Asus Voltage Tweaks Radeon HD 5870 To A 38% Performance Boost

[tombman]

1Ghz FURMARK 1 hour stable?

[FischOderAal]

Who cares about furmark? At least I don't. This program does not represent a real world scenario.

[orangekiwii]

I want an Asus voltage tweaked 5870x2 4gb

Thats my next card :P

[Jamesrt2004]

aw man thats insane!

makes you wonder what 5890 will be

[tombman]

Who cares about furmark? At least I don't. This program does not represent a real world scenario.

It IS a real world test. If the card fails, the overclock means NOTHING.
Hardware has to be stable no matter what software stresses it- else it is unstable and worthless...

[Splave]

It IS a real world test. If the card fails, the overclock means NOTHING.
Hardware has to be stable no matter what software stresses it- else it is unstable and worthless...

the strain an hour of furmark would put on your card is not sure if you know but your card has to be pretty stable to run vantage

[saaya]

lol the hothardware guys sound like they have no idea what windows voltage tweaking is...

[flopper]

It IS a real world test. If the card fails, the overclock means NOTHING.
Hardware has to be stable no matter what software stresses it- else it is unstable and worthless...

bull.
the videocard isnt built to be put into such harsh enviroment.
Furmark is a great way to brake the card.
I seen so many silly statements of stable stuff, some say for cpu that some programs are so great and when stable there, dang folding makes it crash.

Its worthless to set the card under furmark, as it isnt near any contexts the card normally operates under.
I guess you rma it even when its your own fault if it breakes?

Its just a belief people have about a particular testing enviroment, and furmark, isnt needed to run and frankly is dangerous as people might wanna try it and might ruin their new card.

[informal]

bull.
the videocard isnt built to be put into such harsh enviroment.
Furmark is a great way to brake the card.
I seen so many silly statements of stable stuff, some say for cpu that some programs are so great and when stable there, dang folding makes it crash.

Its worthless to set the card under furmark, as it isnt near any contexts the card normally operates under.
I guess you rma it even when its your own fault if it breakes?

Its just a belief people have about a particular testing enviroment, and furmark, isnt needed to run and frankly is dangerous as people might wanna try it and might ruin their new card.

Some good points there

[orangekiwii]

People aren't saying furmark is the endallbeall of gpu stability.

But seriously... if it fails furmark thats the gpu designers fault. It should run software thrown at it... no software should be able to physically break a hardware facet of the gpu. If it does... thats incompetence of the designers.

Just because its not "normal" or standard doesn't mean its not right... folding by all means isn't a standard practice... neither is prime95.... or linpack...

Software... should not BREAK hardware... if hardware BREAKS from software... thats the hardwares fault not the softwares

[deeperblue]

You guys should do your homework better.

the 5870/5850 are constantly monitoring the voltages regulators and downclock if they are close to their limits. Also the memory controller has error correction and with too high clocks and too many errors the bandwidth will just decrease due to retransmissions.

Due to the voltage monitoring there will be no software anymore that can put to much load on the regulators!

[Eastcoasthandle]

bull.
the videocard isnt built to be put into such harsh enviroment.
Furmark is a great way to brake the card.
I seen so many silly statements of stable stuff, some say for cpu that some programs are so great and when stable there, dang folding makes it crash.

Its worthless to set the card under furmark, as it isnt near any contexts the card normally operates under.
I guess you rma it even when its your own fault if it breakes?

Its just a belief people have about a particular testing enviroment, and furmark, isnt needed to run and frankly is dangerous as people might wanna try it and might ruin their new card.

You guys should do your homework better.

the 5870/5850 are constantly monitoring the voltages regulators and downclock if they are close to their limits. Also the memory controller has error correction and with too high clocks and too many errors the bandwidth will just decrease due to retransmissions.

Due to the voltage monitoring there will be no software anymore that can put to much load on the regulators!

Good points. We don't have to use these type of programs anymore.

[jaredpace]

You guys should do your homework better.

the 5870/5850 are constantly monitoring the voltages regulators and downclock if they are close to their limits. Also the memory controller has error correction and with too high clocks and too many errors the bandwidth will just decrease due to retransmissions.

Due to the voltage monitoring there will be no software anymore that can put to much load on the regulators!

Initial OCCT & Furmark crashes were due to overheating VRMS in 4xxx series. It's been circumvented on the hardware level now for the 5xxx.

[Manicdan]

i concur, 58xx will not let you crash and burn under furmark, but i think it still uses some crazy power consumption. i think the anandtech review benched it, and showed power consumption. let me look

[FischOderAal]

I seen so many silly statements of stable stuff, some say for cpu that some programs are so great and when stable there, dang folding makes it crash.

Exactly! There were times when I overclocked Prime didn't have a problem at all and it ran without a hassle 12 hours straight but Firefox kept crashing all the time.

But seriously... if it fails furmark thats the gpu designers fault. It should run software thrown at it... no software should be able to physically break a hardware facet of the gpu. If it does... thats incompetence of the designers.

That's a good point as well. But luckily it seems like AMD did think about it this time

[Manicdan]

from anand:

Moving on to load power, we are using the latest version of the OCCT stress testing tool, as we have found that it creates the largest load out of any of the games and programs we have. As we stated in our look at Cypress’ power capabilities, OCCT is being actively throttled by AMD’s drivers on the 4000 and 3000 series hardware. So while this is the largest load we can generate on those cards, it’s not quite the largest load they could ever experience. For the 5000 series, any throttling would be done by the GPU’s own sensors, and only if the VRMs start to overload.

consumes alot more power than at 4870, but wont crash

[Eastcoasthandle]

I would like to see if the PCB layout of the Asus version is different from the reference version.

[Olivon]

Reference 5850 + Asus Bios + smart doctor = $$$$

1440 shaders @ > 1050/1300 for $250

+ non reference cooling ^^

^Agreed Guyz

It seems that HD5850 will be my future card

[Eastcoasthandle]

Does anyone have pics of the PCB layout of the Asus Card?

[Bojamijams]

Wait you guys seem to be under the impression that the 5850 has the extra horsepower disabled in the bios... you're sure you can make a 5850 into a 5870?

[FischOderAal]

Wait you guys seem to be under the impression that the 5850 has the extra horsepower disabled in the bios... you're sure you can make a 5850 into a 5870?

Who knows. That would be great, but I doubt it. I bought a 5850 because I don't buy anything that costs way more than 200 Euro. I will rebuild my rig nearly form ground up for 580 Euro incl shipping (GFX, RAM, Mainboard, CPU).
I think the HD5850 will work great until more vRAM is needed. Therefore I don't feel like spending 100 Euro more on a HD-5870

[gOJDO]

Is Asus using the reference design? My Sapphire 5870's are arriving in Monday, so I was wondering if I can use the Asus tool after I change the Sapphire with an Asus firmware...
BTW, anybody owns the Asus 5870? If so, please send me the Asus firmware...

[Lightman]

Wait you guys seem to be under the impression that the 5850 has the extra horsepower disabled in the bios... you're sure you can make a 5850 into a 5870?

I think that AMD making HD5850 on a different PCB took care about locking that unlocking

[LordEC911]

I think that AMD making HD5850 on a different PCB took care about locking that unlocking

PCB would have nothing to do with it, at least in this case.
The shaders/TMUs are physically disabled on the silicon, so you will not be able to "unlock" them.

Edit- Also the parts that are disabled are either defective or cannot meet the bin requirements, clockspeed/TDP/voltage.

[Stukov]

It IS a real world test. If the card fails, the overclock means NOTHING.
Hardware has to be stable no matter what software stresses it- else it is unstable and worthless...

Furmark stresses your video card AND power supply beyond any actually used program.

I know that some in the "overclocking underground" are all about getting their system to run 300 hours straight while the system rubs its tummy and pats its head, in order to declare it stable...

While the rest of us get whatever we are using stable in the programs we actually use, not some mythical benchmarking tool.

Seriously if something isn't 100% stable in Furmark but has no problem in any games you have ever run or tested, then what is the point? The point of overclocking isn't just for bragging rights, I know it may seem like strange thought to some...but some of us use it to actually get more performance in the programs/games we use...