XSPC 4870X2 Delrin block mini-review

binormalkilla · 01-01-2009, 11:15 AM

Well I thought I would share some info on this block, as there seems to be a lack of hard data around forums/reviews.

This block has a Delrin top, and the water channels are machined on the Delrin side (which most likely accounts for the awesome price of $100.)

I feel that it's worth mentioning that the supplied thermal pads are very brittle, so you may want to order some better ones with it. I used the extra thermal pads from my THermaltake Spirit RAM cooler.....it made the installation much easier. As you can see on the first pic, the pad on the VRMs (right hand side near the copper flange) slipping and tore a little on installation.
I ordered this block from Jab-Tech and it had a stripped thread on one of the barbs. I contacted customer service with a picture of the problem and they promptly replaced it.

I am thoroughly impressed with the performance of this block. It maintains excellent temps and is very aesthetically pleasing to boot.

I have some preliminary air tests in Call of Duty World at War at stock clocks. I didn't feel like overclocking the card until I got the water, as this card is already hot as it is. I collected the data using GPU-Z, exporting the temp diode data to a .csv file.
Please note that the ambient temp may vary +-3-5C, as I foolishly forgot to record ambient temps.
Here are the results:

As you can see this thing is HOT on the stock cooler....mind you this is in a case with excellent airflow.

Here are the water results. This is in COD: WaW running an OC of 862/950.

I have achieved a Vantage stable OC of 862/1000 MHz and climbing.....we'lll see where I max out. At 900 MHz I locked up almost immediately.

CCC · 01-01-2009, 12:25 PM

862/1000 with no voltmod that is pretty impressive. i have the same block and my Sapphire x2 wont get anywhere near those speeds. did you flash the bios on your x2?

headala · 01-01-2009, 01:46 PM

Do you have any internal pics of that?

faster3200 · 01-01-2009, 01:53 PM

Good job testing and ty for posting. Small request though, could you resize the pics or make them a thumbnail link? The pics are stretching my page hardcore. Also, could you post temps of stock clock with WCing for comparison sake?

binormalkilla · 01-01-2009, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by faster3200

Good job testing and ty for posting. Small request though, could you resize the pics or make them a thumbnail link? The pics are stretching my page hardcore. Also, could you post temps of stock clock with WCing for comparison sake?

Sure thing. Give me a minute.....I normally upload large pics because I like to have a high res photo (even at work on my little 17" monitor), as I can just ctrl+mouse wheel and get the full view. I resized to %50.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CCC

862/1000 with no voltmod that is pretty impressive. i have the same block and my Sapphire x2 wont get anywhere near those speeds. did you flash the bios on your x2?

Thanks man....I'm pretty surprised myself. Here is a Vantage run at 862/1000:

Quote:

Originally Posted by headala

Do you have any internal pics of that?

What do you mean internal pics? I have some more pics of it installed with a flash if you mean....

Paxi · 01-01-2009, 02:55 PM

But you are not using the Sapphire Stock bios right?
Because you can go to 900/1000 in CCC

SNiiPE_DoGG · 01-01-2009, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bla$nA

But you are not using the Sapphire Stock bios right?
Because you can go to 900/1000 in CCC

hes using the asus top bios

I think he has a glitch in vantage though, thats a really low score for an x2

DeathWalking · 01-01-2009, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by binormalkilla

What do you mean internal pics? I have some more pics of it installed with a flash if you mean....

Pics of the block, disassembled.

binormalkilla · 01-01-2009, 03:31 PM

Ok here are the temps with stock clocks and water in COD:WaW. Unfortunately the ambients are different, so I'm going to run the temp monitoring again for the OCed run. More to come soon....

BTW on these graphs I'm starting out with a huge data set (something like 4500 columns worth of data) and finding the most informative part of the graph. This is the hottest part, and it's normally in the middle of the data set. Just thought it was worth mentioning, as some might think I just started the game and let it run for 1 minute.....the graph isn't intelligible it I use the entire data set.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeathWalking

Pics of the block, disassembled.

Ah I see. Well I didn't take pics personally, but another guy at overclock.net did.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG

hes using the asus top bios

I think he has a glitch in vantage though, thats a really low score for an x2

How so? I score 2K higher than my 4850 setup.....
What do you get in Vantage on performance preset?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bla$nA

But you are not using the Sapphire Stock bios right?
Because you can go to 900/1000 in CCC

I'm running the ASUS TOP BIOS. I'm not stable at 900....I get a BSOD during Jane Nash in Vantage.

binormalkilla · 01-01-2009, 04:14 PM

All right so 862 isn't stable 24/. My PC froze and rebooted (no BSOD) after playing CODWAW for about 20 minutes. I still have the temp data for that session though....here it is.

The graphs are practically identical for the different frequencies, which makes sense because I'm not running higher voltage.

Overgloc · 01-01-2009, 04:30 PM

869 max on Core? What is the standard overclock for a 4870X2? running mine @ 850 on AIR.

SNiiPE_DoGG · 01-01-2009, 04:34 PM

I havent run vantage on my x2 by itself, but On 4870 512mb @ 870 I got 16700.

that was a 200mhz higher CPU clock, but 200mhz is not a 1700 point difference. I think you need to raise your ram speed, 846 5-5-5-15 is terribly slow... either tighten timings to 4-4-4-12 or go to 4:5 divider to get your bandwidth up

binormalkilla · 01-01-2009, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG

I havent run vantage on my x2 by itself, but On 4870 512mb @ 870 I got 16700.

that was a 200mhz higher CPU clock, but 200mhz is not a 1700 point difference. I think you need to raise your ram speed, 846 5-5-5-15 is terribly slow... either tighten timings to 4-4-4-12 or go to 4:5 divider to get your bandwidth up

What? How did you get that score with a single 4870? I seriously doubt it's the RAM, as I scored ~14K with 2 4850s and DDR2-1129 5-5-5-15. The bandwidth on those modules was over 9500 MB/s.
I just got this RAM so I haven't tweaked it yet.

CCC · 01-01-2009, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Overgloc

869 max on Core? What is the standard overclock for a 4870X2? running mine @ 850 on AIR.

did you also flash to the asus top bios?

FrostyPanda · 01-01-2009, 04:57 PM

Damn I love the block but only problem is that it doesn't work with SLI/XFire connectors because of the little nubs on the inlet and outlet holes

.

SNiiPE_DoGG · 01-01-2009, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by binormalkilla

What? How did you get that score with a single 4870? I seriously doubt it's the RAM, as I scored ~14K with 2 4850s and DDR2-1129 5-5-5-15. The bandwidth on those modules was over 9500 MB/s.
I just got this RAM so I haven't tweaked it yet.

I meant 2 4870's, forgot to put CF in there

I seriously think it is the ram, you really need to raise the speed or cut latencies, your everest benchmark right now is probably sub 8000 on all fronts which is whats hindering your performance.

dinos22 · 01-01-2009, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CCC

862/1000 with no voltmod that is pretty impressive. i have the same block and my Sapphire x2 wont get anywhere near those speeds. did you flash the bios on your x2?

it depends on the cards
i've tested 3xdifferent cards and all could bench 860/970 on stock cooler

there is no advantage in clocks with Asus top bios

i flashed one of my cards with that bios the other day
same clocks as Gigabyte bios but using different software to OC obviously

RCG_Bex · 01-01-2009, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrostyPanda

Damn I love the block but only problem is that it doesn't work with SLI/XFire connectors because of the little nubs on the inlet and outlet holes

.

It does work - I have these blocks for crossfire

~Bex

binormalkilla · 01-01-2009, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG

I havent run vantage on my x2 by itself, but On 4870 512mb @ 870 I got 16700.

that was a 200mhz higher CPU clock, but 200mhz is not a 1700 point difference. I think you need to raise your ram speed, 846 5-5-5-15 is terribly slow... either tighten timings to 4-4-4-12 or go to 4:5 divider to get your bandwidth up

Well I ran Vantage with my Geil Esoteria that were clocked to DDR2-1128 at 5-5-5-15 and got about the same score.......but I suppose I'll go ahead and run it to ease your mind.
THere is no way that 1500 MB/s of memory bandwidth will affect a 3dmark score by that much.
I'm not stable at DDR2-10XX, but I'll go ahead and run it for testing.

BTW did you change the image quality settings in CCC to lower IQ for a higher score? I keep all of mine at "Let app decide"

SNiiPE_DoGG · 01-01-2009, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by binormalkilla

Well I ran Vantage with my Geil Esoteria that were clocked to DDR2-1128 at 5-5-5-15 and got about the same score.......but I suppose I'll go ahead and run it to ease your mind.
THere is no way that 1500 MB/s of memory bandwidth will affect a 3dmark score by that much.
I'm not stable at DDR2-10XX, but I'll go ahead and run it for testing.

BTW did you change the image quality settings in CCC to lower IQ for a higher score? I keep all of mine at "Let app decide"

disable catalyst AI is all I do.... Idk maybe I'm wrong about whats causing score issues, you dont need to raise to 10XX if you just run 4-4-4-12 tho.

binormalkilla · 01-01-2009, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG

disable catalyst AI is all I do.... Idk maybe I'm wrong about whats causing score issues, you dont need to raise to 10XX if you just run 4-4-4-12 tho.

Oh you disable Cat AI? Huh....from my experience in the past that effectively disables Crossfire as well. Maybe that's just on games (maybe 3dmark always works)
It may be also worth mentioning that I am running the advanced edition, so it's going through all of the feature tests.
Well I increased my FSB to 475*8 (huge bandwidth boost versus DDR2 freq. increase), so I'm running Vantage at DDR2-950 5-5-5-15.
I may try to get these sticks up to 9K MB/s, but it will be hard considering that they're an 8GB kit and occupy 4 slots. I have my NB on water so I can give it all the NBV it needs. Unfortunately I don't have the time/patience to mess with the timings, so unless it's killing my performance I won't bother.

Attachedf are bandwidth benches to compare until Vantage finishes

If need be I can always swap the Geil Esoterias (freaking golden 4GB kit, but requires too much VDIMM) out of my wife's PC and run DDR2-1128. That yields ~9500MB/s, but I wanted to get an 8GB kit for my rig.

SNiiPE_DoGG · 01-01-2009, 08:03 PM

well hmmm, I think you should check your performance level because auto PL's can be very high (use memset)

those benches look much better the higher IO speed from the rasied FSB should help the x2 greatly, you can also try playing with your trfc timings as well.

binormalkilla · 01-01-2009, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG

well hmmm, I think you should check your performance level because auto PL's can be very high (use memset)

those benches look much better the higher IO speed from the rasied FSB should help the x2 greatly, you can also try playing with your trfc timings as well.

I'm planning on flashing back to the Rampage Formula BIOS so I can change the CH pull off options, etc. I used to run it but flashed back thinking it was the BIOS causing problems, but it was actually something entirely different.
I could break 10K MB/s with that BIOS but it wasn't stable.

Well I couldn't even finish the physics test at that FSB and frequency....I'm running SuperPi 32M at DDR2-1016 with a bit more VDIMM and NBV. If I can finish 32M then it should be stable enough for 3dmark.....

If not then I'm just going to say screw it.

screwtech02 · 01-01-2009, 08:21 PM

Man, they need to make this block for the 4850x2....

Overgloc · 01-01-2009, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CCC

did you also flash to the asus top bios?

Nope stock Diamond OC Bio.