OCCT 3.1.0 shows HD4870/4890 design flaw - they can't handle the new GPU test !

[zerazax]

The 82A issue and so on seems to suggest an issue with OCP kicking in

[LordEC911]

The 82A issue and so on seems to suggest an issue with OCP kicking in

There is something strange, ie possibly unknown, still going on though since certain reference cards are not having problems, even some oc'ed cards.

[W1zzard]

:I have no idea. I'd guess the protection is in the BIOS, but that's just a guess.

nope it's configured via a resistor, no software way to control or disable ovp

[Tetedeiench]

I still dont get why this program crashing cards is a problem, so if applying AF stops the card from crashing then your set - just enable AF in your games and all woes are gone.

I'm not calling this thing a power virus or anything like that, but it is clear to me that this program is loading the card in certain way that no game would ever do - even if it had the best graphics in the world - because games aren't rendering a mostly static image with little geometry and no AF setting

Well, there are still a few problems :

• Take an old game, play it with your brand new card. Not alot of geometry. Simple shaders. Wow, black screen ? That could happen. It's worth a try. Any idea of a game or bench ? I'd say 3dMark2003 or 06... or any game of that era that uses simple shaders. Can't think of one at the moment.
• GPGPU applications. They may reach this value also. They don't have to wait for geometry there. ATI will have to lower the values also. Even if i don't think they'll reach this value, my limited experience in the field cannot answer that question for sure.
• You buy a card that boast it can do X, yet when you have it, it can't. I'd say it's a problem.

Now, right now, what ARE the implications of this problem ?

• Limited overclocking margin. You'll reach it quickly.
• You cannot run any 3d app you want on your card. The list is not that huge, i'd agree, it's not that bad. But morally, ethicaly, this comes into question. Especially since this list can grow in the future.

I have checked the logs, AMD downloaded OCCT yesterday. I guess they must not be taing the problem lightly, or at least, they're taking a look at it

It's true it is not a bug that will make everyone ditch their card, or make ATI/AMD recall their card, IMHO. But still, it's a flaw, a quirk in their design, and worth notice.

[LiquidReactor]

or Enough of this emotional bickering!

What I was doing here is to try to clear things up a little bit in all of this mess that you're stirring up. Like when the OP said that Vsync enabled does not make a difference with power consumption, I said that it is not what I have been experiencing.

I had a HIS 4850 1GB card that died on me after exactly 30 days of use. The display became permanently corrupted after decoding hi-def videos for a couple of hours on multiple screens, and I am wondering if it has anything to do with the cheap VRM's... Ever since I had an X1900XTX from the day it came out, I noticed that the VRM temperatures on ATI cards seemed much higher than those on Nvidia cards. I am geared towards buying either a 4870 1GB or a 4890, and am keenly seeking out this thread for knowing which brand/make is the best quality.

Heh just go for GTX 285 for $300 dell deal. Thats what Im thinking of doing after I play around with this 4870x2 and sell it.

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

I understand the concern many may have, but as shaders get more complex the problem will be less and less relevant, no? - I have played games like star wars jedi academy @ 1600x1200 with all the settings on high no problem (a great game) its old and has very simple geometry but my card has no problem with it as it barely loads the GPU to make it run great....

[LordEC911]

Well, there are still a few problems :

• Take an old game, play it with your brand new card. Not alot of geometry. Simple shaders. Wow, black screen ? That could happen. It's worth a try. Any idea of a game or bench ? I'd say 3dMark2003 or 06... or any game of that era that uses simple shaders. Can't think of one at the moment.
• GPGPU applications. They may reach this value also. They don't have to wait for geometry there. ATI will have to lower the values also. Even if i don't think they'll reach this value, my limited experience in the field cannot answer that question for sure.
• You buy a card that boast it can do X, yet when you have it, it can't. I'd say it's a problem.

Now, right now, what ARE the implications of this problem ?

• Limited overclocking margin. You'll reach it quickly.
• You cannot run any 3d app you want on your card. The list is not that huge, i'd agree, it's not that bad. But morally, ethicaly, this comes into question. Especially since this list can grow in the future.

I have checked the logs, AMD downloaded OCCT yesterday. I guess they must not be taing the problem lightly, or at least, they're taking a look at it

It's true it is not a bug that will make everyone ditch their card, or make ATI/AMD recall their card, IMHO. But still, it's a flaw, a quirk in their design, and worth notice.

I'm not so sure GPGPU apps would do the same.
Sure it will stress the shaders but not every part of the chip to the max, i.e. TMUs/ROPs.

The overclocking margin is only limited if you are soley going by OCCT. Most people are going to base their overclocks on their favorite games and benches, since that is where the extra performance might be needed.

What other 3d app can you not run based on the card failing OCCT?

[Tetedeiench]

nope it's configured via a resistor, no software way to control or disable ovp

Thanks for the precision So it's hard-wired... wow.

[mongoled]

I think one of the senior members here should assist Tetedeiench in contacting Macci. In this way, someone close to the community and who works for AMD can help colaborate with these findings.

Just me 2 cents..................

[LordEC911]

I think one of the senior members here should assist Tetedeiench in contacting Macci. In this way, someone close to the community and who works for AMD can help colaborate with these findings.

Just me 2 cents..................

AMD clearly already knows about the situation...

[Manicdan]

one question i keep asking and have no response on is, even though this is a potential problem, how does the performance compare to previous ATI cards, and the nvidia competitor cards. to generate that much heat and power, id expect this thing to be demolishing all others.

i think in the future they will go less with shaders, and more in other places, since these things are never being used to their max, they can probably better optimize their cores.

[LordEC911]

one question i keep asking and have no response on is, even though this is a potential problem, how does the performance compare to previous ATI cards, and the nvidia competitor cards. to generate that much heat and power, id expect this thing to be demolishing all others.

Largon concurred with the results I was seeing from other forum members.

Underclocked 4890(850/850, ~83FPS @ 1680x1050 on setting 3, is quite a bit faster than even a GTX285, ~53FPS @ 1680x1050 on setting 3.

Don't know how much weight the CPU has on the score but the Nvidia card has the CPU advantage as well...

[generics_user]

i don't see the issue here, it's a single app out of thousands and the first one able to show this "problem"

i think amd did this on purpose to prevent the card form burning in case someone loads the card with so simple shaders that each ALU is fully uitilized which is impossible under normal circumstandes

i never EVER saw my card pulling more than 70A

[Bo_Fox]

You do know that the vrms on these refrence 4870 and 4870x2s are the same as the ones on the GTX280/260 65nm right? The 55nm versions use cheaper vrms.

Oh yeah, the volterra ones.. but why such a limitation on the volterra vrms? I think the volterra ones are more expensive only because they offer more of a digital support (tweaking via RT/bios, etc..) and the 55nm NV cards do just fine with analog VRMs. 55nm GT200 cards have a higher reliability rate than 65nm cards that are more prone to failure, and a GTX285 can eat just as much power as a GTX280. I remember reading somewhere recently that the analog VRM's are actually better than the digital ones.

W1zzard, have you yet done a Vmod on disabling the OVP for 4870/4890 cards? Anybody? I'm curious if those reference cards can handle 100A or so without any problems. It just gives some peace of mind, since there are so many older games out there--literally thousands of them--that we never know which one could actually push the card to the same black-screen crashing scenario (of which we would probably just discard as "buggy" piece of software when it's really the hardware). Also, this issue is interesting, nonetheless.

Strange how RT reports it as 40A when GPU-Z reports it as 80A... which one do you think is true?

[largon]

Someone should grab a fireblanket and run this on a HD2900XT! That card has some craaazy vDDC current capabilities (6× VT1195SF).
=P

edit:

Strange how RT reports it as 40A when GPU-Z reports it as 80A... which one do you think is true?

That's what I was wondering too.
That 80A figure everyone is seeing does not make sense.

I don't get it, what are those amperage figures RT & GPU-Z display?
It can't be the total vDDC phase amperage, nor it can't be a single phase amperage.

And why does RT give totally different amperage figures than GPU-Z? GPU-Z recorded 83.30A while RT reported 48.79A for the same point of time when I had both GPU-Z and RT write a log during the same OCCT test run...

[Sparky]

Well, there are still a few problems :

• Take an old game, play it with your brand new card. Not alot of geometry. Simple shaders. Wow, black screen ? That could happen. It's worth a try. Any idea of a game or bench ? I'd say 3dMark2003 or 06... or any game of that era that uses simple shaders. Can't think of one at the moment.

I run a myriad of new and old games. No game comes close to stressing the card as much as this OCCT.

• GPGPU applications. They may reach this value also. They don't have to wait for geometry there. ATI will have to lower the values also. Even if i don't think they'll reach this value, my limited experience in the field cannot answer that question for sure.

I run Folding@Home on my 4870 all the time that I'm not playing games, ever since I got the card pretty much. GPU-Z reports only 45-ish amps or so, for 96-98% GPU load.

• You buy a card that boast it can do X, yet when you have it, it can't. I'd say it's a problem.

I don't know about that - so far, everything the card boasts it can do, it has done

Now, right now, what ARE the implications of this problem ?

• Limited overclocking margin. You'll reach it quickly.
• You cannot run any 3d app you want on your card. The list is not that huge, i'd agree, it's not that bad. But morally, ethicaly, this comes into question. Especially since this list can grow in the future.

I'm maxed out on my overclock that CCC will allow for. But we all know that overclocking is a gamble, so even if you couldn't OC the card more than 30MHz well you still got what you paid for.
Any 3D app does run. Only OCCT stress test doesn't, but OK...

I have checked the logs, AMD downloaded OCCT yesterday. I guess they must not be taing the problem lightly, or at least, they're taking a look at it

It's true it is not a bug that will make everyone ditch their card, or make ATI/AMD recall their card, IMHO. But still, it's a flaw, a quirk in their design, and worth notice.

And if it is a real issue then I'm sure they'll take a look at it. Seems they already are if they downloaded OCCT, which is a good thing.

[GAR]

So whats the final verdict here, bad hardware or bad software????

[Sparky]

I wouldn't call it "bad" just something to take note of. I'm thinking of it like the redline of a car's engine, sure you can run up to that, but you can't go over it. Keep it at redline too long you could break it. For whatever reason, OCCT is trying to push it over the redline, and that's a no go.

Doesn't really bother me too much.

[Hornet331]

I wouldn't call it "bad" just something to take note of. I'm thinking of it like the redline of a car's engine, sure you can run up to that, but you can't go over it. Keep it at redline too long you could break it. For whatever reason, OCCT is trying to push it over the redline, and that's a no go.

Doesn't really bother me too much.

Reassembles quite the fuzz about furmark back then, there where people that blew there VRMs with Furmark, yet there have to be a cases where this happens with games or GPGPU apps.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Largon concurred with the results I was seeing from other forum members.

Underclocked 4890(850/850, ~83FPS @ 1680x1050 on setting 3, is quite a bit faster than even a GTX285, ~53FPS @ 1680x1050 on setting 3.

Don't know how much weight the CPU has an the score but the Nvidia card has the CPU advantage as well...

My GTX280 pulls just short of 80A with the same settings with my core at 648mhz. This is much more stressful than furmark on my card. I was seeing under 60fps, btw. With a Q9650 at 4ghz.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to prove.

[LordEC911]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to prove.

I wasn't trying to prove a point, I was simply answering a question.
I can see where he might have been headed by asking that question though.

4890 is what ~10-15% behind a GTX285 with both at stock on average in "normal" games and apps?
Yet with OCCT, the 4890 is ~56% faster, using the 83FPS vs 53FPS.
However this app is programmed it stresses every part of the chip to the max, or at least quite a bit more than other "normal" apps/games.

Also none of the numbers, i.e. FPP, seem to add up.
4890@850mhz= 1.36Tflops
GTX285@1476mhz= 1.06Tflops(MADD+MUL), .708Tflops(MADD)

1.36/1.06= 1.28x greater (1/2 the FPS difference)
1.36/.708= 1.92x greater (amusing since it doesn't mean anything but = largons power draw increase)

Simply using max theorectical FPP is not an accurate way to estimate performance but in this case it seems to be related. Since this app has been said to use simple shaders to completely load the ALUs, you could come to the conclusion that the MUL is only being used ~45% of the time.

Basically, the way this app is programmed it is able to use the 4890's architecture to the max and seems to not fully load Nvidia cards, persay.

Edit- Anyone know what the stock volts for a GTX280 is under load? 1.3-1.4v?

[AMDDeathstar]

My GTX280 pulls just short of 80A with the same settings with my core at 648mhz. This is much more stressful than furmark on my card. I was seeing under 60fps, btw. With a Q9650 at 4ghz.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to prove.

Nvidia may have already put a safety in to prevent reaching peak Amperage
Instead of shutting down it restricts the the frames per second

Which would make the GPU stress test meaningless

[Olivon]

Edit- Anyone know what the stock volts for a GTX280 is under load? 1.3-1.4v?

I think it's 1.19V under load at stock volts, 1.11V at idle.
Link Here

[kiwi]

Nvidia may have already put a safety in to prevent reaching peak Amperage
Instead of shutting down it restricts the the frames per second

Which would make the GPU stress test meaningless

Good point but AMD should have put safety as well

[iddqd]

Thats pure BS.

There is no way you can damage a VIA/AMD/Intel CPU with any software/power virus.

Because unlike GPUs, CPUs and VRM designs are made to handle anything. Its all about GPU designers going the cheapskater way.

Well, that will be useful to tell to my friend who had to RMA 3 Wolfdales before he realized that he was damaging them with Orthos Prime. Granted, he was overclocking them, (and then using OP to test for errors...), the test would not have caused enough stress under stock settings. In any case, he can keep his 4.2 ghz overclock under normal operation (games, movies, etc..), while after an hour of OP, it will start BSODing until underclocked to 4.1. And so on.