4870 Overclocking Thread

[dnottis]

Sounds to me like a power issue. Electronics that arent getting enough juice voltage/amperage wise tend to die when you shut them off and try to power them on again. Just to be on the safe side I would take your power supply and put it on a voltage tester or test with multimeter make sure you are within spec. Failing electronics are like light bulbs they never die when they are on they die when you hit that power button and give it that last little surge. It coulda been the cards but after 2 dying on you the same exact way I would check your power make sure its clean to be safe man.

power supply is fine. everything is in spec. checked with mm already, its a 1000 watt TT. Stuck in another GPU no problems. Its a problem with the GPUs.

I don't know why people are so afraid to call a spade a spade. There are alot of reports of HD4870s that just up and die. When yours finally does, then it will be a GPU issue. When it's someone elses, it must be something else. The HD4870 series while being a huge jump in engineering have its weakness.. sudden death.

I should mention for like the 5th time. The first card had issues from the start, that one dying was a blessing. The second one was a great overclocker, ran cool and really sucks to lose.

[M-XXXX]

I must agree with you (my dyed good week ago) and complitly without any reason (it was extremly well cooled, so the temp, were not a problem...

[dejanh]

Yeah, there definitely are a lot of reports of these cards dying...

4850's seem to be unaffected...that's why I am waiting to try the non-reference Palit/Gainward 4870 because they have completely redesigned the power. No digital VRMs any more, and it is a 4+2 phase power using analog VRMs with solid state caps.

[dnottis]

Yeah, there definitely are a lot of reports of these cards dying...

4850's seem to be unaffected...that's why I am waiting to try the non-reference Palit/Gainward 4870 because they have completely redesigned the power. No digital VRMs any more, and it is a 4+2 phase power using analog VRMs with solid state caps.

Thats why I think it's either the heat of the VRMs or the DDR5, I agree 4850s dont seem to be affected.

[dnottis]

I must agree with you (my dyed good week ago) and complitly without any reason (it was extremly well cooled, so the temp, were not a problem...

Not that I'm happy to hear that, but I'm sick of people blaming my other hardware for it dying. There is nothing wrong with anything else but the 4870s that died on me.

[dejanh]

Everyone always does that...when it is another person's system then it must be something else but the card, otherwise, it's the card. I believe you that it is the card. There are a lot of faulty HD4870 cards out there. Even NCIX techs told me that, in person after I had to RMA two cards because of artifacts and RMA one DOA card (total three faulty HD4870s). They said they are getting a lot of returns on the 4870s but whenever I mention it anywhere I get flamed with "go to NVIDIA then if you do not like ATI because HD4870 Rulz!"

But, whatever, people can say what they want. For my last attempt I am willing to try the non-reference Palit still (still high hopes ) and if that one too has problems then as far as I am concerned the 4870s will be officially junk...

[M-XXXX]

I got my Sapphire 4870 from RMA, and I got blue PCB. I've noticed higher temparatures (about 5C) about 10C lover VRM temp, and OC is similar- rams are clocking bit better (up to 1200mhz) They have changed elements of VRM (if I'm exact there are differents numbers on elements)
Have you noticed any other difference blue vs red PCB?

[dnottis]

Well I moved on, live and learn. The HD4870 is gone the NVidia GTX 260 is in.

This will be water cooled next week when the new block and accessories come in.

Bought it off the forums here already OC'd / flashed. Ran some COD4 today, saw less drops with smoke. Overall very happy with it so far. At these clock speeds it should be about as fast as a stock GTX 280 @ 1680 x 1050.

[insurgent]

If it's a widespread defect it should blow up on ATI/Manufacturer's faces soon enough, if it's user error like the bios flash issues it will be forgotten.

[xMrBunglex]

i wasn't trying to call anyone a liar or imply ignorance. if i had two cards die on me in a short period, i'd start to question my power supply too. same goes for other people. i hope your GTX260 lives a long life though.

I got my Sapphire 4870 from RMA, and I got blue PCB. I've noticed higher temparatures (about 5C) about 10C lover VRM temp, and OC is similar- rams are clocking bit better (up to 1200mhz) They have changed elements of VRM (if I'm exact there are differents numbers on elements)
Have you noticed any other difference blue vs red PCB?

just don't go screaming ATI sucks if you kill your card with such a high memory OC. not many (non-benchwhore) people around here would push their memory that high - especially since it won't benefit you at all.

[Unrealer]

I got my Sapphire 4870 from RMA, and I got blue PCB.

Did u find the limit of the core?

[STEvil]

Anyone seen a retail X2 die yet? I havent.

[M-XXXX]

just don't go screaming ATI sucks if you kill your card with such a high memory OC. not many (non-benchwhore) people around here would push their memory that high - especially since it won't benefit you at all.

Don't worry- my 24/7 clock for memory was 1000mhz, but memory was able to do 1165 at previous one... So this haven't kill it

Did u find the limit of the core?

About 855-860mhz!

[Blkout]

Nope, popped in another card no problems. Had my 8800GTX in there before the HD4870 for 2 years without a problem, all the same hardware. Honestly the HD4870 seems like the Wolfdale cores - they just can't play hard or they die. The first card had issues from the day I got it. Would just lose signal and shut down while the PC was still on. It finally died on me without overclocking or doing anything much with it.

The VRM temps are very high which I feel leads to a quick failure. Also the DDR5 runs hot on these cards. I had a fan blowing over them and the ram sinks still got pretty warm, much warmer than my 8800GTX ram sinks ever did. I believe the high temps of the ram and VRMs attribute to the high rate of failure with these cards. The failure rate for the HD4870 is pretty high if you look into it. The card wouldn't let the PC post (beep) so it wasn't even an issue with drivers or overclocks as the card boots up in 2d settings. Once I swapped for an X850XT PE PCI-e it fired right up. Tried a few things, spent the better part of two hours messing with it, nothing, no beeps, no post. Was fine last night and I was playing COD4 for about 2 hours.

What really bothers me is having to change GPU blocks out for the GTX 260. I just rebuilt the water cooling setup about 2 weeks ago. grr.

Anyone looking to buy an HD4870 - really consider the reliability factor with these cards. Might be better to stick with HD4850, lower VRM heat and DDR3 seem to be a better bet.

I have to chalk it up to YOUR system as the problem. I'm not sure what you mean by Wolfdale's not able to play hard as my E8400 has been running at 4.2GHz for almost one year now without any issues. My overclocked 4870 never had any issues before I upgraded to my 4870x2 and it's no had no issues either.

Please stop spreading FUD on all the hardware forums because of your own mistakes. The 4870 has been reliable for everyone else.

[Blkout]

I'm inclined to think, the underpowered / overheated VRMs OR DDR5 are the culprit for the HD4870 deaths. These deaths aren't isolated, a quick google search turned up a bunch of folks with the "sudden death syndrome" of the HD4870s. Mine have each lasted about 3 weeks and always died while powering on. Never while pushing, benching or gaming which strikes me as strange.

Someone I know that understands more about electronics thinks it may be due to the heating / cooling of the card. While gaming the VRMs would reach 80+c, then shutting off my machine in an air conditioned room it would cool to about 70F. Its like having a computer run 24/7 for months, then shutting it off and having it not come back on again. The constant swing from very hot to very cold in my case may have been the death of them. Using all the same hardware I had my 8800GTX OC'd and water cooled for about 2 years without a single hiccup or failed boot.

The other possibility is the failure of DDR5. There are documented cases of degredation while overclocked. I know on both of my cards the ram got very hot even with airflow and heatsinks on them.

The HD4870 experience has been mixed. Some games ran great, others had some performance drops (COD4 with alot of smoke). After 2 failures I'm tossing in the towel however. I don't believe the HD4850 suffer the same fate because the VRMs don't get anywhere near as hot and their use of DDR3.

The other deaths mentioned here aren't any different that many of the other reported deaths. They just up and die.

You're just full of FUD aren't you? None of this nonsense you posted is even close to truth or has any facts to back it up. It's nothing more than speculation based on your own bad experiences with your self-modified cards. 99% of others are enjoying their 4870's without issues and yet you continue to try preach to everyone about how unreliable the 4870's are.

You even went so far as to create a whole thread asking how many people had their 4870's die, and in one week's time, you've had ZERO replies.

Enough already!

[xMrBunglex]

pwnt

[dnottis]

You're just full of FUD aren't you? None of this nonsense you posted is even close to truth or has any facts to back it up. It's nothing more than speculation based on your own bad experiences with your self-modified cards. 99% of others are enjoying their 4870's without issues and yet you continue to try preach to everyone about how unreliable the 4870's are.

You even went so far as to create a whole thread asking how many people had their 4870's die, and in one week's time, you've had ZERO replies.

Enough already!

Grow up already.

In like an 8 second google search -

http://www.techenclave.com/graphic-c...hs-114126.html
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=427
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=431
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=407
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=410
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ight=4870+dead
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...r-supply-ample
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...ck-screen-boot



Now imagime I really gave half a about you or your reply and spent some time really digging.

[insurgent]

A lot of those are from bad bios flashes.. by the users. You yourself flashed a non-reference bios on your card and now you're blaming ATI? O_o

[MomijiTMO]

Well I'm mainly in the WC side of things and I saw how much fricken effort dnottis put into trying to cool his [defect] card. He seriously had one fan just on the digital voltage regulators and a couple of fans elsewhere. I just think some cards suck.

But ahhh this isn't the GTX260 thread and I don't want to see you being banned like GAR when you start flame baiting people . [last response was good though ]

[insurgent]

Of course there are bad cards, it happens to all companies, sadly it is being blown out of proportion by people running these cards out of spec. How many of the complaints turned out to be bad bios flashes? The majority afaik. If the cards are defective then ATI or whatever company is responsible should answer for it, but don't complain when you f*cked it up yourself.

[flopper]

Well some people are often neglible.

My 4870 runs like hell, hot and fast.
Sexy too.

I remember a lot of early 8800GT broke down.
Then the latest havoc of chipsets and laptops, should I continue?
Ah yes drivers for Vista.
Boy those Nvidias guys with their whoop ass can hell freeeze over attitude?

I keep my sexycard and add another one down the road for some slick crossfire ultimate action.
Now, ati truly needs to make a heroic figure a toy to buy to add on the top of my screen.
So it can look down on the sheer godess of love.

[MomijiTMO]

Of course. DFI sucks big time on mobos. It's normal. WTH I like this card .

If you oc your cpu and it dies from excessive voltage you go, "I borked it". The same applies to gpus .

I myself will be getting a GTX260 because the damn thing is actually cheaper down here. As far as I'm concerned the 4870 slays the other card on stock settings but on max oc, they are very close. I do hear AA and AF is better on the AMD card but I so don't care.

[insurgent]

Buy it already so we can have the 4870/260 max OC comparison that's been delayed forever

[dnottis]

A lot of those are from bad bios flashes.. by the users. You yourself flashed a non-reference bios on your card and now you're blaming ATI? O_o

Actually I flashed an ASUS HD4870 with the ASUS HD4870 TOP bios - same card, same BIOS just different speeds and mine was water cooled the entire time. So don't go giving me this non reference bs. They are the same card, except mine was cooled better for it's entire life span.

I'm blaming ATI for the cards randomly dying, the fact that I flashed it with a legit ASUS bios with faster stock speeds has nothing to do with it - that was weeks ago that I flashed it, wasn't even recent. I didn't rip it myself and hose it like the others did with the small size. The HIS HD4870 I had never ran furmark more than 30 seconds without crashing. It was never overclocked, never flashed and it also died. So explain that then?

BTW the GTX 260 is working wonderfully. I actually prefer ATI cards, I have an X850 XT PE and HD3870 in my other machines. I loved the HD4870 they were great cards until they died.

[insurgent]

I'd agree if you had a TOP card, you didn't. It's a different bios for a different model but whatever, it's always easier to point fingers.