Gainward HD4870 Golden Sample Review

[razno]

At least after two mail and 1 week gainward said:

Sir,

Please provide us your address so we can arrange a cable for you to reduce
the speed of second fan.

Thank you
GAINWARD

[fatguy1992]

I emailed Gainward about 4 days ago asking about a cable to reduce the speed of my fan, no response yet.

Anyway my HD4870 Golden Sample CF review will be fully completed in a few day at the most.

[razno]

Ask them again. Maybe they took a week to response or they response on second mail..

I didnt received it yet.


btw. thanks for review...

[fatguy1992]

I'll give them a week to response to this one.

[Computerville]

Well, I just got my hand on EAH4870 and I do got some problems.
Even with only 25% fan speed, it´s VERY NOISY.

I will see ya on MSN soon, anyways.

[BulldogPO]

This card is far from being quiet!
I did have to remove smaller fan´s power connector to get it to adequate sound level.

[B.E.E.F.]

Well, I just got my hand on EAH4870 and I do got some problems.
Even with only 25% fan speed, it´s VERY NOISY.

Yup. It is.

I replaced mine with a HR-03GT and a Noctua 92mm.

[fatguy1992]

This card is far from being quiet!
I did have to remove smaller fan´s power connector to get it to adequate sound level.

Yeah my first card was very quiet but my second card never slows down. So I took it out.

[drum_corp]

Yup. It is.

I replaced mine with a HR-03GT and a Noctua 92mm.

Same as me... Now it's cool and quite

[razno]

I got that cable. It just a bunch of resistor put together.
Second (small cooler) became noisier with it. It pick up some resonance with case on that speed so i disconect it and force it on 3 pin zalman fan regulator.
Well, i got quiet operation (manual set) so now temp rise and first fan start to spin faster in idle.. when small ones are in full 3000 rpm it not needed until 3d gameing...
When it happen in idle in 2 am while surfing on net its annoying because that fan can be prety loud.

So i decide to get accelero twin turbo and say goodbye to guarante...

I mounted it and its so quiet.. even on 100%.

So i set it on 1143 rpm and got next temp... frst one are idle, secon on 2h full furmarks stability load.

GPU 43 65

GPU DisPIO 42 64
GPU MEMIO 52 82.5
GPU SHadercore 42 68.5


Now, i cant remember what are temp on GS cooler, so if someone can test and tell me.
I am especialy concern about high difference in memio input...

Thanks.

[razno]

I tryed 100% but only 1-2 c lower result... still hitting 80...
So refiting is only option.

I get much better result after refiting..

At 90% on GS. That gave 1320 RPM..

Edit: when i say on GS i mean this golden sample card. On other 4870 with stock cooling 100% gave 2000 rpm.


GPU DisPIO 63
GPU MEMIO 72.5
GPU SHadercore 64

[fatguy1992]

Is that load?

Cause thats about my idle temps now - dam summer.

[razno]

Is that load?

Cause thats about my idle temps now - dam summer.

Load temp. Ambient here is around 23...

In idle closed case i have around:



45
50
43

So refiting only affected load...

Great thing... twin turbo...
Only thing that is loud now is stock cooler on e8500 under load. Anyway, vendetta2 is on the way...

[fatguy1992]

I might refit my cooler too.

So u put better thermal paste on?

[razno]

I might refit my cooler too.

So u put better thermal paste on?

Yeah, ocz freeze...

Needed some time to put away that hard paste from gpu what gainward is using when i removed that cooler...
Nail paint remover did job well..

[alcachofa]

Good news for those who plan to watercool their 4870 GS, EK has released 3 specific waterblocks that are compatible with all "non reference design" 4870 (512, 1024 Gb) from Gainward & Palit :

http://ekwaterblocks.com/shop/index....a9631aa5e9442b

[razno]

Update - dont use Acellero TT on this board.

Mine is dead because reinstall riva tuner set fan to outo and card failed on 2h of grid because overheating.
Now i can use win xp (vista fail) and grid dont works much longer than 1 lap.. furmatrk fail too... hw foulth and void guarantee...

[DemonEyez]

Hey you guys, does someone of you have a Gainward HD4870 1GB bios for me? I have two Palit Dual Sonic HD4870 1GB's with which I experience a same problem with both cards. I want to try and flash a Gainward bios in the card for some testing. Physically the Palit and Gainward Dual bios cards are exactly the same.

I'm having the following problem: My Palit HD4870's, while in turbo mode (775/1000), wil NOT run the stock speed of 1000MHz (or 4000MHz) for the GDDR5 chips. I get artifacts in 3Dmark06 and Crysis. Artifacts consist mainly of tiny black specs and sometimes a little flashing or exotic colours.
If I downclock the GDDR5 on card 1 to 975MHz it runs artifacts free and for card 2 if have to downclock to 950MHz. (mind you, I'm NOT running crossfire, still testing both cards separately)
The chips used are Qimonda and are rated 1ns, so I'm very surprised to see that I have this problem with two differents cards. In reviews and most user experiences I read that the cards do at leat 1075MHz.
The GPU cores on both cards clock like hell though. 870 for card 1 and 850 for card 2, with stock bios @ 1.263v
It's not heat related because during testing I set the fan to 80% which keeps temps below 50 degrees, and after having switched to watercooling the problem remains

Does anyone have an idea of what could be the problem. With both cards having these problems I get the feeling it's not a case of a faulty card. I'm guessing it's bios related or something else

[PaRn ssR]

nice mini-review