My 4870 has arrived!

[GoldenTiger]

Overclocking, pics, & benches coming late tonight... already up to 790 core/4200 ram (stock is 750 core/3600 ram) 100% rock-solid in Crysis. Overdrive won't allow more than 790 core or 4400 RAM, so I'm hoping another solution presents itself shortly. In the meantime, here's my H thread while I sort through things and load up my games. Already I am very impressed and am seeing GTX 280-level performance.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1319500

[Dragy2k]

god i hate you ....lol ......i gotta wait few days on mine arriving so i can plop this into my DS5 x38.......good luck keep the pics coming....wots ut temps like ?

[halo112358]

Mine's here as well, dragged all the sliders to max in overdrive - looking for another OC program, lol.

[iTravis]

Overclocking, pics, & benches coming late tonight... already up to 790 core/4200 ram (stock is 750 core/3600 ram) 100% rock-solid in Crysis. Overdrive won't allow more than 790 core or 4400 RAM, so I'm hoping another solution presents itself shortly. In the meantime, here's my H thread while I sort through things and load up my games. Already I am very impressed and am seeing GTX 280-level performance.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1319500

You're lucky bas***. jk I cant wait to get my hand on this thing. Btw, did you figure it out what after market cooling you're gonna use for your HD4870 yet?

[purecain]

golden tiger, the reason that the overdrive options are greyed out are because you need to click on the key top left to unlock the overdrive settings... theres a disclaimer you agree to when this happens...
i was lmao when i read that you thought it was a version that couldnt be used and that it was 'automatic'... its still making me chuckle now dude... read my thread if you havnt already, theres some direction for you to mod your bios fan speed and core ect.... wizard and a few xs members have made this possible...

[GoldenTiger]

Purecain, thank you... I figured out the key thing :p , I figured it would just let you clock instead of being greyed out which usually means something is wrong .

I read the thread you have by searching your post history... upped the volts in BIOS to 1.323 (does this actually work?), and clocks from my previous 790core/1100ram to 820core/1125ram, while modifying the fan profile and all seems good so far .

[purecain]

very good... have you been able to get by the 790mhz core... ?
wizard added support for our card over the last couple of days as far as i know, whats your core at dude... dieing to know?
and the settings we add are converted into hex... the bios for the 4850 had 700-750 locked out although i think they managed a work around for that one aswell, they have succeeded in overclocking right up to 900mhz on water... so it should be entirely possible on air for us... our cards would rivel the gtx280 with the 30% boost in core speed...

[Jowy Atreides]

Thanks!

I would be interested to see how re-seating the heatsink affects temps

[Dragy2k]

looking good guys ....makin me wish minw would hurry up !

[slideways666]

bit off topic-- but have you guys seen any word on when the 1 gig 4870 is going to come out? Im running a triplehead2go with 3 monitors @ 3840x1024 so im thinking that extra ram might help a little.. Everyone talked about the 1 gig before it came out- -then it just sort of disappeared..

[Hockster]

From what I've read the general consensus is that because ATi has such a good memory controller 1GB probably won't make much difference.

[jimmyz]

From what I've read the general consensus is that because ATi has such a good memory controller 1GB probably won't make much difference.

I agree, also bear in mind some of the partner solutions that will have 1GB will use GDDR3 due to cost of GDDR5. I would wait and see benches etc, before jumping.

[Gir92]

I still think AMDs decision to go with 256 bit/512mb GDDR5 was a much smarter and cost effective decision than nVidias 512 bit/1gig GDDR3.

Good move AMD

[GoldenTiger]

very good... have you been able to get by the 790mhz core... ?

I have now ! Working on higher (I've done 870 stable with 4500 RAM but heat is a killer!)

100% stable, ~25% performance increase in Crysis, and a huge COD4 boost + over 790/4000 . Not sure why I'm seeing a non-linear performance increase for a 10% memory clock increase and 6.3% core clock increase, like a bottleneck was alleviated somewhere, but I'm seeing the same thing in World In Conflict too... not quite as much but more than a linear increase.





At these speeds:


At 790/4000 I got 20.2 FPS at identical settings.




World In Conflict:

790/4200:

Average fps: 29
Min fps: 17
Max fps: 45



840/4400:

World In Conflict DX10 *MAXIMUM* settings for everything, plus 16x AF and 4x AA *with* transparency AA (8x in control panel, 4x set ingame like above), third run out of four tested (840core/4400ram):






Really odd... that's a 31.1% increase in max FPS in World In Conflict (bench is capped at 60FPS it seems), 13.8% in average, and ~5.9% in minimum (negligible in actuality).

[Laykun]

Hey GT, I just got my 4870 last night and haven't had much to time to play with it. What's the maximum voltage you were able to achieve through BIOS modification. Also are you using a hard mod as well?

[GoldenTiger]

Hey GT, I just got my 4870 last night and haven't had much to time to play with it. What's the maximum voltage you were able to achieve through BIOS modification. Also are you using a hard mod as well?

It's bone stock... I don't own a multimeter, so I couldn't try a hard mod if I wanted to . I set the voltage in BIOS to 1.29 (default reads 1.263), but I don't know if it actually does anything. Fan is set to use a look-up table, settings are:

THRESHOLD (C)/FAN SPEED %
---------------------------
30/45
48/54
80/70
90/80
93/90
95, 97, 100/100

Rest is left at default. All clock speed fields are filled in with 840core 1100mem, 1.29v. Since my card idles at about 45c, setting the 48c threshold makes it only spin up if I launch something 3D, staying at 45 at all other times including idle (hence why the first temperature is so low). The others are just there for safety in case of a disaster really .

NOTE: I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY AND MAKE NO WARRANTY FOR ANY ATTEMPTED FLASHING BASED ON THE SETTINGS I AM USING CONTAINED HEREIN. ALL MODIFICATIONS TO THE BIOS ARE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK.

[Sparky]

Oh man I want one of these cards... 'tis a shame I have college bills to pay in a month!

[GoldenTiger]

COD4 on the Creek map, 4x AA, 16x AF, MSAA Transparency AA, 1680x1050 max ingame settings, set to 125 maximum FPS in console:

Frames  Time(ms) Min     Max    Avg.
12933	120000	 54	128	107.775
12020	120000	 64	128	100.167
10635	120000	 64	126	88.625

I made sure to get a smoke grenade in the mix each time I died, that's what hurt the minimums so much... except for smokes I never see it go below 75ish when I'm watching the FRAPS display. I tried forcing 8x AA in the control panel (CCC) but it isn't taking, only if I set it to application-controlled and allow COD4 to use its in-game max of 4x does it work, same with AF. Not sure why, anyone have a solution? I'd like to try it with a higher level of AA for comparison purposes.

Radeon 4870 set to 840core/4400ram.

[kryptobs2000]

hmm, I'm pretty sure it works for me in the CCC with COD4. I have it set to 4x with the Narrow Tent Method (no specific reason why I chose that). And I have it turned off in the game. I haven't patched the game at all though since I recently reformated, I only installed it to check out this card. I also haven't tried any other Anti Aliasing modes w/it.

[iTravis]

Mine just arrived today as well, can't wait to play with it tonight. Btw, what driver you're currently using and what would you recommend? I might just try the fan hot fix at first to lower the temp b4 OCing it any further.

[Shrekogre]

I have now ! Working on higher (I've done 870 stable with 4500 RAM but heat is a killer!)

100% stable, ~25% performance increase in Crysis, and a huge COD4 boost + over 790/4000 . Not sure why I'm seeing a non-linear performance increase for a 10% memory clock increase and 6.3% core clock increase, like a bottleneck was alleviated somewhere, but I'm seeing the same thing in World In Conflict too... not quite as much but more than a linear increase.

how did u get it over 790?

[nukec]

great results out there!

[AliG]

how did u get it over 790?

bios modding, it easy enough to do, the hard part really is the vmoding (risky is a better word than hard, not difficult just voids your warranty and could destroy your card)

[gurusan]

So has anyone else edited the 4870 voltages in the BIOS and confirmed an actual change with a DMM?

[strange|ife]

this sucks seeing everyone with shiny new 4870's

i placed my order today, but had to go with NCIXUS(sold out everywhere but them on HIScard) so it could take a while, especially with holiday. =/

hope its not pony express, like the two G0's i got from them