3850 AGP OC'ing, Vmods, experiences, suggestions, where to buy

[Jstn7477]

I got 32K in 3DMark03 with a Phenom 9750, HD 3850 and XP x86 and 10.5K in '06. The previous page of this thread details a lot of my findings from a few months ago.

[TRWOV]

Benhmarking-
You have some scary score. What is the 3dmark05, PCmark05 settings on WXP? I'm going to see what I'll get. You have a 7950GT OEM?

They are all in the standard settings.

I'm not sure about the 7950GT, it's this one:

There's no brand markings so I guess it's an OEM as you said.

[eidairaman1]

look at this pic thought it was funny

[Jayzilla]

Originally Posted by Jstn7477

I got 32K in 3DMark03 with a Phenom 9750, HD 3850 and XP x86 and 10.5K in '06. The previous page of this thread details a lot of my findings from a few months ago.

Yeah I just read it. Looks like I am experiencing something you already went through. You used the free version of the 3DMark right? I'm downloading and will come back with the score.

Originally Posted by TRWOV

They are all in the standard settings.

I'm not sure about the 7950GT, it's this one:
[url]http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/9151/kgrhqjhj4e9qkfjd2bpg6ln.jpg[ru/url]
There's no brand markings so I guess it's an OEM as you said.

Yeah. I saw this one before. It from Gigabyte. the cooler has a skateboard graphic. I'm not sure why your doesn't have the art. Some said it is the fastest AGP from Nvidia.

I've learned so much from this forum in this couple days. Since my current board has so much restriction in XP64/W7. Most importantly it can't fully utilizes the HD3850. I thought It was the best motherboard for AGP card. What do you said I dump this board and get the Asrock ConRoe865PE and the fastest Intel chip to play with ya? I have tons of nice/rare ancient DDR that I collected for the Lanparty NF4 SLI-D project. Please be advised. Cheers.

[TRWOV]

I've learned that there is no perfect AGP motherboard but the Conroe865PE is very close to it. It has good W7 support (no AGP issues) and supports up to the QX6800 (Im using a QX6700 ATM).

There are two drawbacks: 1)due to a chipset limitation, W7 won't recognize more than 3520MB of RAM; there's not enough registries in the chipset to handle above that amount, which makes sense as we're talking about a 10 year old chipset. 2) when using a 1066Mhz CPU the RAM divider is set at 3:2 no matter what you select in the bios so my DDR500 RAM is running at 177Mhz (DDR354). There's a modded 1:1 and 5:4 bios but I haven't been able to find it (there's tons of links on goggle but all of them lead to the same forum but the thread has been removed).

I'm trying to mod the bios myself but I've got too much to read



Another good option is the 4CoreDual-VSTA/SATA2 (both are the same board but the SATA2 has SATA2 ports obviously) as they support DDR2 meaning faster RAM BUT they have the same chipset RAM limitation as the 865PE chipset and you have to use a modded bios (this one is still available) to be able to use 2GB DDR2 sticks.



Still, the AM2NF3-VSTA is quite a feat too (Phenom II support out of an NF3 board ) , and I think that there are Vista drivers for it so you could try that too.

[Jayzilla]

Originally Posted by TRWOV

I've learned that there is no perfect AGP motherboard but the Conroe865PE is very close to it. It has good W7 support (no AGP issues) and supports up to the QX6800 (Im using a QX6700 ATM).

There are two drawbacks: 1)due to a chipset limitation, W7 won't recognize more than 3520MB of RAM; there's not enough registries in the chipset to handle above that amount, which makes sense as we're talking about a 10 year old chipset. 2) when using a 1066Mhz CPU the RAM divider is set at 3:2 no matter what you select in the bios so my DDR500 RAM is running at 177Mhz (DDR354). There's a modded 1:1 and 5:4 bios but I haven't been able to find it (there's tons of links on goggle but all of them lead to the same forum but the thread has been removed).

I'm trying to mod the bios myself but I've got too much to read



Another good option is the 4CoreDual-VSTA/SATA2 (both are the same board but the SATA2 has SATA2 ports obviously) as they support DDR2 meaning faster RAM BUT they have the same chipset RAM limitation as the 865PE chipset and you have to use a modded bios (this one is still available) to be able to use 2GB DDR2 sticks.



Still, the AM2NF3-VSTA is quite a feat too (Phenom II support out of an NF3 board ) , and I think that there are Vista drivers for it so you could try that too.

Alright. Based on what Justin and you said. I won't be allowed to have more than 3.5 or 4GB of RAM no matter which board I choose. Let sum it up before I pull a trigger on one of these board.

Conroe865PE:
-No limitation for AGP card.
-Maximum of 4GB of DDR, and will run in slower speed no matter what RAM I got.
-Supported all OS.

AM2NF3-VSTA
-Only works in Windows XP-32bit.
-I can have 4GB DDR2 and water cool them.
-Supported the fastest Phenom X4 (980).
-Better board layout for water cooling. ( board is smaller/OCZ Flex DDR2). In my case.

Do I missed anything?

[TRWOV]

Originally Posted by Jayzilla

Conroe865PE:
-No limitation for AGP card.
-Maximum of 4GB of DDR, and will run in slower speed no matter what RAM I got.
-Supported all OS.

AM2NF3-VSTA
-Only works in Windows XP-32bit.
-I can have 4GB DDR2 and water cool them.
-Supported the fastest Phenom X4 (980).
-Better board layout for water cooling. ( board is smaller/OCZ Flex DDR2). In my case.

Do I missed anything?

No, seems like you got it alright. If the modded bios for the Conroe865PE were still available it would be a superb AGP board. As I said, I'm trying to mod it myself but I'm still learning how to... plus I don't have a programmer yet.


You could try to run Vista 64bit with the AM2NF3-VSTA. If I recall correctly, there are beta drivers for Vista.




I'm debating myself whether or not to paint the interior of my case black, in the meantime I'm giving it a cleaning and took some pics of the hardware:





The V6000 is a monster. Mounted on the card it takes 3 slots.

[GTX]

Do it!! (painting the case I mean)

I dig the blue theme, especially the gpu fans

[Jayzilla]

Originally Posted by Jstn7477

I got 32K in 3DMark03 with a Phenom 9750, HD 3850 and XP x86 and 10.5K in '06. The previous page of this thread details a lot of my findings from a few months ago.

Phenom II X4 980: 3DMark03=31970.
3DMark06: 11009 all at stock speed.

I cried when I see my score on XP-64bit.

Originally Posted by TRWOV

You could try to run Vista 64bit with the AM2NF3-VSTA. If I recall correctly, there are beta drivers for Vista.

I'm debating myself whether or not to paint the interior of my case black, in the meantime I'm giving it a cleaning and took some pics of the hardware:

I have no interest in Vista. I have a few copies of them I gave them out to my friends. I will stay with XP or maybe W7 for now.

I just made a decision. I will stick with my current board. The only change I will make is the OCZ Flex DDR2. I will replace them with the 1GB/stick version. "The fastest CPU/GPU" sounds so good to me, (even tho the benchmark's score sucks). I also like to own the Conroe865PE. I will wait til I finish my current project and have some more $ or maybe a gf .

Your stuff looks so good and clean. Good job keeping them, man. I don't see a reason you shouldn't paint or powder coat your case. I mean with the gears you got and the time you already invested on this rig, you will only do this once.

This will be my last liquid cooled system I build before I go back to school and travel. I want to make it looks good, and it is a AGP system!

[Jayzilla]

Oh, but I gotta warn ya. You will get addicted after you painted your case. I'm heavily addicted to case modding after I painted my case once. I think you will do a great job on this.

[TRWOV]

I'm addicted already. I added a top blower and replaced the 2x80mm fans at the front with a single 120mm one. I also made a cut-out for the CPU cooler. I'm also doing this: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=161350

I hadn't thought about painting the case because it doesn't have a window, the side panel has a mesh with some cloth as dust filter so you can't really see inside although the blue leds on the fans are enough to lit up the insides a little.

[Jayzilla]

http://www.zotacusa.com/geforce-gt-6...0604-10l.html#

Just noticed Zotac have another new PCI card (GT 610). Not much different from the previous cards except it has GDDR3 and OpenGL 4.2. I gotta save some more money.

[TRWOV]

Going by the specs, I think it's a GT520 with a different name.

The GT430 PCI would make a better physx card as it has twice the amount of cores than the GT520/GT610.

[Jayzilla]

Wrong place.

[Jayzilla]

Originally Posted by TRWOV

Going by the specs, I think it's a GT520 with a different name.

The GT430 PCI would make a better physx card as it has twice the amount of cores than the GT520/GT610.

Originally Posted by TRWOV

I haven't heard back from Gelid but I finally found a review that states the mounting spacing and it also has a diagram:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coo...-vision_2.html

I've made some preliminary measurements and it seems that it should fit the card nicely. The only thing I don't like a lot is that the fans are 2000RPM. In my experience, for 92mm a quiet fan must be around 1400RPM. I'll look into voltmodding them.


Got the QX6700 New benchmarks with QX6700 @ 3.24Ghz (270FSBx12) and HD3850 @824/1215/0.974v


3dmark06 12418 http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16460120

3dmark05 17327 http://3dmark.com/3dm05/5435472

3dmark03 37660 http://3dmark.com/3dm03/6459461

This was with a Q6700 2.66Ghz and 3850 @ 810/1251/1.254v
3dmark Vantage P5206 http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3796394

Is it's just me or Vantage is REALLY crash happy? I've seen the whole benchmark run ONCE. That result above was obtained after 5 crashes with my previous setup. I don't know how much the score scales with CPU speed but I'd guess my present config would get about 50 extra points because of the increased CPU speed (+600Mhz)

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/1748/cine64.png

UNIGINE Tropics benchmark (DX10)
http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/9858/tropics.png

The Last Remnant
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5518/tlri.png

Final Fantasy XIV
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/1238/ff14.png

Resident Evil 5 Play Test DX10
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/5464/re5a.png

Resident Evil 5 Fixed Test DX10
http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/5536/re5b.png

Street Fighter 4
http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/4063/sf4e.png

Lost Planet 2 Test A DX9
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6790/lp2a.png

Lost Planet 2 Test B DX9
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/245/lp2b.png

Monster Hunter Frontier Bench 3
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5632/mhf1.png

Monster Hunter Frontier Bench 2
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5158/mhf3.png

Monster Hunter Frontier Bench 1
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6421/mhf2.png

World in Conflict Very High 1440x900
http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/6844/wicl.png



http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/2241/img8408rl.jpg
http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/5654/img8410s.jpg

TRWOV. Do you think my Phenom II X4 will have better score than your Intel quad with some light oc? The only advantage I see is my board has DDR2 RAM. I'll going to get those games to bench once I got my rig finished.

[TRWOV]

I'm not sure, as far as I know the Phenom II are competitive with the Conroes clock for clock so if you can get it to 3.3Ghz or more you should be able to get a better score.

[Jayzilla]

Finally I got the reply from Zalman tech support for the ZM-GWB3850/3870.
http://www.zalman.com/eng/product/Pr...ad.asp?idx=286

This water block is for the PCI-E version only. If this doesn't fits, others HD3850's blocks will not fits. So the conclusion would be: HD3850 AGP FULL-COVERED WATER BLOCK DOESN'T EXIST. People can stop hunting now.

[TRWOV]

I don't know, you can see the outline of the reference cooler on the third and fourth pic in the product page... maybe it could fit the HIS HD3850 (the single slot one) as it used the 3850 reference cooler.

About Zalman's reply, if they didn't test with the AGP versions of course they're going to say they are unsupported.

[Jayzilla]

Originally Posted by TRWOV

I don't know, you can see the outline of the reference cooler on the third and fourth pic in the product page... maybe it could fit the HIS HD3850 (the single slot one) as it used the 3850 reference cooler.

About Zalman's reply, if they didn't test with the AGP versions of course they're going to say they are unsupported.

http://www.bodnara.co.kr/bbs/article...ry=7&num=65438

Why you said it could fit (the single slot one)? Yesterday I studied them one last time. I took a closer look. Bascially all the HD3850 AGP board lay out are the same except the Sapphire ones (FET parts). I don't have the PCI-E version so I can't 100% sure, but take a look at:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-ra...urbox-review/7
The heatsinks looks the same and logically it should be the same because it cost a lot to design one. So if the HD 3850 IceQ 3 PCI-E cooler is same as the AGP version, this block should fits my HIS 3850 dual slot. (I hope I can change the fittings on this block). We can't be 100% sure because we don't have the actual block, but I'd tent to agree with you, man. I'm still waiting for CPU block from China, once I got it I'll start shop for the water cooling parts. So I can give this a try. So exciting.

[TRWOV]

I'm finally going to retire my trusty AGP system. I already had built a Sandy Bridge PC but I had to give it up for a greater good (TM) and I finally got another board and CPU: Asrock H61M-GE and Core i5-2320 (again). I selected that board because it has 2 PCI slots as I'm planning to use it once I retire my current HTPC (PDC E5800, HD4670 AGP, 2x Theather 650 PRO PCI cards )

So I thought that I'd finish my AGP build and started by painting the innards of the case black:



I used wheel paint as it's supposed to be chipping resistant although it doesn't look as good as I'd like. I think I'll use sanding paper to smooth it a bit.

I'll replace the fans on the CM N520 with a pair of blue led ones and get some extensions I need. I'll also re-cap the board to try and get my QX6700 stable at 3.24Ghz (it can do 3dmark @ 3.24 but crashes on IBT and Crysis 2 )

[TRWOV]

Originally Posted by Jayzilla

http://www.zotacusa.com/geforce-gt-6...0604-10l.html#

Just noticed Zotac have another new PCI card (GT 610). Not much different from the previous cards except it has GDDR3 and OpenGL 4.2. I gotta save some more money.

Originally Posted by TRWOV

Going by the specs, I think it's a GT520 with a different name.

The GT430 PCI would make a better physx card as it has twice the amount of cores than the GT520/GT610.

It is indeed a GT520 re-bag: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5845/n...30-into-retail

So your best option for a PCI Physx card is the GT430 as it would be more future proof. The current minimum for Physx is 32 cores. The GT430 has 96 and the GT520/610 have 48.


http://www.geforce.com/hardware/tech...supported-gpus
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_faq.html#q3

Which NVIDIA GeForce GPUs support PhysX?
The minimum requirement to support GPU-accelerated PhysX is a GeForce 8-series or later GPU with a minimum of 32 cores and a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory. However, each PhysX application has its own GPU and memory recommendations. In general, 512MB of graphics memory is recommended unless you have a GPU that is dedicated to PhysX.

Remember that you'll have to hack the Physx drivers to work with the HD3850.

I'll be buying a GT430 PCI myself. I need to have a just-in-case PCI video card and as my new board just has a x16 slot I could use it for Physx too.

[Jayzilla]

Originally Posted by TRWOV

It is indeed a GT520 re-bag: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5845/n...30-into-retail

So your best option for a PCI Physx card is the GT430 as it would be more future proof. The current minimum for Physx is 32 cores. The GT430 has 96 and the GT520/610 have 48.

I just ordered the GT430 and GT520. I need a few Physx benchmark programs to see how big is the different between 96 and 48 cores. What is your recommendations? I'll post the result once I got the cards and times. The GT 610 hasn't on the market yet and I don't think it is necessarily to compare IF the Physx score of the GT430 and GT520 are in big different.

Originally Posted by TRWOV

Remember that you'll have to hack the Physx drivers to work with the HD3850.

I'll need your help on this. I have no knowledge on hacking the Physx drivers. What is the cores of the BFG Physx card? I think it is time for me to get rid of it.

Originally Posted by TRWOV

I'll be buying a GT430 PCI myself. I need to have a just-in-case PCI video card and as my new board just has a x16 slot I could use it for Physx too.

It is the time.

[TRWOV]

Originally Posted by Jayzilla

I just ordered the GT430 and GT520. I need a few Physx benchmark programs to see how big is the different between 96 and 48 cores. What is your recommendations? I'll post the result once I got the cards and times. The GT 610 hasn't on the market yet and I don't think it is necessarily to compare IF the Physx score of the GT430 and GT520 are in big different.



I'll need your help on this. I have no knowledge on hacking the Physx drivers. What is the cores of the BFG Physx card? I think it is time for me to get rid of it.



It is the time.

I think that 96 cores are the sweet spot for Physx as going above that won't give you a big increase. I've seen benchmarks were a GT440 (96 cores) and GTX460 (336 cores) used as dedicated physx cards have a difference of ~5% in terms of fps for Physx enabled games. In physx benchmarks the GTX460 would destroy the GT430 but those gains don't show up in the actual games as most games don't have the amount of physics used in benchmarks (like in the 3dmark11 physics bench in which hundreds of pillars fall, how many games show hundreds of pillars falling at once?).

As for the PPU, last I heard it has the performance equivalent of 20 or 24 cores, so it would fall between the 8500GT and 8600GT. The PPU does both GPU AND CPU Physx though, so that's something to take into account. Sadly it only supports physx 2.81 and below so the latest game it's compatible with was Arkham Asylum.


Hybrid Physx mod (ATI+NVIDIA): http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/1...3-v1-05ff.html

[Jayzilla]

I think I fucked up my HIS HD3850 while install/uninstalling. It works on my Biostar board all others AGP works on my ASRock but not the HIS 3850. I tried to reset the CMOS but no lucks. I ordered another AM2NF3-VSTA. If my video card died I will be very upset Any idea?

[TRWOV]

Are you sure that the card was all the way inside the AGP slot? Sometimes getting the lock to click isn't enough. I think you're already tried that but if you haven't give it a shot.

If it works on the other board it should work on the Asrock too.