 90C, so you can push to those temps if you'd like without consequences. It just doesn't give you much buffer room for say, the summer, etc., so you might have to readjust your fan profile then.

If you feel comfortable, you can also re-apply the thermal grease to lower the temps.
 
I am running crossfire 5850s @ 950mhz 1125 mem @ 1.2v. One of them is an XFX.
Try upping the voltage some more. I get to maybe 75c. I also have a custom fan profile though, fans usually running around 50%
 
so when you reference temps, are you talking under 100% load until the temps stabilize?
 
ok, so i was pushing the clock up around 900mhz and 1175mv, and ran into artifacting.

So i've lowered the clock to 850mhz @ 1150mv and it seems stable after gaming for a while tonight.

I think i'll stick with that. Nothing wrong with an extra 17% clock speed on the GPU.
 
ok i'm back with better stock cooling. Long story short afte re-applying the stock HSF temps are down 12-15c across the board.

So... what's max Mv one should hit? is that based on GPU temperatures alone?

edit: forgot current settings that are stable:

1200mv
885 core
1100 mem

dropping mem and increasing core will artifact. So either i throw more voltage at it, or leave the core there.
 
Last edited:
ok, i was delusional.

850 core
1000 mem
1200mv

that's what's stable so far.
 
Temps will get out of control before voltage does if you are using the reference stock cooler.
My 5850 does 1GHz on 1.28V , but I have a Zalman VF3000
I'd shoot for 1.2V and see how high you can go, you should be able to hit at least 900-920MHz on that voltage.
 
1.200v does not run stable @ 900mhz core, at all.
1.200v @ 875mhz core seems stable.

The only thing i'm not sure about, is in MSI afterburner... do i check this to have a more stable OC?
 
artifacting @ 1200mv 875 core after a while in SWTOR. Guess i'm going back down to 835/1000/1183 and calling it a day.
 
I have two XFX 5850's that are great overclockers but you have to unlock the BIOS first. I had to flash mine to an MSI BIOS in order to exceed the 775MHz core limit. Once I did that, with a slight voltage increase in MSI Afterburner, they will run at 850MHz/core on the stock cooling and 1075MHz/memory. At one time, they were both watercooled and would run 950MHz/core and 1200Mhz/memory.
 
Blkout said:
I have two XFX 5850's that are great overclockers but you have to unlock the BIOS first. I had to flash mine to an MSI BIOS in order to exceed the 775MHz core limit. Once I did that, with a slight voltage increase in MSI Afterburner, they will run at 850MHz/core on the stock cooling and 1075MHz/memory. At one time, they were both watercooled and would run 950MHz/core and 1200Mhz/memory.
Click to expand...

I did not need to unlock the BIOS to increase voltage with MSI afterburner.

What are you talking bout?
 
not sure temps are an issue yet, even though i'm running 1225mv @ 900mhz core.

Playing Dirt2 (stable) for 15 minutes yields no higher GPU temp than 71c / 73.5c / 68c on GPU sensors #1, #2, #3 respectively.

I guess i'll just try gaming with it like this, and see if there's any artifacts that appear.
 
i dont get it.

@ 1225mv core 900mhz i got artifacting in SWTOR after about 20 minutes.
closed the game, increased mv to 1250, relaunch game and get artifacts.

Reboot PC and launch game, no artifacts.

Is that normal for an unstable OC?
 
1.25V and 900MHz gives you artifacts? :/ That's a bummer. You may just not have a great chip.
 
1250 900mhz and no artifacting after 1hr of swtor. Maybe a good sign....
 
shortly after alt-tabbing back into swtor, about a minute later, had aartifacting followed immediately by a BSOD.

Maybe i need to enable the 'constant voltage' option in MSI afterburner? if i'm flipping to the '2d' desktop, the card probably thinks it should drop the voltage.

Sound right?
 
Try using Furmark rather than a game to test. Also I would keep trying the voltage up to 1.29v. If that doesnt work you are out of luck. XFX also has the lifetime warranty, so if you wanna go higher and it kills it you can always use your warranty.
 
furmark is stable for quite a while (45mins) where a game will artifact or crash within a few minutes.

furmark = failmark for testing for stability in a GPU overclock.
 
ok, so i tried upping voltage to 1275mv.

@ 900mhz core
1050mhz mem

temps are high 70's gaming in SWTOR for a few hours stable.

Interesting. I guess this card is just voltage hungry.
 
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