More fun with 3870X2 - LN2 first day

[T_M]

Some of you will have been following the progress of my ghetto mounting plate for running two pots on one 3870X2 here:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=176230

Well, after some intital hurdles and troubleshooting, i finally pulled some results, and pretty decent ones at that
While the scores are "low" for what i expected, im sure with RAM tweaking, vMEM/clock testing (yet to happen), and more LN2 (ran out after ~40L) i could have grabbed the ultimate top spots in both '06 and '03

I find the 3870X2 to be a "fragile" card compared to the brute force nVidias im used to.
Temperature played an important role, but not in the ways i had expected.
I was actually running these tests below at only -20 to -30C on the pot faces.
If i let the pots get too cold for too long, the exposed areas of the card (to allow the power circuits to breathe) would ice up and then i would hit walls being unable to run any GT all the way thru.
Unfortunately it took me about 20L and 2-3hrs to find that out
But you'll be pleased to know that the GPU's were more than happy playing at -90C or more.

Furthermore voltages are funny buggers, with differences between idle and load, GPU1 and GPU2, temperature dependency, etc. In the end i would have to recheck/adjust) my volts before every run. At one point i even had to resolder the tiny GPU2 mod while still set up when i was having some troubles.

So without further ado:

3DMark'06 - 26k
QX9770 @ 5350MHz on Kayl Pot Rev 2
Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 Rev 1.1 (vCore mod)
Patriot DDR3 "1866MHz" @ crappy speed and 7-7-7-16 1T (untweaked)
Retail Powercolor 3870X2 @ 1066/1062 real on 2x Kayl GPU Pots (vcore/vmem)
WD5000AAKS SATA @ 115MHz PCI-E freq.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTIMrTHthAw
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=5169124





And earlier on during testing:

3DMark'03 - 80k
QX9770 @ 5350MHz on Kayl Pot Rev 2
Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 Rev 1.1 (vCore mod)
Patriot DDR3 "1866MHz" @ crappy speed and 7-7-7-16 1T (untweaked)
Retail Powercolor 3870X2 @ 999/1044 real on 2x Kayl GPU Pots (vcore/vmem)
WD5000AAKS SATA @ 115MHz PCI-E freq.

[biglipzit]

Awesome results way to go! Amazing over clock on the gpu's! Now to get another one and try this again in crossfire!

Your sig shows different frequencies for the GPU's than the gpu-z program does... why is that?

[T_M]

Firstly, my sig is from hwbot, and that is a different result showing currently (lag).
Secondly, GPU-Z seems not to show the correct clocks for my 3870X2 since i installed the latest beta drivers. It shows up in GPU-Z as half of actual speed.

[Lightman]

Excellent speeds!

How much vgpu you needed for that speed?

[massman]

Looking good Tim!

Do you a view on what the cards will be capable of in the future? 1,2G core, maybe 1,3G?

[intel101]

the score is more inline with two 3870's running in crossfire.
But, nice score man, too bad 3870X2 is still bandwidth limited as two
2900XT's can out take an 3870X2.

[George_o/c]

Nice one dude Amazing score , hope that with proper system tweaking (generally talking) you 'll be able to climb up to the first place of 3870X2 Now, give us some more results with the card @ -90 C

[Turrican]

great results bro, keep pushing it to the limit

[hipro5]

Plastic spray ALL over the Card and insulate everything on it....
Nice start btw....

[trans am]

NiceJob! congrats to 80k 03 is amazing!

[.p4nzer]

Awesome bench!

[dinos22]

nice job Tim

[jimmyz]

Firstly, my sig is from hwbot, and that is a different result showing currently (lag).
Secondly, GPU-Z seems not to show the correct clocks for my 3870X2 since i installed the latest beta drivers. It shows up in GPU-Z as half of actual speed.

use the drop down at the bottom and select the other core, by default gpu-z selects the slave core first.

[Achill3uS]

nice results Tim, i was waiting for someone to try X2 on subzero, it looks amazing

[LyP0]

why does this setup remind me of a power plant ??
kinda looks like it with 3 tube's sticking out like that.

anyways, great results. Awsome speed, but you should be able to get a bit higher.

[T_M]

George, the entire backside of the card is sprayed already.
The frontside is totally coated in nailpolish except for the heatsink interfaces.
Its just those darn hot little chips giving me troubles and preventing me from pushing the temps far lower.
Do you mean to also insulate/cover those little hot ones too?

[g1raffe]

Nice work T_M, very nice results.

[Amey]

Excellent scores there Tim....once those hot lil buggers get fixed, i guess you are set

[dinos22]

Tim
how are you cooling that middle heatsink

[T_M]

The middle heatsink has a very small area to recieve air from, and i am blowing a delta from 5cm away straight at it between the two pot's insulations.
It seems to be ok for whatever i can throw at it, until the heatsink and surrounding area on it ice up. I then get crashes in GT1, and also my voltages go haywire. After i "defrost" teh card up to -10C for a while, it will go back to normal.

[THRASHER2]

GREAT SCORES Guys

[EXPANDER]

Great scores

[hipro5]

George, the entire backside of the card is sprayed already.
The frontside is totally coated in nailpolish except for the heatsink interfaces.
Its just those darn hot little chips giving me troubles and preventing me from pushing the temps far lower.
Do you mean to also insulate/cover those little hot ones too?

No.....I mean plastic spray EVERYWERE on the card exept the mos-fets that you'll put heatsinks on....

BTW.....After some todays mods of mine on it, I got 1000MHz/1150MHz ON AIR out of it.....I wonder what shall it do under LN2 now.....

P.S. DON'T feed the Crosslink chip over 1.3VCore coz it does worse....

[T_M]

No.....I mean plastic spray EVERYWERE on the card exept the mos-fets that you'll put heatsinks on....

Which is the same as insulating every component with nail polish right?

Nice gains there man, presume thats from your cap mods?
LOL @ vmodding crosslinx

[hipro5]

Which is the same as insulating every component with nail polish right?

Nice gains there man, presume thats from your cap mods?
LOL @ vmodding crosslinx

Nail polish CAN'T handle subzero temps and it "breaks" and then you have "leaks" from it.....
Find a plastic spray that can handle at least -40*C so to be sure.....

I use PLASTIK (German spray) down to -70*C...

Yes Vmoding Crosslinx, can handle the "bandwidth" of the VCAs...