More fun with 3870X2 - LN2 first day

Some of you will have been following the progress of my ghetto mounting plate for running two pots on one 3870X2 here:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=176230

Well, after some intital hurdles and troubleshooting, i finally pulled some results, and pretty decent ones at that :)
While the scores are "low" for what i expected, im sure with RAM tweaking, vMEM/clock testing (yet to happen), and more LN2 (ran out after ~40L) i could have grabbed the ultimate top spots in both '06 and '03 :yepp:

I find the 3870X2 to be a "fragile" card compared to the brute force nVidias im used to.
Temperature played an important role, but not in the ways i had expected.
I was actually running these tests below at only -20 to -30C on the pot faces.
If i let the pots get too cold for too long, the exposed areas of the card (to allow the power circuits to breathe) would ice up and then i would hit walls being unable to run any GT all the way thru.
Unfortunately it took me about 20L and 2-3hrs to find that out :shakes:
But you'll be pleased to know that the GPU's were more than happy playing at -90C or more.

Furthermore voltages are funny buggers, with differences between idle and load, GPU1 and GPU2, temperature dependency, etc. In the end i would have to recheck/adjust) my volts before every run. At one point i even had to resolder the tiny GPU2 mod while still set up when i was having some troubles.

So without further ado:

3DMark'06 - 26k :clap:
QX9770 @ 5350MHz on Kayl Pot Rev 2
Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 Rev 1.1 (vCore mod)
Patriot DDR3 "1866MHz" @ crappy speed and 7-7-7-16 1T (untweaked)
Retail Powercolor 3870X2 @ 1066/1062 real on 2x Kayl GPU Pots (vcore/vmem)
WD5000AAKS SATA @ 115MHz PCI-E freq.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTIMrTHthAw
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=5169124

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3.../IMG_27831.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/T_M/26073.jpg

And earlier on during testing:

3DMark'03 - 80k :clap:
QX9770 @ 5350MHz on Kayl Pot Rev 2
Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 Rev 1.1 (vCore mod)
Patriot DDR3 "1866MHz" @ crappy speed and 7-7-7-16 1T (untweaked)
Retail Powercolor 3870X2 @ 999/1044 real on 2x Kayl GPU Pots (vcore/vmem)
WD5000AAKS SATA @ 115MHz PCI-E freq.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/T_M/80422.jpg

Awesome results way to go! Amazing over clock on the gpu's! Now to get another one and try this again in crossfire!

Your sig shows different frequencies for the GPU's than the gpu-z program does... why is that?

Firstly, my sig is from hwbot, and that is a different result showing currently (lag).
Secondly, GPU-Z seems not to show the correct clocks for my 3870X2 since i installed the latest beta drivers. It shows up in GPU-Z as half of actual speed.

Excellent speeds! :up:

How much vgpu you needed for that speed?

Looking good Tim! :D

Do you a view on what the cards will be capable of in the future? 1,2G core, maybe 1,3G?

the score is more inline with two 3870's running in crossfire.
But, nice score man, too bad 3870X2 is still bandwidth limited as two
2900XT's can out take an 3870X2.

Nice one dude ;) :up: Amazing score :clap:, hope that with proper system tweaking (generally talking) you 'll be able to climb up to the first place of 3870X2 ;) Now, give us some more results with the card @ -90 C :D ;)

great results bro, keep pushing it to the limit :D

Plastic spray ALL over the Card and insulate everything on it.... :)
Nice start btw.... ;)

NiceJob! congrats to 80k 03 is amazing!

Awesome bench!

nice job Tim :up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by T_M

Firstly, my sig is from hwbot, and that is a different result showing currently (lag).
Secondly, GPU-Z seems not to show the correct clocks for my 3870X2 since i installed the latest beta drivers. It shows up in GPU-Z as half of actual speed.

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use the drop down at the bottom and select the other core, by default gpu-z selects the slave core first.

nice results Tim, i was waiting for someone to try X2 on subzero, it looks amazing :D

why does this setup remind me of a power plant ??
kinda looks like it with 3 tube's sticking out like that.

anyways, great results. Awsome speed, but you should be able to get a bit higher.

George, the entire backside of the card is sprayed already.
The frontside is totally coated in nailpolish except for the heatsink interfaces.
Its just those darn hot little chips giving me troubles and preventing me from pushing the temps far lower.
Do you mean to also insulate/cover those little hot ones too?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/T_M/IMG_2777.jpg

Nice work T_M, very nice results. :)

Excellent scores there Tim....once those hot lil buggers get fixed, i guess you are set ;)

Tim
how are you cooling that middle heatsink

The middle heatsink has a very small area to recieve air from, and i am blowing a delta from 5cm away straight at it between the two pot's insulations.
It seems to be ok for whatever i can throw at it, until the heatsink and surrounding area on it ice up. I then get crashes in GT1, and also my voltages go haywire. After i "defrost" teh card up to -10C for a while, it will go back to normal.

GREAT SCORES Guys :up: :up: :up: :up: :up: :up:

Great scores:clap:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by T_M

George, the entire backside of the card is sprayed already.
The frontside is totally coated in nailpolish except for the heatsink interfaces.
Its just those darn hot little chips giving me troubles and preventing me from pushing the temps far lower.
Do you mean to also insulate/cover those little hot ones too?

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No.....I mean plastic spray EVERYWERE on the card exept the mos-fets that you'll put heatsinks on.... ;)

BTW.....After some todays mods of mine on it, I got 1000MHz/1150MHz ON AIR out of it.....I wonder what shall it do under LN2 now..... :D

P.S. DON'T feed the Crosslink chip over 1.3VCore coz it does worse.... ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hipro5

No.....I mean plastic spray EVERYWERE on the card exept the mos-fets that you'll put heatsinks on.... ;)

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Which is the same as insulating every component with nail polish right? :shrug:

Nice gains there man, presume thats from your cap mods?
LOL @ vmodding crosslinx

Quote:

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Originally Posted by T_M

Which is the same as insulating every component with nail polish right? :shrug:

Nice gains there man, presume thats from your cap mods?
LOL @ vmodding crosslinx

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Nail polish CAN'T handle subzero temps and it "breaks" and then you have "leaks" from it..... ;)
Find a plastic spray that can handle at least -40*C so to be sure..... ;)

I use PLASTIK (German spray) down to -70*C... :)

Yes Vmoding Crosslinx, can handle the "bandwidth" of the VCAs... ;)

hmmm gotta look at my spray to see what temps it can manage heh

woooo nice tip on the crosslinx thanks :D

excellence score and great job buddy :up: Congratz :toast:

Great to see some number
Well done :clap:

Team AU tearing it up. You guys are pushing hard nowadays :up:

Thanks Vince, yeah we are trying really hard and doing our best to stay at the cutting edge of the tech (both pre-release or retail), and slowly but surely our results are flowing.

Way to go Team AU! Great scores :)

http://www.mcminone.com/product.asp?...ds&ATT=froogle

this is good one too

Im using Scotch Insulating Spray 1601

Quote:

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Originally Posted by k|ngp|n

Team AU tearing it up. You guys are pushing hard nowadays :up:

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Yeah most of us are.. :o hehe

Great stuff Tim.. you're moving into another class with your recent 3dmark results :D

We just gotta get you hooked on extreme cooling now Georgie

Quote:

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Originally Posted by k|ngp|n

Team AU tearing it up. You guys are pushing hard nowadays :up:

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I agree. Good luck Tim! Keep pushing Team AU!

Overvolting PLX PCI-E lane chip is just sick. Nice scores, but otherwise it does pretty bad at 3dmark01. Lets wait till 8.3 Catalyst for dual cards. That should bring up some firepower in 3D arena.

nice scores :)

necro :P

Yeah it's kind of old now :p: