RBE 1.13 is out and allows checksum correct flash.

[drizzt5]

Is the lowest you get any power savings 500? Or does it not matter at all how low you make it :/ ? Nice findings though.

[Lightman]

Is the lowest you get any power savings 500? Or does it not matter at all how low you make it :/ ? Nice findings though.

500 is default for 2D on almost every HD4870, but you can set any reasonable value you want. MSI had BIOS with 2D set at 170MHz, but after my experiments I can't see a point in lowering GPU clock below default 2D.

Next I will try with lowering GPU voltages for 2D mode using RBE. That will unfortunately need to wait till Sunday .

[mr2sw21]

sorry to ask where can I find my bios file? Thanks,

[awdrifter]

Download GPU-Z and click on the icon next to the BIOS Version line, it'll save a copy of your BIOS.

[STaRGaZeR]

Today I was playing with my 4870 512MB card trying to lower power consumption for media tasks, internet browsing and few things surprised me!

1. Lowering 2D GPU clock below 500MHz doesn't give much saving!
2. Lowering memory clock gives huge savings!!

My measurements (read from KillAWatt after 30 minutes browsing internet thus system warmed up ):
500GPU - 1025MEM = 251-255Watt
500GPU - 465MEM = 217-221Watt
170GPU - 465MEM = 216-220Watt

Looks like PowerPlay Clock Gating is working really well! On the other hand I can't see any power savings enabled or implemented for memory system.

BTW readouts were done on my system form sig underclocked to 1.6GHzCPU/2.2GHzNB on all cores and 1.1VCPU/1.25VNB.
Card flashed with ASUS TOP BIOS and tested under Vista X64 using BETA Cat. 8.8!

My conclusion is that we don't need to edit 2D GPU clocks in BIOS for power savings, we need to edit Memory clocks!
Now, anyone seen BIOS which doesn't have that annoying flickering when flashed with different 2D/3D memory clocks??

Ahh man I tested almost the same as you when I saw the 4870X2 having a power consumption comparable to the 4870. Lowering mem speed to 200Mhz (lowest stable) lowered 30-35W friggin watts. Problem? Each time mem speed changes the image flickers, so changing it to lower values at idle is not an option. It's inherent to GDDR5 chips, so it can't be fixed by a BIOS update.

You would ask why?
Why both 4870X2 and 4850 have the 'complete' PowerPlay (it lowers core/mem speed and core voltage) and the 4870 not (only core speed/voltage, and voltage only with newer BIOS)? Why didn't they implement mem speed change too in the 4870 to lower its horrible power consumption at idle? The flicker would only occur when a 3D app is launched, so why? Ahh questions questions. My bet is the following:

Reading early 4850/70 reviews you noticed they said both cards have a feature that detects core load and changes between 2D/3D speed acordingly right? Try lowering your 2D mem clocks in BIOS. You'll notice that the card is constantly changing between 2D/3D clocks when an application or video is loaded or closed, i.e. ATITool or simply watching a video, and flickering like hell. That happens because that system is very sensitive and kicks in when it detects a load peak, even if it's very short in time, and we know that flicker is unnaceptable. So ATI was forced to left the GDDR5 mem present on the 4870 fixed at 3D speeds to prevent that.
But what about the 4870X2? It has proper 2D/3D mem clocks. Then what happened there? The answer is easy: in some reviews (TPU for example) you can read ATI disabled that system, and now the card is at 3D speeds only when a 3D intensive application is running in full screen. By disabling the 4850/70 system and implementing this new one ATI has been able to reduce flickering to only when firing up and closing a game because it completely ignores the load peaks caused by some actions at idle, which is acceptable. So the mem speed can now be changed and power consumption lowered.

I think ATI shooted themselves in the foot with that GPU load sensor, and I bet we won't see it in the next generation of cards. And if we end seeing it, power consumption of GDDR5 will remain sky high.

[mr2sw21]

Download GPU-Z and click on the icon next to the BIOS Version line, it'll save a copy of your BIOS.

I tried and I saved it to my desktop but it cannot load the bios and it said it is a invalid file, something like that. also if I done with editing where should I save the file?

[awdrifter]

Just noticed you have a 4870, IIRC because it's using GDDR5, the bios is bigger, so you'll need to do something else. Sorry, I don't know the details. Hopefully someone else can help you.

[Dirton]

Beat this! 6.8A in IDLE.

[LuxZg]

Beat this! 6.8A in IDLE.

Nice man! Could you post details about this mod? There is a similar discussion about this on TPU forums, lowering power consumption (of a complete system) from 139W to 94W in idle.. but seems that 6A is even lower than that!

[Caveman787]

Adding on to LuxZg 's quesions is that a 4870 or 4850 Dirton?

[Barr3l Rid3r]

It works fine, but I've seen a problem here, I can have upper limits in overdrive if I don't touch the voltage settings, but it doesn't work if I set 1.20V in VGPU (yes it gives me an 0,1V increase)

[mr2sw21]

so has any one tried on 4870? how to get the bios?

[LuxZg]

Adding on to LuxZg 's quesions is that a 4870 or 4850 Dirton?

I think it's 4870, as I don't think that 4850's have VRM temperatures/amperage shown in GPU-Z. At least one screenshot I've seen didn't have it..
EDIT: Stumbeled on him in other thread - Dirton:"Hi, at last I've voltmoded my 4870."

So it's 4870, unless he has several cards

EDIT: If you jump to TPU thread you'll notice similar results starting to get posted. With new ATi Tray Tools beta v1.5.8.1250, and a BIOS that has lower voltages enabled (either "-105" version that's floating around, or one tweaked with RBE 1.13), you can change all options on the fly without using multiple tools. I still don't have low-volt bios on my card, but have made two ATT profiles with different clocks & fan profiles, and works like a charm. Others have confirmed that with low-volt tweak in BIOS, you can create one profile for 2D (let's say 160core/250mem/1,083V/25% fan) and another for 3D (800core/1100mem/1,263V/50% fan). I've actualy made mine with two different auto-fan settings

But once more - you'll have to tweak your bios with RBE 1.13 (or 1.14 once it gets out) to solve lowering voltages, and "spin-up bug" since you won't be able to lower voltage with reference "-100" BIOS, and if you use automatic fan profiles you'll expirience spinups to 84% every now and than..

To me, seems like RBE+ATT will be a very good solution, both for low-2D consumprion, and high-3D overclocks, and very soon indeed I'll just wait for RBE 1.14 first

[steve30x]

Ive used the latest version of GPUZ to save my bios to desktop and edit it. BTW is there a way to allow me to save my memory oc of 1090 to the bios? RBE gives me a checksum error when I try to save the oc.

[Dirton]

LuxZg
4870 with stock cooling without vmod. It's really nothing special, low clocks + 1.103v in IDLE. The diamond BIOS seem to be less stable when I try lowering memory clocks, so I use original (club3d) BIOS instead.
Thanks to Ray Adams and he's ATT there is no need in having limits upped in CCC, ATT does the job just perfect.

[LuxZg]

LuxZg
4870 with stock cooling without vmod. It's really nothing special, low clocks + 1.103v in IDLE. The diamond BIOS seem to be less stable when I try lowering memory clocks, so I use original (club3d) BIOS instead.
Thanks to Ray Adams and he's ATT there is no need in having limits upped in CCC, ATT does the job just perfect.

Tnx for confirmation Btw, your card is Club3D and you've enabled low voltage with RBE 1.13 on stock Club3D bios? Just asking, cos I have the same card

[jimmyz]

so has any one tried on 4870? how to get the bios?

you need to make sure you are using the latest GPU-Z and that the file saved is 128k

[mr2sw21]

you need to make sure you are using the latest GPU-Z and that the file saved is 128k

I already has the 2.7 version of GPUZ but when it save on my desktop as a bin file and I tried to load to the rbe program and it just keep saying it is not a valid file and it is 128k


well some how I got the bios and I got the rom file but when I use winflash this is what it said

[Dirton]

LuxZg
Yes, you were absolutely right.
By the way Diamond BIOS doesn't want to be tweaked by RBE at all.

[LuxZg]

LuxZg
Yes, you were absolutely right.
By the way Diamond BIOS doesn't want to be tweaked by RBE at all.

Thanks man Seems like I'm soon off to do some work on my card
@Diamon BIOS - I know, neither ASUS TOP nor Diamond XOC BIOS allow modding in RBE 1.13 Already requested it for a next version, so hopefully..

[BAGZZlash]

LuxZg
Yes, you were absolutely right.
By the way Diamond BIOS doesn't want to be tweaked by RBE at all.

Sorry, didn't follow it all. What BIOS doesn't want to be tweaked by RBE?

[LuxZg]

Sorry, didn't follow it all. What BIOS doesn't want to be tweaked by RBE?

ASUS TOP bios, and Diamond XOC. Both are on TechPowerUp BIOS repository, you'll notice them by higher clocks and different version.

They can be modified, but you can't "infuse" them with low-voltage patch, since they are not -100 version so that whole "one click" is greyed out.

I've written it somewhere, if you could make these two tweak options separate, one for "-100" to "-RBE" version, and other separate for "lower voltage".

If you need more info, just yell anywhere, I read pretty much all importat threads connected to 4870 and tools like RBE

[BAGZZlash]

If you need more info, just yell anywhere, I read pretty much all importat threads connected to 4870 and tools like RBE

Thanks man, I appreciate that.
The thing is that I had a -100 and a -105 BIOS to compare them. They are exactly the same, except for a few bytes that are relevant for powerplay and some other stuff I was able to figure out. I don't know more exactly what these bytes are used for. Everything RBE does is checking if the bytes at those positions are at certaint values and if, it can be sure it has a valid -100 BIOS. If even one bit of even one of the bytes differs, the option in RBE is greyed out for safety reasons. I got someone who was willing to test an ASUS Top-BIOS where the new values were written to the positions forcely, and it didn't make any noticable effect. As long as I don't know more about what those bytes do, RBE will run it "safety first", sorry...

[LuxZg]

Ok, sounds logical, tnx for explanation
Ofcourse I'd rather have safety, than extra 10-20MHz overclock that ASUS allegedly gives.. For me it wasn't that much of a problem anyway, since RBE allows enough tweaks of the stock BIOS to be very satisfied

[mr2sw21]

I already has the 2.7 version of GPUZ but when it save on my desktop as a bin file and I tried to load to the rbe program and it just keep saying it is not a valid file and it is 128k


well some how I got the bios and I got the rom file but when I use winflash this is what it said

can anyone help I still can't flash my bios? What did I do wrong?