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

[flopper]

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?

no, overclocking to 1ghz is the ambition, and it isnt as good as 5870 but the power within the card is enough even if 1ghz isnt reached.
Price/performance its really attractive for me.

[Cuthalu]

Is Asus using the reference design?

Most definately yes. In-house desings come later, because they seldom have enough time to complete them before the launch. Even using non-reference cooler seems to be too hard to achieve...

[zalbard]

Any news about unlocking so far? 5850 would be so amazing then!

[Bojamijams]

Any news about unlocking so far? 5850 would be so amazing then!

Not going to happen according to what others have said previously in thread

[cky2k6]

Unlocking doesn't seem likely at all, ati has learned from its 9800se/9500pro days, haha. No recent generations have had a single success story, and plenty of other cards were made from the high end chip with parts of the gpu locked, 4830 being the most recent.

[Xoulz]

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

1440 shaders @ > 1050/1300 for $250

Yeah!

... and then double that^^ for Crossfire @ $499.. OMG!

[Sparky]

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...

Not this furmark crap again

Not that I cared much, my reference 4870 had no issues with it even when overclocked

[Xoulz]

no, overclocking to 1ghz is the ambition, and it isnt as good as 5870 but the power within the card is enough even if 1ghz isnt reached.
Price/performance its really attractive for me.

Bah.. for $369 bucks..?

We are enthusiasts here, you already know that the 5850 is gimped to begin with..., why OC that?

Personally I'm grabbing the 5870 2GB and when the X2's come out, I'll be buying that too. Slap both on MSI's "BIG BANG"... I'm thinking this should be an utter retard gaming board! (5870 2gb + 5870x2 4gb on HYDRA)

[Farinorco]

What I find more surprising is the memory clocks. So you can overclock the memory in the HD5850 to the same clocks that the memory in the HD5870 can reach? Are they using the same memory chips or what? Why then the stock HD5850 uses that memory at 4000MHz when HD5870 at 4800MHz? Only because HD5850 is cheaper so it has to be slower?

Now, if both cards reach the same memory clocks (5200MHz), the HD5850 is becoming a more than interesting option. A core clock of 945MHz would compensate the lack of 10% of the SPs and TUs, giving the exact same shading and texturing power than a stock HD5870 but with more rasterizing (ROPs are the same so a higher clock would be more). So at this point (944/4800) it would be slightly better than a stock HD5870. It seems you can go further (1050/5200), allowing a HD5850 to have an ~10% performance more than a stock HD5870...

In fact, if both cards can overclock to the same clocks both core and memory, the only practical difference between the two is a 10% extra shading and texture units in the HD5870, hardly worth the difference in money (33%+ extra)

I would like to know if it's true that memories in HD5850 reach 5200MHz, the same that HD5870 ones.

[zalbard]

What I find more surprising is the memory clocks. So you can overclock the memory in the HD5850 to the same clocks that the memory in the HD5870 can reach? Are they using the same memory chips or what? Why then the stock HD5850 uses that memory at 4000MHz when HD5870 at 4800MHz? Only because HD5850 is cheaper so it has to be slower?

Now, if both cards reach the same memory clocks (5200MHz), the HD5850 is becoming a more than interesting option. A core clock of 945MHz would compensate the lack of 10% of the SPs and TUs, giving the exact same shading and texturing power than a stock HD5870 but with more rasterizing (ROPs are the same so a higher clock would be more). So at this point (944/4800) it would be slightly better than a stock HD5870. It seems you can go further (1050/5200), allowing a HD5850 to have an ~10% performance more than a stock HD5870...

In fact, if both cards can overclock to the same clocks both core and memory, the only practical difference between the two is a 10% extra shading and texture units in the HD5870, hardly worth the difference in money (33%+ extra)

I would like to know if it's true that memories in HD5850 reach 5200MHz, the same that HD5870 ones.

Yep, same.

[Jamesrt2004]

from anand:


consumes alot more power than at 4870, but wont crash

on TPU they have the device to show how much JUST the card takes at idle and load, it shows it zapping only about 5w more under load then a normal 4870, and just how they test all the cards i'm more leanient towards tpu's result

What I find more surprising is the memory clocks. So you can overclock the memory in the HD5850 to the same clocks that the memory in the HD5870 can reach? Are they using the same memory chips or what? Why then the stock HD5850 uses that memory at 4000MHz when HD5870 at 4800MHz? Only because HD5850 is cheaper so it has to be slower?

Now, if both cards reach the same memory clocks (5200MHz), the HD5850 is becoming a more than interesting option. A core clock of 945MHz would compensate the lack of 10% of the SPs and TUs, giving the exact same shading and texturing power than a stock HD5870 but with more rasterizing (ROPs are the same so a higher clock would be more). So at this point (944/4800) it would be slightly better than a stock HD5870. It seems you can go further (1050/5200), allowing a HD5850 to have an ~10% performance more than a stock HD5870...

In fact, if both cards can overclock to the same clocks both core and memory, the only practical difference between the two is a 10% extra shading and texture units in the HD5870, hardly worth the difference in money (33%+ extra)

I would like to know if it's true that memories in HD5850 reach 5200MHz, the same that HD5870 ones.

the 5870's memory is actually downclocked from either 5000/5200/5300 (one of those i forgot which though iirc, and the 5850 is actual 4000mhz memory chips

5870 should get a decent boost for memory just off the starting line anyway as its underclocked

[Farinorco]

That's exactly what I would expect, that they're using some faster chips on the more expensive model, but why the Asus claims about both overclocking to 5200MHz memory frequence then? If they're saying you can put the 4000MHz chips at 5200MHz, why then they don't say more than 5200MHz for the 5200MHz ones? On the other hand, zalbard seems to be saying than the chips are the same, or at least reach the same frequencies... what a mess

[Jamesrt2004]

That's exactly what I would expect, that they're using some faster chips on the more expensive model, but why the Asus claims about both overclocking to 5200MHz memory frequence then? If they're saying you can put the 4000MHz chips at 5200MHz, why then they don't say more than 5200MHz for the 5200MHz ones? On the other hand, zalbard seems to be saying than the chips are the same, or at least reach the same frequencies... what a mess

probably downclocked and undervolted maybe? that could explain and make asus' claims valid, and I believe that he meant the 5850 mem seems to consistently clock to STOCK 5870 mem's speeds and that the 5850 should have just realesed at 4800mhz or something

meh... lol off to the pub it makes more sense there


(ok i got bit about zalberd wrong just read over it, silly if thats true lol)

[Mechromancer]

from anand:



consumes alot more power than at 4870, but wont crash

How is it that Anand manages to get more power draw out of a 5870 than any other reviewer on the Internet?

[Hornet331]

How is it that Anand manages to get more power draw out of a 5870 than any other reviewer on the Internet?

By using occt and not a game or 3dmark.

Its quite obviouse.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643&p=26

scroll down a bit and you see quite a different load on games.

[jaredpace]

the 5850 is actual 4000mhz memory chips

Are you sure about this? Ati never runs memory at it's rated speeds.

[Sh1tyMcGee]

I dont think switching to Asus bios will give you voltage tweak right away, i tried this with the 4890's and it didnt work.

[damtachoa]

It gotta be great.

[zalbard]

On the other hand, zalbard seems to be saying than the chips are the same, or at least reach the same frequencies... what a mess

Pretty sure they are the same, yeah. Why would they develop 2 physically different chips? They just hardware block shader units and stuff.
According to ASUS they OC the same.
I don't know if they will unlock. We haven't had video cards with disabled units for a while. Maybe they improved their locking techniques.
And regarding the VRAM... I am surprised manufacturers use new GDDR5 for 5850 instead of using those from 4870 and 4890 since it is fitting clock speed wise.

[saaya]

i wonder what the perf diference from 5850 and 5870 is if they are clocked to the same speeds...
i think it wont really matter to have some parts of the gpu locked... think about it, doubling the logic got them a 40% boost, so having slightly less than twice the logic is obviously not going to be a big impact... its probably 90% clockspeeds that make the diference between 5850 and 5870...

[Jamesrt2004]

Are you sure about this? Ati never runs memory at it's rated speeds.

nah tbh read it at a couple places but tbh it could be wrong, i just wouldnt see the point in aying for 5300 odd chips and downclocking them to 4000?? meh

[saaya]

eithmmmm my guess is:

either there are no slower parts cause yields of these new chips is really good
or
amd buys so many of them that they pay about the same for one large batch of high bin parts as they would pay if theyd buy a mixed stock...
and using the same part always makes inventory management easier...

i dont think all memory will clock to 5200...
early 5850 samples will probably clock the same as 5870s since they are basically the same chips, but i wouldnt be surprised if 5850s later end up with the mem that doesnt clock that well, possibly even from other makers.

[villa1n]

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?

It would be awesome if you could do that, but I m not counting on it. I am *pending reviews* hoping that some decent oc'ing on non reference cooling is possible, and am looking at the pricepoint as a replacement for my 48701gb xfire. at 500$(x2 cards) its a pretty sweet deal for the theoretical performance, i guess we ll find out in a day or so( 29th) I know the 5870x2 should be close to the same price, but i just dont think it will be fitting in my case, looks like a monster! lol.

[Manicdan]

do you have to overvolt the memory to get it to those speeds? i thought i saw one review where they couldnt get 100mhz more out of them at stock?

[xlink]

Unlocking doesn't seem likely at all, ati has learned from its 9800se/9500pro days, haha. No recent generations have had a single success story, and plenty of other cards were made from the high end chip with parts of the gpu locked, 4830 being the most recent.

x800GTO