XfX HD 4890 XT Bios modded to the Black Edition Specs

[Defiance]

Hiya's,
First off i will explain how i do mine, and a few rules of thumb i use before ever flashing

I used to use floppies to flash gpu bios's, now i use windows based sw which is purely for easiness and the darn sw if amazing anyways

But if needbe to force a flash i would revert to good old floppy drive

Ok so in my case i had a new 4890 xt arrive, i set in cc the overclock doo dahh

Set fan to 100%
Messed with core in stages until it was at 1000

Then upped the memory until it was 1100

Doing the above proved to me that the core and mem could do what i wanted with adequate cooling, i also ran furmark and other testers to check settings were indeed stable

Next stage was to find the black edition bios, after looking on a few forums/sites i had it

With TechPowerUps amazing RBE v 1.21 and ATIwinflash i opened my 4890 bios, then saved it for safety

Now i opened another instance of RBE and moved this so i could see both RBE's

Then i loaded the BE bios into 2nd RBE

So now as i looked at each option on both RBE's i could see the differences bios settings wise, obviously the clocks were different, and under the Clock Settings/View change voltage resistors i saw the 0x18 was set to 1.4375, so i adjusted this

Then double checking i altered all the clocking settings to match the BE bios

Lastly, i knew the fan to temp settings would be different and they were, i ammended my bios to the exact same as the BE settings

So now i had changed the resistor voltage+core-mem+cooling/fan/temp strategy

Once again i double checked all from BE bios to my Now Modded version in RBE, all was well

I saved the new modded bios

Then i made sure av and all other progs were closed and flashed using Atiwinflash

Rebooted at the prompt and came back into windows

I notice a slight rise in fan noise when in a game but nothing drastic, and later on i will be watercooling the gpu's so noise won't be a factor

Now, if you are going to modding and flashing a gpu bios, i suggest if you have any doubts Not To Proceed Only flash if your confident and understand what you're doing

Anyways i love modding bios's with differing fan settings so it's now started to become second nature to me and a flash doesn't worry me (as i saw at the top of the post, check what your cards capable of doing before even thinking of bios flashing)

Hope this helps some people, any Q's ask away, but really the amazing RBE is so stable you can't go wrong with it

Reefer86, here's the guide you wanted Have Fun

Def

 

[Reefer86]

thanks alot mate, kinda waht i thought to be honest as there has been many discusions. my only problem at the min is my temps going crazy high maybe a bad tim or not enough contact?

 

[Defiance]

What's the temps on when say Furmark's running ??

Use Gpuz, and snap a pic, then scroll down and take another etc to get the rest of the readouts

That can help diagnose heat probs

ps: overclocking is the easy part, what's needed is to either copy a known good high-end fan profile or create one specific to your cooling needs

Best way i can think is this ......

Load your stock bios into rbe and then the xt version into another

Note diff from your stock to an xt

Then load the black edition into the stock rbe you have open

Now compare xt to be

Figure the differences in linear thought, just eg: at x temp x fan speed kicks in

Then to really cool if needed linear thinking again raise be spec cooling to slightly higher more to suit your needs

Hope this makes sense it's kinda hard for me to type rather than just do it lol

I used to do fan/cooling profiles for friends etc when they had cards running warmer but really to solve really high temps you have to look at case airflow and actually cooling that's on/in the case

Again i hope this makes sense

Cheers

Def

 

[Darknova]

Jeez, no wonder the 4890s run so freaking hot....1.4675v? the max my 4870 can use is 1.263v....

 

[Defiance]

To be fair, seems XfX have one of the higher running stock temps around, though i heard they changed something to do with the actual fan itself ( ? )

And the 1.475v is just to bring the bios into the black edition spec

Once my other card goes in the rig tomorrow, i may start to mess with lowering the 0x18 voltage hopefully nearer to stock xt spec at least

Swings n rounabouts, you want more n get more, but the trade off is extra energy to dissipate (heat, the old enemy of silicon)

Happy with my temps and it's darn hot n humid again again

EDIT: Also, when people benchtest and gpu goes 100% usage, you have to remember in real life as of yet your gpu rarely if ever goes to 100% usage, though i do understand temps can seem high, from reading and previous experiance i think i'm safe to say ati's do tend to be higher temp-wise compared to nvidia, but again they're different kinds of cards really so can't compare like for like

Have Fun

Def

 

[Darknova]

Yeah I know the feeling mate, I had to mod my BIOS to have the fan spin faster to keep up with the heat. At least it's still inaudible

 

[AsRock]

Jeez, no wonder the 4890s run so freaking hot....1.4675v? the max my 4870 can use is 1.263v....

The default is 1.1875 idle and 1.3125 under load. 4890's only run hot due to the vregs cool them and your set. Which you should have a large heatsink on them to make sure they stay cool.

 

[Darknova]

The default is 1.1875 idle and 1.3125 under load. 4890's only run hot due to the vregs cool them and your set. Which you should have a large heatsink on them to make sure they stay cool.

Ah, mine uses 1.083 or something at idle, and this card uses MOSFETs instead of VRMs, so it's far easier to keep the heat down.

 

[Defiance]

Hiya,
Yeah changing the fan profiles can be fun lol

But really if people rely on this too much they can sometimes overlook the actual problem case-wise in their cooling needs

And with the temps in the uk being nice and summery for a change it's raising our temps nicely in some cases

Missus said weather forecast this week coming reckons 32c !!!! holy carp

<- Starts to look for 4890 gpu water blocks lol

Cheers

Def

ps: love the way this forum warns of a posting while you're still typing

 

[Darknova]

Hiya,
Yeah changing the fan profiles can be fun lol

But really if people rely on this too much they can sometimes overlook the actual problem case-wise in their cooling needs

And with the temps in the uk being nice and summery for a change it's raising our temps nicely in some cases

Missus said weather forecast this week coming reckons 32c !!!! holy carp

<- Starts to look for 4890 gpu water blocks lol

Cheers

Def

ps: love the way this forum warns of a posting while you're still typing

Airflow in my case is fine. It would idle at 58'C, completely passive, fan switches on above 58'C and under load never went above 70'C.

With this mod it now idles at 46'C, and never goes above 61'C under load

 

[Reefer86]

Here is the temps after 5 mins at 900/1000 good /bad?

 

[Defiance]

Now that's cool Darknova (no pun intended)

Def

 

[AsRock]

Ah, mine uses 1.083 or something at idle, and this card uses MOSFETs instead of VRMs, so it's far easier to keep the heat down.

Maybe it GPUTool is bugged as it's saying 1.0500 now lol. Not checked in bios how many different voltages it has but it seems like 3 at least now.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c17/daz_kirby/pic2.jpg

Here is the temps after 5 mins at 900/1000 good /bad?

To high you should keep those regs out of the 100's. Mine hits about the same as i cannot find a good enough cooler to stick on them yet or have better fans for the cooler i'm using.

i think 120c is max for them and seen some users on here have them a little higher witch is crazy. Tst it in games as Furmark \ GPUTool \ ATITool will over do it compared to games.

 

[Defiance]

Reefer,
Your VDCC temps look ok

But for 100% fan and GPU temp at 82c it could be better

I would not panic over the temp just yet

I'm gonna check something and come back

Def

EDIT::: Just ran furmark on mine bios copied to be, gpuz reports 60c fluctuating to 64c for split seconds

Basicly, your fan aint got the muscle to cool below what you're seeing, and it's proved to myself that whatever fan is in the be editions it's a good chance the same was slapped in xt's

Also, just checked and at zero load i'm idling at 53c, so not too bad for hot n muggy evening

 

[ObSo-1337]

i cant bloody put the fan at 100% so i can overclock further, its bloody loud, like a mini hair dryer

 

[Plug]

1.4375

Let me get this straight for a 1000core the Black edition uses 1.4375v default ?????

and here was me worrying about 980core @1.4v lol


I did have a freakout though...

i have 2x xfx 4890s and i flashed one of them with the XFX black edition bios and i was greeted to a YOU DONT HAVE THE POWER CONNECTOR PLUGGED IN WARNING IN RED LETTERS lol
no matter how meny times i unplugged and replugged in the power connectors that warning still showed up so i had to reflash in dos with a gaycard LOL to fix it.

your right though i guess modding your bios to the BE is the better way of doing things.

 

[Defiance]

Heya Plug,
It can seem better or more rightly put it's easier i'd say

All the fun of the voltage increase and fan profiles have been done already

I said earlier that hopefully when other cards is pre-checked and then flashed, that i will start checking if i can lower the 1.475 to lower or maybe stock (maybe it might but really to me it's just a bonus not a neccessity (hmm that word spelt right ?)

Also Plug

I modded my xt bios to be specs, sometimes i think people have had problems flashing back from one manufacturer to another and back again, i had hell of a game with my 4870 lol, dos forced bios flash from asus back to sapphire in the end (only explanation i can come i can come up with)
In a muddle i never labelled a floppy and it got put safe !!! never to be found lol, so it left me with gibberish named bios's that i had for all sorts of cards and settings, hence forth i keep stock bios untouched and copy settings that i feel i need and basicly as you say mod my own bios

ObSo, what ya clocked to so far ?? , i will assume you're using default XT bios but just modded the clocks in it or using sw to clock it but not upped 0x18voltage ??

If this is the case, you could make or copy the BE profile 0x18 voltage and also dabble with fan/temp strats or again copy BE strats amongst others

Rule of thumb, If you run fan at 100% and are getting high temps, then it's time to either go water/better 3rd party fan setup/clock down

Def

 

[Plug]

I have been reading about and the stock be cards have a 6 pin and 8 pin power connectors
this could in turn give those cards more stable or more power...

but what in turn does that mean for the 6 pin and 6 pin cards

and yeah im currently running uber stock xfx cards LOL
there not even XT cards there as low down as you can get

but they clock greatly.

default voltage goes as far at 900 core
1.35v does 950core stable
1.39 does 980 stable

im sure with the default BE voltages i could hit the magic 1000core.

memory on both cards are currently 1100 *4600 effective* are are as stable as could be.
actually i think 1100 is perfect speed when i got the cards last week i put them at 1100 and have never changed them lol they could probably go higher aswell core is whats most important with these cards though so 1100 is fine for me.

also does the BE version cards use the same refrence cooler that all the xfx`s use.
i dont understand how those BE cards can be as cool as my refrence card at its stock 850 speeds.

there must be something diffrent about those cards.

 

[Defiance]

Hiya,

I know the XT's which i have use 2x6 pin

Will look for a BE review and see if it mentions anything special about the 1x6 pin and 1x8 pin, but seeing as my xt is 2x6 pin and it's stable modded into a BE i reckon what i wrote below might make sense .....

I saw a random post on a forum about his view on 6 and 8 pin connectors, he said 8 pin to him seemed a gimmick, from a quick look at the time i just made out more black wiring on an 8 pin so maybe he's right saying it's a gimmick (obviously more info would remove the doubt)

As for the reference cooler, again i'll have to search unless any that knows posts, but i'm pretty sure the basic xfx 4890 and i guess most ati reference designed 4890's basics would share the same ref cooler, the fan i'm sure is a higher cfm on the xt and be's compared to the basic models

By saying basic models i don't want to imply they're in anyways inferior as they most certainly are not Basic as-in default ati recommended clocks

If someone with eg: XfX HD 4890 can try modding their bios to be specs it might prove if the non xt be's are not solely capable of 1gig cores

The only voltage from stock xt settings i changed to mod bios into a be was with RBE raising the 0x18 voltage to match the be spec

Now the Sapphire Atomic only uses 0x18 at 1.4v, and i note the fan/temp strats differ too

So, as sapphire dropped the highest volts compared to xfx, they altered the fan strats to comensate eg: with less voltage going in they could drop the fan speed down as 1.4 runs cooler than 1.475

It's not always about raising voltage to gain speed from a core, you can get the same clock obviously with more cooling power as sapphires bios shows, the cooler any chip runs the less voltage it requires for the same speed, hence some people cooling a cpu on air hit a barrier as the volatge required starts to breakdown the cpu speed as the cpu cannot dissipate the energy fast enough, yet slap a waterblock on that same core and you would be able to drop the voltage and still hit the same speed (hope that makes sense)

Gonna grab some sleep lol

Will do a search for info on be editions coolers to see whats what

Have Fun

Happy Flashing !! ohh arrr missus

EDIT:: Seems there are at least 3 designs of pcb for the 4890, 2 red pcb's and then either blue or black
The way to spot the different pcb designs on the ati red designs are easy enough

Rev1 the 2x6 pin connectors are set back from the corner of the pcb as there is a hole up in the corner of the pcb for the cooler mounting
Rev 2 the 2x6 pin connectors are snug up to the corner of the pcb as there's no mounting hole for the cooler in the corner

Then i shall call rev3 the blue or black pcb which has 1x6 pin 1x8 pin (these pcb's seem to be slightly longer than the ref designs (to me) and as said don't have 2x6 pin connectors)

Def

 

[Plug]

Im having to send both my 4890s back to the shop and getting 2x of these cards instead

950/4200 default clocks.

Battle Forge Edition Powercolor,

Seems like these cards have 8c better cooling but also it looks like these cards have much better VRM heatsink comparied to the stock cooler

I cant find anyone though who has these cards to tell me what there VRMS temps are under load arghhh useing furmark.

 

[Defiance]

Furmark is all well n good for testing

But nothing yet will use a gpu 100% in the normal world, so don't think furmark is the be all and end all

Vrm temps, i hear 120-125c is a rated max temp (or where they start to breakdown/fade, so many non specific quotes to go by though)

If they go much over 110c (doubtful) then start worrying (until exact max safe temps are found)

First time i've seen those, if the vrm cooler is copper and not just ali sprayed/anodised copper it would be great (let us know )

<- Goes on google mission lol

 

[Plug]

well from reading the VRM heatsink is indeed copper.

also the memory does have mini heatsinks and those are copper aswell lol

Im hopeing i can get 50mhz from the core on them though not bothered about the memory as 4200 is fast enough but if i can break the 1ghz core i will be happy , hell 950 core is nothing to sniff at though lol

 

[Plug]

as you can see, pure copper on the VRMS and pure copper on the memory.

not to mention 4 heatpipe cooler on the Core.

 

[Defiance]

Heya Plug,

Just been reading about them

"Proper" copper, then the jobs a good'n

You'll have to post back when you get them especially vrm temps

 

[Plug]

Looks copper to me, here is a better pic

You dont know if this card uses the voltera voltage regulator chip, as without it you cant edit voltages.