NOOB at OCâ€™ing GPUs â€“ Now Trying a HD3870

jedihobbit

Okay guys and gals just as before Iâ€™ve havenâ€™t done much in attempting to over clock a gpu (except for a little time spent with the 8800GT SC). The last ATI card I had was the Sapphire X1950 Pro Ultra which I left stock.

This card is going into a build call Yodaâ€™s SMN (Size Matters Not) and its specs are:

CASE: Ultra MicroFly mATX â€œHybridâ€**
PSU: Enermax Liberty ELT500AWT 500W
MOBO: Biostar Tforce 6100-939
CPU: AMD Opteron 170,
HSF: Zalman CNS7000
GPU: Sapphire HD3870
MEMORY: g. skill F1-4000USU2-2GBHZ (2 x 1024)
HDD: WD Raptor X, 150 Gigs
Optical Drive 1: LG GSA-H42N-BK, 18X DVD+R Burner

**Hybrid = the case assembly consists of the chassis from a MX6 with the exterior parts from a windowed MicroFly.

Iâ€™m in the process of getting all the parts fitted together so thought I get my GPU questions out early.

1. What would be the best drivers to start with as I sure the ones that came with the card are dated.
2. What is your fav ocâ€™ing software and why? ATI Tools, RivaTuner (thought that was nvidia?) or what.
3. As this is the single slot, any pointers for cooling? Remember canâ€™t get too big as this is a mATX case.

jedihobbit · Posted: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:37:46 Post Subject:

BTW went to ATI's site for the latest and I'm given the choice of downloading the Catalyst Suite or just Display Drivers.......which one, and for learning purposes - why? Confused

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:43:42 Post Subject:

Well, I am learning that Catalyst 8.3 seems to be a bust for benching performance... I don't know, maybe it does something else magically good. I'd like to go back to 7.11 honestly.

Catalyst provides the drivers with the ATI interface, a few other packages and the option for junk you may not want (EarthSim?!? another copy of Steam?!?). The drivers just give you that... the drivers.

The Catalyst package does have OverDrive... a decent overclocking app built in. But, if you want to get crazy you may reach the max it will allow rather quickly.

The HD3870 is single slot? Or you want a single slot cooler?!?

Welcome... Grin

jedihobbit · Posted: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:54:10 Post Subject:

SpeedZone · Rated NC-17 Joined: 06 Apr 2008 Posts: 193

Hi jedihobbit and others,

I have Sapphire HD3870, which is dual slot with that red colored cooler. And lately i saw single slot Sapphire 3870 in some reviews (same as yours jedihobbit), which made me wonder whether Sapphire makes 2 same 3870 graphics card? one single and one dual slot? also my pcb is red, while yours is blue?

Anyway...regarding overclocking it...I managed to hit 857Mhz GPU and 1251Mhz for ram (+10% from original settings - 777 and 1125Mhz). I am using Catalyst 8.3, and have no problems with them at all. I also used ATI Tools in the past, but for this overclock i used only Catalyst's built-in overclocking software.

GPU would easily go over 900Mhz, but sadly it's kinda locked at max 860Mhz (so if you go over this, all you'll get will be blue screen). I know there is workaround - if you flash its BIOS and thus remove the 860Mhz barrier, but i am satisfied with this overclock so far. Ram could also already hit 1300Mhz, but like i said before...i dont care about 50Mhz more or less at this point.

There is only one thing to address here...cooling...i doubt that your single slot cooler will be able to cool gpu and ram enough, if you overclock like i did, because even my original dual slot cooler was only able to cool gpu to 45 degrees celsius at idle (GPU) and 80 degrees+ at full load. So what i did was...to install ThermalTake Duorb cooler, which i must say was quite worried whether it will do its job better than original one (because when i had it on my old X1950XTX, it hit 90+ degrees at full load...and although R580+ GPUs are way hotter than RV670, i was still sceptical), but at my great relief, it did GREAT JOB! When gpu and ram were still at stock speeds it was able to keep temps at 30 idle and 48max load! And even now at 857/1251 it runs at 35 idle and 54 degrees at full load! So i guess it couldnt be any better than this. And not to mention it does all that (Duorb) at 5V, which is also very silent (cause it was little too loud at 12V so i pluged it in voltage regulator to force it to run at 5V).

Well thats all...if you have any questions...just drop me a line or pm. Wink

Best wishes to all! Wave

timberwolf · Rated R Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Posts: 52

SpeedZone · Rated NC-17 Joined: 06 Apr 2008 Posts: 193

I know that pcb color doesnt make any difference. It's just that i dont believe i've seen any other single manufacturer (i know pcb's, coooler and other things can and mostly are different from manufacturer to manufacturer) so far to release 2 cards with identical gpu speeds and everything, on totally different pcb's, with different cooler,etc. And I am also aware that i.e. Sapphire also manufactures Atomic series (overclocked) which actually uses single slot cooling, but dont see any reason why release 2 identical cards on different pcb's and different coolers? It would only raise costs in my view!? (or maybe lower them for some countries as you said timberwolf, only Sapphiretech guys know the answer King

) Unless...that single slot is especially designed for use in mATX cases or HTPC's or something like that?

Even more confusion is at Sapphiretech's website....where at frontpage you can see this blue single slot 3870...and when you click on it...it directs you to a page with specs...where only red dual slot card is shown...hahahaha...ahhhh...who cares as long as they work as they should, right. Laughing

Finally...its exactly as you said timberwolf....he should check temps first...and he will most probably need other cooler to overclock card for more than some 2-5%...at least i had to do that...and must say once more it was money well spent for that cooler. Orrr...maybe he could set bios fan settings at 100% with RaBit (if it already supports 3870's), cause i noticed that it mainly run way lower - to prevent to much noise). And although its very easy to do that, I still wouldnt recommend that if he doesnt have any previous experience with that.

So tell us how far are you with your build jedihobbit and if you still need some help or anything and we'll be glad to help you out.

Bye. Wave

EDIT : I just read in one review that beside atomic cooler sapphire also offers vapor-x single slot cooler...and i also found the reason why...because if you try to do CrossFireX with 4 cards...4 dual slot cards most likely wont fit in any mobo...so this is what sapphire had in mind when releasing single and dual slot cards with same gpu. Wink

Although in my opinion it would be better and cheaper to get 2 3870 X2, rather than 4 3870's. Smile

jedihobbit · Posted: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:18:09 Post Subject:

SpeedZone · Rated NC-17 Joined: 06 Apr 2008 Posts: 193

All I can say at this moment is WOOOOWWWW. Grin

Checked your worklog and was very impressed. How the he** were you able to put all those components in such a tiny place...I have tower case and sometimes wished to have big tower or one of those big cube cases. Grin

All because of all messy wiring and stuff...and also its kinda tight to remove/install components. But what i saw at your project....WOW WOW WOWWWWWWW. King

So need to first get some fresh air...then recheck your project again...and only later i'll be able to give you some suggestions (if any) - because from what i saw you already did a GREAT JOB! El Perfecto. Wink

And yes, if you need (and in your case you do) a single slot graphics card...then vapor-x cooler is one of best original coolers, but also yours should be fine as long as you dont plan to do some crazy overclock (in that case you'll need water cooling or dry ice cooling anyway). Wink

Otherwise (not that ThermalTake paid me to say this, but,hahaha), Duorb would really do much better than your original cooler, because if it managed to drop temps by 15-30degrees on idle/load (which i am still not sure whether its just me - because all reviews reported drop by maybe 10-15 degrees celsius or less on 3870)...then it shouldnt do much worse in your case neither - even if case is much tighter and has less airflow. But you should double check if it would fit, cause i saw you were already scratching parts here and there. Grin

Or maybe some other smaller but effective cooler...there are plenty on the market nowadays. Wink

Finally, I would recommend to upgrade Catalysts to at least 8.2 (or 8.3), although some argued that the latest version drops 3DMark06 points a bit (i personally cant confirm or deny that). And about CPU-Z...temps should be listed above the fan speed (GPU Temperature)..at least thats the case with version 0.1.8 that I use (just got a message some 5 mins ago, that 0.1.9 is out already) - so maybe you could try with that one - you know...just to be up-to-date...). Grin

Best wishes and once more Congratulations for Great Job!

Will surely recheck your log again soon...hopefully you wont have any major problems with installing and setting up everything...and then...please post more pics and info,ok? Wink

jedihobbit · Posted: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:00:30 Post Subject:

Thanks for the kind comments on the build SZ! Trying to figure out how to show another build I've done without eating too much of Dr. FG's bandwidth as it has evolved over 3 - 4 years. Yikes

Using GPU-Z with room at approx 20C and case at 25C idle temps seem to be around 40C. Ran 3Dmarks '06 (still waiting on the web site for my score) but when it finished (can't see during the run) temp was shown at 58C and this is with the fan showing 40%. The temps went from the 58 to the 40 in about 10 minutes with a drop from 58 to 46 in the first 2 - 5 minutes.

Not sure how I can run a test and monitor temps.....suggestion?

Okay what's with 3DMarks "Can't find the web page at this time"???