4870x2 overclocking

L31mr0d

Ok I nabbed myself an AMD 4870x2 there last week.

First impressions are good, on the completely stock system in my sig i'm getting around 9000 points in Vantage.

Now to overclocking, just wondering what people use? I've been reading conflicting opinions between using the stock CCC and profiles or using rivatuner?

What do people here use and why? Is the stock CCC software good or is it another turkey like ntune

PogMoThoin

I've got my 4870 overclocked using CCC, I've rivatuner controlling the fan speeds only as I already had it overclocked with CCC before rivatuner supported it, You will be limited by CCC as to how far you can overclock, IIRC i read that Rivatuner can overclock a 4870 further.

BTW, how are you finding the X2, I'm considering upgrading as I got a 24' monitor?

Blazer

Definitely don't recommend oc'ing the X2. It runs hot enough as it is and in all fairness what's a few mhz going to give you.
They are bad overclockers as anyone on the guru3d ATI forums will tell you.
The most you can oc with the stock cooler is about 20 on the core and maybe 40 on the ram. Just not worth frying the card.

L31mr0d

@Mathew Reilly: the heat issue is mainly due to the fan speed being very low. I've already read up on manually editing the CCC profiles to allow for fan speed editing. At 100% fan speed my x2 idles at around ~35'c. Under normal conditions the fan speed is at around 27% so it idles at around 80'c.

There are a few guides out there for using rivatuner and CCC in conjunction to automate fan speed switching but I'd like to stick with one program if possible. So far it seems rivatuner doesn't support fan speed editing for my x2.

@PogMoThoin: Yeah its good, but I haven't really broken it in yet. I guess Crysis: Warhead will be the first game to see how it performs. I've got some overclocking to do yet on the CPU and RAM also.

Also, new ATI drivers out today, 8.9, supposedly they give an increase in performance of a few fps's

Review:
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1598/ati_catalyst_8_9_analysis_xp_vista/index.html

Drivers:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

Blazer

Is that 80c at 27% idle or under load.
I use atiexpertool but it only allows you to set from 50% +.
There's always the dynamic option but I tend to leave this for idle/browsing etc and bump it to 50% for gaming. Card might go to about 60-70c.
About overclocking I'm not on about the heat. The card is very restricted in it's overclocking ability showing artifacts at 30mhz+ on the core and ram. BF2/COD4 at 790mhz and 1100mhz could not be played.
The single 4870 card will oc much more than the X2.
Guess ATI pushed this card as far as they could.
With the CCC there's lots of issues getting the profiles to work for fan cooling.
Loads of ppl still can't control their fan with this including myself and I tried about 10 times. In the end I just went with expertatitool.exe.

L31mr0d

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

Is that 80c at 27% idle or under load.

idle

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

I use atiexpertool but it only allows you to set from 50% +.
There's always the dynamic option but I tend to leave this for idle/browsing etc and bump it to 50% for gaming. Card might go to about 60-70c.
About overclocking I'm not on about the heat. The card is very restricted in it's overclocking ability showing artifacts at 30mhz+ on the core and ram. BF2/COD4 at 790mhz and 1100mhz could not be played.
The single 4870 card will oc much more than the X2.

Heres the profile modifying guide I found

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=69003

and here the one that includes rivatuner

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=272267

Blazer

at idle? That's very high for running at 27%.
Should be nearer 60c at that speed.
Are you running folding@home or anything while idle?

L31mr0d

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

at idle? That's very high for running at 27%.
Should be nearer 60c at that speed.
Are you running folding@home or anything while idle?

maybe it was after I did a run through of Vantage, I'll check again later.

I think I've gotten soft over the last few weeks though, lol My main PC was out of action for a while so I was gaming mostly on my PS3, now that I have my main PC back up and working again its such a nuisance making sure I have all the drivers up to date, overclocking, monitoring temps... etc

Example, I have an issue with Everest where it keeps crashing my PC when trying to read temps off my 4870x2. If I start up Everest within 10 minutes of booting my PC crashes, but if I start it after that it works fine. I've wasted nearly a day trying to figure what the problem is :mad: Plus GPU-Z is also giving me incorrect clock readouts from the x2

Blazer

GPU-Z should be working fine.
At idle both are 500/800 or something like taht..
best way is to start up a game and then minimize and check gpu-z.
Both should then be reading 750mhz on the core.
ATI downclock the card in 2d mode so is that it?

The lastest 8.9 drivers are out and so far so good with them.
No problems with BF2/Spore/COD4 on them.
Did you come from Nvidia?
Loads of ppl have problems coming from Nvidia to ATi without a reinstall of XP/Vista.
It's definitely recommended to uninstall all video drivers , runner driversweeper or something similiar and cccleaner and then install the ati driver.

L31mr0d

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

Did you come from Nvidia?
Loads of ppl have problems coming from Nvidia to ATi without a reinstall of XP/Vista.
It's definitely recommended to uninstall all video drivers , runner driversweeper or something similiar and cccleaner and then install the ati driver.

No, I did a fresh install of the OS when I got the new motherboard, SSD drive and 4870x2

I've had issues with monitoring software reading from the SMbus before but not with Everest. There doesn't seem to be a lot on my issue anyway as it seems to only happen if I try to load Everest at start up. If I open Everest a few minutes after booting it opens fine.

Blazer

Those SSD drives are the biz..have a128GB one myself.

DanGerMus

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

With the CCC there's lots of issues getting the profiles to work for fan cooling.
Loads of ppl still can't control their fan with this including myself and I tried about 10 times. In the end I just went with expertatitool.exe.

Don't forget you have to enable overdrive for the profile edit to work. I did the first few times cos the guide i checked never mentioned it. Bita googling led to the answer. Hope this helps.

L31mr0d

Just to let those 4870x2 owners out there know. The new version of rivatuner is out (i.e. v2.11) and they've fixed the issue with not being able to control the 4870x2's fan speeds.

I've tested it out and the fan speeds are adjusting correctly when benching

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

Blazer

L31mr0d wrote: »

Just to let those 4870x2 owners out there know. The new version of rivatuner is out (i.e. v2.11) and they've fixed the issue with not being able to control the 4870x2's fan speeds.

I've tested it out and the fan speeds are adjusting correctly when benching

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

nice one..cheers dude