The 4890 "2D Low", GPU voltage/Memory clock rate Bios Thread

[LuxZg]

WARNING!​

Just a quick tip for any HD4890 BIOS fiddlers; The latest version of GPU-Z (0.3.3) does not extract a correct size (128KB - 131,072bytes) BIOS, but rather half of one (62.5KB - 64,000bytes).

This problem is exactly the same as what was seen during early HD4870 times. There are two programs that do extract a correct size HD4890 BIOS. I have verified that both Atiflash (v3.62) and Atiwinflash (v2.0.1.7) work perfectly for saving your current HD4890 BIOS.

I can't stress this enough, PLEASE SAVE YOUR CURRENT BIOS BEFORE EDITING OR FLASHING YOUR HD4890!!!. You will save yourself much time and heartache trying to find a replacement BIOS or getting your card back to stock working order.

OK, now that you were warned time to go on with this post.
For those involved in "old" HD4870 "2D Low" thread they'll get it right away, and for those that are new to this, here is a short description taken from HD4870 thread (tnx got to EastCoasthandle; edited "a bit")

What's the deal?​

This thread is created to poll people together who have modified/altered their bios and/or driver to reduce:
- GPU clock rate
- Memory clock rate
- GPU voltage

Purpose​

The purpose of this thread is to formulate, create and obtain information and bios/bios tweaks to create a single bios that is proven to reduce reference HD4890 cards GPU voltage and memory clock rate without any side effects for the card and end user.

Ideas​

-confirmed lower GPU clocks and voltage
-leave the second 2D mode AKA UVD mode alone unless absolutely sure that a lower voltage doesn't affect movie playback, etc
-lower the memory clock rate in 2D mode, while keeping normal or overclocked memory clocks in 3D
-make sure that using other Catalyst drivers doesn't adversely effect your card when you're using standard or overclock settings to play your games
-no wierd artifacts or anomalies are tolerated - this is especialy true for flickering caused by GDDR5 memory changing from/to 2D/3D clocks if those are not the same

What if we fail?​

In case a "one BIOS to rule them all" plan fails, we will fall back to solutions using software tools as RivaTuner and ATI Tray Tools, or any similar tool that will be capable of delivering satisfying results.

Software you may need​

Radeon Bios Editor (latest)
GPU-Z (latest) WARNING: Current GPU-Z DOES NOT save your current bios correctly, please use Atiwinflash or ATIFlash 3.62 instead! (links below)
ATIFlash v3.60 / ATIFlash v3.62
ATI Tray Tools (latest) (latest beta thread)
Atiwinflash v2.0.1.7 - preffered way of getting original BIOS from your card BEFORE you start editting anything! Keep a copy of original BIOS in a safe place!
You may need to create a CCC profile with just the fan information (no gpu or memory information) to bring the fan back up to speed.

Kill-A-Watt (of any kind)
AND/OR
Multimeter


Disclaimer:
Once a BIOS is created and confirmed by several users to work as purposed (or any other BIOS and or method to measure voltage, etc) then you use it at your own risk. There is still no guarantee that it will work properly with your video card. As with any BIOS update there is a level of risk involved and you will assume this risk if you venture in replacing your BIOS. As a precaution, make a backup copy of your BIOS and keep a PCI video card handy as a backup as they are cheap.

Results so far​

OK, first the disclaimer of my own - at the moment I do not YET own a HD4890 card. I hope I will have it in my hands tomorrow or the day after, April 21st/22nd 2009.
This means I have NOT tried any solutions yet, and this is only based on what other people said.

So here are the results so far:
- HD4890 is confirmed to be able to change voltages through software (RivaTuner, VoltageFactory)
- it can be overclocked and downclocked using software (RivaTuner, ATI Try Tools)
- it still suffers from the flickering issue when memory changes speeds, same as HD4870

To be tried yet:
(please those willing to do it - test it yourselves and post results here; please note that any testing is done at your own risk! So please skip over if you do not feel "at home" with above mentioned tools)
- can voltages be lowered using software tools (RivaTuner, VoltageFactory) ?
- can voltages be modified using currently available BIOS ? (either going up or down; though going "down" is main point of this thread)
- can memory speeds be tweaked so that flickering is avoided ? (nafets claimed that HD4870 can work flicker-free if clocks are set to 450MHz for 2D and 900MHz for 3D)

As soon as I get my own card I will post my results. In the meantime, I have noticed that nafets has HD4890 and had already been playing with it - just haven't seen any "low 2D" tests.. maybe this gives him a push
Anyone else is welcome to join ofcourse, this is a group effort.

Any major news from this thread will also be posted here in the opening post.

 

[nafets]

I do have a toasty new HD4890 working right now.

Just a quick tip for any HD4890 BIOS fiddlers; The latest version of GPU-Z (0.3.3) does not extract a correct size (128KB - 131,072bytes) BIOS, but rather half of one (62.5KB - 64,000bytes).

This problem is exactly the same as what was seen during early HD4870 times. There are two programs that do extract a correct size HD4890 BIOS. I have verified that both Atiflash (v3.62) and Atiwinflash (v2.0.1.7) work perfectly for saving your current HD4890 BIOS.

I can't stress this enough, PLEASE SAVE YOUR CURRENT BIOS BEFORE EDITING OR FLASHING YOUR HD4890!!!. You will save yourself much time and heartache trying to find a replacement BIOS or getting your card back to stock working order.

I'll have some more info on 2D underclocking/volting and BIOS info in a few days. I'm just having fun with this beast in my games.

Hope to hear from other HD4890 owners and their experiences.

Card is currently testing with profiles of (2D - 150/215 @ 1.05v @ 0% fan dc and 3D - 900/1000 @ 1.3125v @ 40% fan dc)...

 

[LuxZg]

Heya nafets

Yeah, I'll add the "please backup bios" up there as well in a second.. I forgot that people don't do that always :/

Just keep enjoying your card, I'm in no hurry.. Just one little thing - that's really 0% fan in 2D? If so - niceee! I'll really enjoy this card

EDIT: It's actualy so nice to go from HD4870 -> HD4890 .. so many things are same.. bugs included I feel all warm inside, hehehe

 

[Fernandz]

I do have a toasty new HD4890 working right now.
...I'll have some more info on 2D underclocking/volting and BIOS info in a few days. I'm just having fun with this beast in my games.

Hope to hear from other HD4890 owners and their experiences.

Card is currently testing with profiles of (2D - 150/215 @ 1.05v @ 0% fan dc and 3D - 900/1000 @ 1.3125v @ 40% fan dc)...

Hey Nafets! Do you have this 2D profile without flickering? I'm testing some options but for now all have flickering (Aero activated in Server 2008).
Those i'm tested are:
230/250 2D@1.05V - 460/500 UVD@1.183V - 920/1000 3D@1.3125V... flickering (but low)
225/250 2D@1.05V - 450/500 UVD@1.183V - 900/1000 3D@1.3125V... flickering (but low)

First idea was set exact multiple clocks (250/500/1000) for memory and same relation of core/memory in 3 clocks, but isn't working properly.

New idea for testing... the good old 27 multiple in core, and memory... this perhaps avoids changes in partial divisors and with exact multiplier mantains the timing. NOT TESTED YET!
Any want to try these?:
With overclock in memory (1080 in 3D) the options are (example):
230/270 2D@1.05V - 459/540 UVD@1.183V - 918/1080 3D@1.3125V

Without overclock in memory (972 in 3D) for example:
216/243 2D@1.05V - 432/486 UVD@1.183V - 864/972 3D@1.3125V

Note for the test: There no "27's exact multiplier" option in between 972 and 1080 for 4 multi divisor.

mmm... your option can work with this exact clocks... 216 / 999...
maybe the "multiple of 27" requirement could be the clue.

Ok, i'm working now, but today at home i will test this theory.

To LuxZg: I'm also with fan@0% in 2D mode, i made an automated profile in BIOS with 56ºC for minimum temp and 40% for minimum fan speed, in 56ºC the fan jumps directly to 40% and if the card heats up, the fan is continoulsy upping to 100% at 100ºC.
With this profile is very silence at 2D. And note: the fan a 40% is less noisy than 20-30%. in this range the fan produce a strange vibrational noise that is worse than the fan at 80%.

 

[largon]

I wonder how many watts could be saved by lowering the GDDR5 memory controller voltage...
I suspect that's where there's some wattage to be saved as I run my 4890 at 100MHz core / 200MHz memory at idle and GPU-Z sensor tab reports "???" (memory I/O) current draw as over 4 amperes whereas main core amperage is around 1.4A (1.4A×3×1.3125v=5.5W). So actual processing core wattage is lower than that of mem I/O (4A×2×1.20v=9.6W).

 

[Fernandz]

...New idea for testing... the good old 27 multiple in core, and memory... this perhaps avoids changes in partial divisors and with exact multiplier mantains the timing. NOT TESTED YET!
Any want to try these?:
With overclock in memory (1080 in 3D) the options are (example):
230/270 2D@1.05V - 459/540 UVD@1.183V - 918/1080 3D@1.3125V

Without overclock in memory (972 in 3D) for example:
216/243 2D@1.05V - 432/486 UVD@1.183V - 864/972 3D@1.3125V

Note for the test: There no "27's exact multiplier" option in between 972 and 1080 for 4 multi divisor.

mmm... your option can work with this exact clocks... 216 / 999...
maybe the "multiple of 27" requirement could be the clue.....

I'm quoting myself only for say: NOOOOOOOOOOPE!
The "multiple of 27" theory is false. With exact multiples of 27, exact relationships and exact multiplier changes... still flickering. :shadedshu
For now... no clue.

 

[Achernar]

Flickering

Hi,

Quick question... When you refer to flickering, is the screen flickering with every frame being displayed on the monitor or does it happen just when you change the clock settings?

Chris

 

[Fernandz]

Hi,

Quick question... When you refer to flickering, is the screen flickering with every frame being displayed on the monitor or does it happen just when you change the clock settings?

Chris

No, is only when the drivers change between 2D/3D mode, but is in automatic changes. Is annoying.

 

[Richieb0y]

can some here help me i just flashed my card first i only was aiming for the fan profiel but i could not resist to touch the 2d clocks i set them to 240/250 and i touched the CCC overdrive thingy so that i let me OC the core to 1100mhz then i flashed it it was succes after the reboot i got a error that there where no Ati drivers installed so i reinstalled it but after reboot i get the same error

Plzz can someone help me

 

[Plug]

The only way to stop the flickering is to set all your memory clocks to 1000 or what ever your 3d clock is set to then you can put the cores on what ever you want and you will get no flickering desktop ect.

the flickering 2d is caused by memory speed changes in bios.

 

[Richieb0y]

The only way to stop the flickering is to set all your memory clocks to 1000 or what ever your 3d clock is set to then you can put the cores on what ever you want and you will get no flickering desktop ect.

the flickering 2d is caused by memory speed changes in bios.

lol but i want low temps in 2d thats why i want it low and i cant OC this card for shit i alreafy tryed it and i get error is GPUtool

 

[AsRock]

I wonder how many watts could be saved by lowering the GDDR5 memory controller voltage...
I suspect that's where there's some wattage to be saved as I run my 4890 at 100MHz core / 200MHz memory at idle and GPU-Z sensor tab reports "???" (memory I/O) current draw as over 4 amperes whereas main core amperage is around 1.4A (1.4A×3×1.3125v=5.5W). So actual processing core wattage is lower than that of mem I/O (4A×2×1.20v=9.6W).

Idle 223w

Rams at 1095MHz and lowering just the speed of it to 490MHz will drop my system usage down to 192w. And this is just using CCC so no flicker either.

Need a hack for CCC lol.