Overclocking the 4890?

[Eureka]

So I hear the 4890 is supposed to be a great little overclocker. So how far have you guys gotten with your 4890?

I used ATI Catalyst Auto-Tuner, and it set me at 985/980.

Is this right... my GPU clock is higher than my mem clock.

Also, when I run it at this setting... I'm getting artifacts in Crysis.

 

[videogames101]

Your mem should go WAY higher, my 4870's memory is at 1100mhz, no trouble.

 

[Eureka]

Hmm, well it definitely goes higher, but I don't know if it runs stable at that point. I know that at 1080-1100 mem, I'm getting huge amounts of stutter in Crysis.

 

[Eureka]

Well, I just ran 3DMark 06...
13233 overall
SM2: 5967
SM3: 7290
CPU: 2472

Also my system:
AMD Athlon 64 x2 7850 Kuma @ 3.25ghz
4gb DDR800 @ 1000mhz
Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P
Sapphire 4890 @ 950/1050
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit SP1

Are these numbers right? Do I have a gimped component?

 

[Phew]

I'm at 1025 core, 1085 memory. I had to bump the core voltage up to 1.5V to get there. The core and memory stay cool, but the VRMs get up past 100C in Furmark.

I'm on water though, so YMMV.

 

[NinjaJedi]

Originally posted by: Phew
I'm at 1025 core, 1085 memory. I had to bump the core voltage up to 1.5V to get there. The core and memory stay cool, but the VRMs get up past 100C in Furmark.

I'm on water though, so YMMV.

What block are you using on your card?

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: Phew
I'm at 1025 core, 1085 memory. I had to bump the core voltage up to 1.5V to get there. The core and memory stay cool, but the VRMs get up past 100C in Furmark.

I'm on water though, so YMMV.

How do you bump up GPU voltage?

And I'm using the stock cooler... I don't suppose its recommendable to do that?

 

[Sylvanas]

You can bump the voltage as long as your temps don't get out of hand. Techpowerup's new 'GPUTool' allows voltage adjustment for the 4890, give it a go- there are also plug-ins for Rivatuner to do this. Also I wouldn't you the CCC's built in tester, raise the clocks yourself and check for stability with an artifact tester like GPUTool, Furmark or run Crysis or something . In general, your memory should go higher and 985mhz is a mightly OC on the core .

 

[Phew]

Originally posted by: NinjaJedi
What block are you using on your card?

The E.K. block.

I used the RivaTuner plugin Voltage Factory to bump up the voltage.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: videogames101
Your mem should go WAY higher, my 4870's memory is at 1100mhz, no trouble.

My 4870 memory goes as far as......925 mhz, stable. So don't assume that every DDR5 card out there goes to 4.4 ghz.

And I bet that if you fight with it a little bit, you'll find out that at 4.4 ghz is not that stable after all. What did you use to test it?

 

[Dravic]

Have mine at 950/1050


~17480 3dmark06 with the PH II x4 955 @ 3.62

 

[buddatech]

mine in cf @925/1125 top card can do 950/1135 and the bottom card 925/1150 max both cards on auto no volt mods

 

[apoppin]

Diamond HD4890-XOC - 960/1055
ASUS HD4870-1GB - 800/1050

Together they are pretty quick in CrossFire-X; even both 4870+4890 at stock clocks are quite a bit faster than 4870-X2 {or 2 x 4870 CF by extrapolation}
- so there goes that theory that "1 GPU downclocks to the slowest one in CF"

i am getting another HD4890 this week for 4890 CrossFire; i will let you know

Also, when I run it at this setting... I'm getting artifacts in Crysis.

Bad ... bad .. bad .. it is not stable - maybe overheating; at the least turn up the fan revs

 

[lopri]

I'm losing my initial overclock on my 4890 already.. :frown: It was fine @950/1150 for a month or so but now it's barely stable @925/1125.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: lopri
I'm losing my initial overclock on my 4890 already.. :frown: It was fine @950/1150 for a month or so but now it's barely stable @925/1125.

Both my 4870 had a degradation on the overclocks. I first thought I'm imagining things and they weren't stable from the beginning, but they do seem to degrade over time.

Sapphire 4870 512 mb first oc: 815 mhz/ 3800 mhz. Before I sold it, it can only do 800 / 3600mhz.
Gigabyte 4870 1gb was first stable at 800/3900 mhz and now I'm getting 790 mhz with a slight voltage bump and 3700 mhz on ddr5 after just 2 months.
What the hell it's happening with these cards?

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: videogames101
Your mem should go WAY higher, my 4870's memory is at 1100mhz, no trouble.

My 4870 memory goes as far as......925 mhz, stable. So don't assume that every DDR5 card out there goes to 4.4 ghz.

And I bet that if you fight with it a little bit, you'll find out that at 4.4 ghz is not that stable after all. What did you use to test it?

No artifacts or game crashes ever? Thats my definition of stable there. Any other definition for my purposes would be irrelevant.

Also, what cooler are you using? And what fan speed?



Also, Idling at maximum underclock for ATI drivers, 100% fan speed.

Cooltempiscool.png

28C

(Under load, max overclock for standard ATI drivers, hits ~44C.)

(All this is after case dust cleanout)

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: videogames101
Your mem should go WAY higher, my 4870's memory is at 1100mhz, no trouble.

My 4870 memory goes as far as......925 mhz, stable. So don't assume that every DDR5 card out there goes to 4.4 ghz.

And I bet that if you fight with it a little bit, you'll find out that at 4.4 ghz is not that stable after all. What did you use to test it?

No artifacts or game crashes ever? Thats my definition of stable there. Any other definition for my purposes would be irrelevant.

Also, what cooler are you using? And what fan speed?

The fan profiles are made in such a way, so that the gpu maxes out at 60 C. Goes over that only in Furmark. It's stock cooling. For some reason my ddr5 was stable as high as 975 mhz, but it isn't anymore.

Did you tried GPUtool artifact scanner, to test for stability? I'm using all the programs and games I can to test for stability. If GPUtool gives me stability issues, it means that the card is unstable, even if I don't see artifacts in games. That is my definition of stable.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: videogames101



Also, Idling at maximum underclock for ATI drivers, 100% fan speed.

Cooltempiscool.png

28C

(Under load, max overclock for standard ATI drivers, hits ~44C.)

(All this is after case dust cleanout)

You're using the fan at 100% all the time????? Do you still have your ear drums intact?

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: videogames101



Also, Idling at maximum underclock for ATI drivers, 100% fan speed.

Cooltempiscool.png

28C

(Under load, max overclock for standard ATI drivers, hits ~44C.)

(All this is after case dust cleanout)

You're using the fan at 100% all the time????? Do you still have your ear drums intact?

Nope, I use 65% fan, which is about 2C warmer, but I wear headphones while computing so no.

Also, I have 8 case fans. Rig sounds like a tornado at 100% gpu fan. Yay for headphones!

 

[McRhea]

I bought an MSI 4890 that came factory OC'd to 880Mhz Core, 1Ghz Memory, and was able to push that to 925/1100 without messing with the voltage. I also left the fan on auto, and it idles right around 60-61C, and goes to 85C while playing games. I can push 950/1200 without voltage mods, but I get a few artifacts, and after about 1 hour of gaming, I start to get the "graphics driver failed" error.

The 925/1100 is set from the CCC in the Overdrive menu without messing with the voltage. I'm not a hardcore OC'er, so I haven't run any tests with Furmark or 3dMark, etc. I've thought about messing with the voltage to get more out of the card, but honestly, even if I reached 1000/1200 I would see maybe a max of 5 more FPS on top of my current OC in any of my games, if that (just a guess). So I figured it wasn't worth it to stress my card anymore and am happy with my 925/1100 OC right out of the box.

Also, I've noticed in other things I've OC'd that there is a slow degradation on the overclocks, which is another reason I'm not pushing my 4890 any harder...

 

[ironforge]

I used to keep my fan speed low, and then I switched to headphones. Now I can turn it up a little (usually around 60%) without it bothering me.

 

[apoppin]

55 % is tolerable

anymore and i think it was intended for tortur ... i mean "harsh" listening environments
. . . shades of 2900xt