Gigabyte HD 6870 vmodded - running 1200 Mhz GPU aircooled

Our colleague poparamiro managed to hit the 1200Mhz mark with a voltmodded Gigabyte HD 6870, boosting the VGPU from 1.17V to 1.51V in under 5C ambient and using a Thermalright Spitfire cooler to keep temperatures in check.

http://lab501.ro/wp-content/uploads/...01-580x410.jpg

3DM05 @ 1200/1190 (click to enlarge)

http://lab501.ro/wp-content/uploads/...05-580x306.png

I think this says alot about what the new Barts cards can do, as the voltage and temperature scaling are great.

You can find the full article here: Gigabyte HD 6870 - overclocking study - translation

To mods: if you feel this doesn't deserve a separate thread, feel free to join it with an existing HD 6870 topic.

This is avesome so from 900Mhz stock, up to 1200, 300Mhz so 33% frecuency increase.... :clap:
poparamiro, as always first with such frecuencys, beating all that it's on net...:clap:
I'm proud to be member of lab501 forum.

If you can call that behemoth aircooled. :P

Can this be regarded that HD 6870 is a better OCer than what was previously suspected ? I still think if power requirement & heat are not a problem, GTX 470 seems still the card to get for OCing user out there. :shrug:

LOL, nice! Do you really need 1.5V for such an OC, though?
Nice temps, btw. There might be more in it! :D

No OCP?

@ zalbard: yes, it needed that voltage ... only did 1150Mhz with 1.45V and so on. It should rock on LN2 though, the PWM area was cool during this time, the DrMOS seems to be a very good solution.

@ Mean Machine: nope, no OVP, no OCP, just mod and up the voltage.

I'm sure poparamiro can fill you in with more technical details when he will wake up :).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Micutzu

@ zalbard: yes, it needed that voltage ... only did 1150Mhz with 1.45V and so on. It should rock on LN2 though, the PWM area was cool during this time, the DrMOS seems to be a very good solution.

@ Mean Machine: nope, no OVP, no OCP, just mod and up the voltage.

I'm sure poparamiro can fill you in with more technical details when he will wake up :).

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What was the max at regular room temperature?

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Originally Posted by tajoh111

What was the max at regular room temperature?

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Read again. 5c ambient.

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Originally Posted by Mean Machine

Read again. 5c ambient.

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Most people dont class 5c as normal ambient :p

I hope Mic can share default vCore so we can know if 1.5v is crazy or normal..... at least it's possible the MHz scale more with voltage instead of stopping around 1.35 :D

1100MHz 24/7 stock cooler? 1300MHz cranked under water? should be 1500++ under cold if no coldbug... all this bodes well for 6970 :D

All the details are in the article, although it's not english and usually Google Translate does a bad job translating romanian to english.

http://lab501.ro/placi-video/gigabyt...e-overclocking

The testing has been done with four settings:

Stage 1
stock clocks (900MHz core/1050MHz GDDR)
stock cooling
auto fan
default VGPU (1.185v)
~21c ambient


Stage 2
1025 Mhz GPU / 1200 Mhz GDDR
stock cooling
fan @ 100%
default VGPU (1.185V)
21c ambient


Stage 3
1105 Mhz GPU / 1190 Mhz GDDR
Thermalright Spitfire
1700RPM/140mm
VGPU 1.350v
~21c ambient


Stage 4
1180+ Mhz GPU / 1190+ Mhz GDDR
Thermalright Spitfire
6000RPM
VGPU 1.510v
1-5c ambient

Also some runs at 1150 Mhz GPU / 1150 Mhz GDDR with 1.45V and 21C ambient seemed stable.

Stage 3 is 1105mhz/21c/1700rpm, unfortunately i have less than a day for the article so there is room for improvements.

LLC of the gpu vrm stage did a litle overvolting, 1207mv default voltage in furmark load (digital multimeter reading), 1195mv on unigine and ~1185 on light load, so 1.5v not so high :D

As my colegue said, strong 4 stage vrm for this card, i have scaling al the way up to 1.49-1.52 volt, in those conditions.

good job man.

for comparison, how much 5870 was able to oc for similar setting?

not to sound dumb, but 1.5v is higher than 80nm parts were running when OCed on water.

i bet at that voltage your power draw also MORE THAN doubled, and you clearly are taking up more space. nothing wrong with pushing these things. its just probably not an option that any owner who wants 24/7 to run with. they might aswell have gone with xfire, or waiting for caymen.

i am however curious what it takes to get such clocks on a 6850, where its already 125mhz lower. a 300mhz gain with such extreme air is honestly a little pathetic i think. but if its 425mhz, then were talking.

all in all, that is sofar the most extreme 6870 to date!!

I can do 1150 mhz vantage with 5870 (very good one), ~1.47v/10c ambient.

I call shenanigans on the thread title. Horribly misleading.

Holy bannana. But nobody can actually use such a cooler in any practical situation.

Damn, last time I checked this forum was called Xtreme Systems, not xtremely practical situations system :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monstru

Damn, last time I checked this forum was called Xtreme Systems, not xtremely practical situations system :)

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right :up:

kudos for lab501 being fast to oc that card already :D

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Originally Posted by Monstru

Damn, last time I checked this forum was called Xtreme Systems, not xtremely practical situations system :)

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Well some of us like to be xtreme on processors and not gpus. Also alot of us try to make real-world xtreme set ups by maintaining functional cases.

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Originally Posted by ElSel10

Holy bannana. But nobody can actually use such a cooler in any practical situation.

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Not going to jump on your back over this, but if it can be done on air it can be done on water too. I want to see what these guys can do with Cayman.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by clo007

Well some of us like to be xtreme on processors and not gpus. Also alot of us try to make real-world xtreme set ups by maintaining functional cases.

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that heatsink works in functional cases. I don't know what is wrong with you sissies.

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Originally Posted by Iconyu

Not going to jump on your back over this, but if it can be done on air it can be done on water too. I want to see what these guys can do with Cayman.

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Oh I know that! But I mean for an average user, this won't be a realistic expectation on air.

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Originally Posted by ColonelCain

I call shenanigans on the thread title. Horribly misleading.

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fo shizzle mai nizzle.

:hammer:

Thanks for sharing results Micutzu

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Originally Posted by ElSel10

Oh I know that! But I mean for an average user, this won't be a realistic expectation on air.

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Yes, you are right, this is not a realistic expectation for an average user, but most of the things presented here are like that. It is fun to push the limits, in this case the air-cooling limits :)

if a user can use winters cold air to reach those temps i say its attainable by anyone smart enough to know how .... vmods arent that easy but its doable

Nice results mate!! Cant wait to see what they can do Crossfire on water!

Nice work lads !! looking forward to these cards next week !

At least change the title to "running 1200mhz sub-ambient aircooled."

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Originally Posted by ColonelCain

At least change the title to "running 1200mhz sub-ambient aircooled."

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air cooled | DI | Phase | LN2

it is air cooled, what's all the fuzz about it :confused:? It just shows the gpu potential

yep, ambient doesn't mean +20°C...

If you have to adress all the newspapers and gossip mags that stick slightly deceiving eyecatching headliners above their articles, then you are up for a massive job...

They just want to adress that it will scale well with volts and added cooling... if they said 6870 does 1025Mhz on ambient boxed stock air cooling would it get so many hits ? dunno...

Quote:

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At least change the title to "running 1200mhz sub-ambient aircooled."

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Setting are clearly marked on every category (ambient, cooling....). For 1200mhz ambient was 1 to 5 degrees celsius ;)

At -30c ambient for sure i can do better :p:

1115mhz possible at 20+c ambient

Very good job Lab501 :up:

1115MHz on AIR at 20C amb. is very good! My HD5870 'high-leakage' edition could do 1100MHz under same condition with stock cooler @80% as well :)

Another great job :up:
I think extreme air tests kick ass!!
it seems to have good scaling per o/c to game fps but not "great" scaling,none the less thanks for the vmod cant wait to try myself.
screw the huge heatsink i'll just put a piece of dice on the cards stock one :D

whats with people winging about it not being practical? its for an OC....

nothing wrong with thread title... is it oc'd to 1200mhz? yes.. is it air cooled? yes... does it say it's practical in the title? no...

there.

congrats on the OC awesome effort


and people complaining the ambient is 1-5? ... my room was only 11 degrees last night.. 5 is very believable especially as most of europe got a massive arctic wind coming down over it.

is it just me or the msi hawx 460s are yielding better bench results????

Great job! :up:

Let's hope Cayman can cope with those results. :D

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Originally Posted by Johnny87au

is it just me or the msi hawx 460s are yielding better bench results????

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yeah its just you ;);)

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Originally Posted by clo007

Well some of us like to be xtreme on processors and not gpus. Also alot of us try to make real-world xtreme set ups by maintaining functional cases.

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Are you sure we are on the same forum?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ElSel10

Oh I know that! But I mean for an average user, this won't be a realistic expectation on air.

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Is this thread is a review about the 6870 showing how well it's overclock on air and what can expect peoples with the 6870 ? no ..... does they claim they do it in "normal situation" no .... all was said till the start .....

Anyway is it the fist 1200mhz on air cooling we have seen ?

GG guys anyway ...

Not nice to see that the 5850 still much better than the 6870... not even 200mhz more and i7 processor were able to beat the older beast.


http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/9831/vgpu2.jpg


Vantage Solo

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/5171/vantagesolo.jpg

its bad that it cant even beat the 5850

Vantage is like a rare exception for these cards. games however are showing a 6870 winning by about 5-10%. i guess raw shader power really helped that benchmark

yeah just try CF .. it becomes good as 5870cf ;) at most benchs

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Originally Posted by Tomasis

yeah just try CF .. it becomes good as 5870cf ;) at most benchs

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I does have higher clocks, but I doubt it will perform better than a oced 5850.

what tool r u using to pass CCC limits of 1000/1250? is there a bios flash? RBE or a program like msi afterburner to tweak voltages

edit: ah i see he used msi afterburner i guess it recognizes the 6800 series and u can tweak fan profiles an voltage, but how did he go past 1000mhz CCC limit?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jamesrt2004

whats with people winging about it not being practical? its for an OC....

nothing wrong with thread title... is it oc'd to 1200mhz? yes.. is it air cooled? yes... does it say it's practical in the title? no...

there.

congrats on the OC awesome effort


and people complaining the ambient is 1-5? ... my room was only 11 degrees last night.. 5 is very believable especially as most of europe got a massive arctic wind coming down over it.

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Isn't that a little too cold? I tolerate cold weather better than most(Saskatchewan winters are colder than most, certainly colder than england) and I find 19 degree just about right. 11C(51.8F) degree's would make me sick after a while. 5 C constant, unless your a fatty or constantly wearing winter clothes, you would probably get hypothermia after being exposed to such conditions constantly(you would be living in temperatures colder than most fridges[not freezers]) .

You should turn up the heat or perhaps even buy a warmer video card lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tajoh111

Isn't that a little too cold? I tolerate cold weather better than most(Saskatchewan winters are colder than most, certainly colder than england) and I find 19 degree just about right. 11C(51.8F) degree's would make me sick after a while. 5 C constant, unless your a fatty or constantly wearing winter clothes, you would probably get hypothermia after being exposed to such conditions constantly(you would be living in temperatures colder than most fridges[not freezers]) .

You should turn up the heat or perhaps even buy a warmer video card lol.

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Hehe, you should come down under here mate, there's plenty of sunshine here, 30 c ambient, but quite damp & humid nowadays with moonsoon season coming. :D

So far, GTX 470 seems still the card to go if you're into OCing, but HD 6870 seems to have more OC potential than what was previously suggested.

I think when we read aircooled we expect normal temperatures, in other words something like NTP or 20C .

So everyone complaining expects to be able to glean all the information they need about an overclock from a one line title in a forum post? Get real.

Is the card voltmodded? Yes. Is the card running at 1200 Mhz? Yes. Is the cooling medium air? Yes.

The title is fine, if you want to know more you simply have to read a whole 4 run-on sentences contained within the very first post. That's hard, I know.

Wicked OC and im excited about next gen overclocking :D

:banana::banana::banana::banana: off all your whingers - he is running 1.5V.
What normal user is going to do that.

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Originally Posted by spursindonesia

Hehe, you should come down under here mate, there's plenty of sunshine here, 30 c ambient, but quite damp & humid nowadays with moonsoon season coming. :D

So far, GTX 470 seems still the card to go if you're into OCing, but HD 6870 seems to have more OC potential than what was previously suggested.

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Warm weather is far nicer in the long run, but cold whether(not extreme) is good for great for cold air overclocking. I hate humidity, it makes me itch. Cold in small bursts, just makes you feel alive. When it is reasonably cold in Saskatchewan(-15C), one thing that I have done is open the window and close the room and let the water cool down(water cooling) long enough where its pretty close to zero and the computer room itself is about a few degree's.

I will slip on some warm clothes and begin to overclock before everything gets heated up again and they stop Overclocking as well(which is usally 20-30 minutes later).

I can't work any colder because when it is -35C or colder, usually a cold streak is going on and the windows are frozen shut(plus I would have to use a new coolant anyways as water would freeze). Additionally, the winter air is blasting so fast that it might blow off the winter. Its ridiculous because we typically have a few days where we have +40C days.

Some of the colder area's of Saskatchewan can hit -50c. It would be interesting to work with a coolant that could handle that type of coldness because even antifreeze will freeze at this temperature. Whats even more ridiculous is that with the proper windgust and windchill, to bare skin, we sometimes have days when it can feel like -90C, which is colder than even the best single stage cooler.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tajoh111

Warm weather is far nicer in the long run, but cold whether(not extreme) is good for great for cold air overclocking. I hate humidity, it makes me itch. Cold in small bursts, just makes you feel alive. When it is reasonably cold in Saskatchewan(-15C), one thing that I have done is open the window and close the room and let the water cool down(water cooling) long enough where its pretty close to zero and the computer room itself is about a few degree's.

I will slip on some warm clothes and begin to overclock before everything gets heated up again and they stop Overclocking as well(which is usally 20-30 minutes later).

I can't work any colder because when it is -35C or colder, usually a cold streak is going on and the windows are frozen shut(plus I would have to use a new coolant anyways as water would freeze). Additionally, the winter air is blasting so fast that it might blow off the winter. Its ridiculous because we typically have a few days where we have +40C days.

Some of the colder area's of Saskatchewan can hit -50c. It would be interesting to work with a coolant that could handle that type of coldness because even antifreeze will freeze at this temperature. Whats even more ridiculous is that with the proper windgust and windchill, to bare skin, we sometimes have days when it can feel like -90C, which is colder than even the best single stage cooler.

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Get the same over here in alberta, dont stop us from doing anything :shrug::D

Also I have no problems with my anti-freeze at -50c

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Originally Posted by STEvil

Get the same over here in alberta, dont stop us from doing anything :shrug::D

Also I have no problems with my anti-freeze at -50c

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Considering your a moderator here, it should be no surprise that I am scared to break something more than you.

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Originally Posted by tbone8ty

what tool r u using to pass CCC limits of 1000/1250? is there a bios flash? RBE or a program like msi afterburner to tweak voltages

edit: ah i see he used msi afterburner i guess it recognizes the 6800 series and u can tweak fan profiles an voltage, but how did he go past 1000mhz CCC limit?

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We allways break the CCC limits, that is why they are there for, to be breaked :D

cool... but cant some 5850s do that too?
and they are faster clock for clock...
you cant really blame ati, theyve done a great job considering this is still 40nm...
but overall i cant help but wonder whether a 5850 might not be a better buy than a 6850/6870...
it costs about the same and performs about the same at a much lower clock... and both overclock to about the same speed... which means the 5850 ends up being faster?

HD 6870 is about 10% cheaper (current newegg prices) and it's faster in all situations (both cards stock clocks); with both cards overclocked HD 5850 barely catches up in some benchmarks. Tesselation performance is obviously higher with HD 6870 even if there aren't too many DX 11 games out there. All in all, a bit faster, a bit cheaper, seems a better buy.

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Originally Posted by Monstru

Damn, last time I checked this forum was called Xtreme Systems, not xtremely practical situations system :)

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LOL +1 to this exactly!!! 5c ambients!!!!!!!! :rofl:

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Originally Posted by Micutzu

HD 6870 is about 10% cheaper (current newegg prices) and it's faster in all situations (both cards stock clocks); with both cards overclocked HD 5850 barely catches up in some benchmarks. Tesselation performance is obviously higher with HD 6870 even if there aren't too many DX 11 games out there. All in all, a bit faster, a bit cheaper, seems a better buy.

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6870 can barely reach 1100mhz while 5850 can go all the way to 950mhz easily, and I can tell you that 5850 will be much stronger than the 6870 in that situation.

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Originally Posted by Barr3l Rid3r

6870 can barely reach 1100mhz while 5850 can go all the way to 950mhz easily, and I can tell you that 5850 will be much stronger than the 6870 in that situation.

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6850 goes to 950mhz easily.. 6850 CF beats 5850CF hands down. When newer games come (tesselation), 68xx is better buy.. :up:

most importantly, it is unbeatable for price/perfomance ratio. 150€!

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Originally Posted by Tomasis

6850 goes to 950mhz easily.. 6850 CF beats 5850CF hands down. When newer games come (tesselation), 68xx is better buy.. :up:

most importantly, it is unbeatable for price/perfomance ratio. 150€!

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950Mhz in the 6870 isn't enough to catch up w/ an 900Mhz 5850.



I got an 6870 crossfire here, and I can say 5850 still much better.

Very neat, and very impressive!

Thing is indeed , now they are head to head in price ( 5850 and 6870 ) But how much did the 5850 retail at at launch ? Don't think it retailed at 230 euro region.(but could be wrong here) Even with just 2 crossfire 6850's you got plenty of power for a very affordable price... and boy to these cards run cool...

Good job Nvidia with the 460 series ( all but the SE bah edition) and ATI with their 6850 and 6870 cards !! A lot of gamers will get good performance for the buck this Xmas !!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Barr3l Rid3r

I got an 6870 crossfire here, and I can say 5850 still much better.

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you forget price & perfomance ratio ;)

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Originally Posted by leeghoofd

thing is indeed , now they are head to head in price ( 5850 and 6870 ) but how much did the 5850 retail at at launch ? Don't think it retailed at 230 euro region.(but could be wrong here) even with just 2 crossfire 6850's you got plenty of power for a very affordable price... And boy to these cards run cool...

Good job nvidia with the 460 series ( all but the se bah edition) and ati with their 6850 and 6870 cards !! A lot of gamers will get good performance for the buck this xmas !!

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+1...

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Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

Thing is indeed , now they are head to head in price ( 5850 and 6870 ) But how much did the 5850 retail at at launch ? Don't think it retailed at 230 euro region.(but could be wrong here) Even with just 2 crossfire 6850's you got plenty of power for a very affordable price... and boy to these cards run cool...

Good job Nvidia with the 460 series ( all but the SE bah edition) and ATI with their 6850 and 6870 cards !! A lot of gamers will get good performance for the buck this Xmas !!

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i got my old 5850 for 240€ in 2009 :rolleyes:

and i think that 6850 is the best buy right now, it clocks like hell (1050mhz+) on stock coolers, something that 5850 could dream of (mime barely reached 900mhz with the stock cooler) and scales better with higher mem BW than 5850 did....

once both are oced to the max on air they're tied but 6850 costs 150€ and 5850 230

I have to move to Austria :p Think we did 300 euro's for the 5850 here and almost 400 for the 5870 :( Belgium suxors

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Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

I have to move to Austria :p Think we did 300 euro's for the 5850 here and almost 400 for the 5870 :( Belgium suxors

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well they moved up to 290 shortly after i got my card ;)