HD 2900 Series Overclocking and Feedback thread

[fern420]

CAt 7.5 are out.. I got the card Fedex just delivered but I just realized I do not have enough PCI-E connectors to do Crossfire, unless anyone has a suggestion to run the 2?

hmm, you could always use a couple of those molex to pci-e adapters if you have any laying around. im cleaning out my old drivers right now to try the new ones. i think allot of my problem is the amdgpuclocktool not displaying the proper clock speeds but i still just cant figure out why that one card is so much hotter than the other.

 

[Wile E]

hmm, you could always use a couple of those molex to pci-e adapters if you have any laying around. im cleaning out my old drivers right now to try the new ones. i think allot of my problem is the amdgpuclocktool not displaying the proper clock speeds but i still just cant figure out why that one card is so much hotter than the other.

Is the bottom or top card hotter? If it's the top card, it's gonna run hotter because of the heat rising off of the bottom card. Water cooling might be a good solution.

 

[fern420]

Is the bottom or top card hotter? If it's the top card, it's gonna run hotter because of the heat rising off of the bottom card. Water cooling might be a good solution.

nope, its a upside down configuration so its actually the bottom card thats getting hotter. i dont know if perhaps its because the cards are stacked so "tight" that maybe the fan on the bottom card isnt getting enough intake of air? ill try lowering the clocks on both cards to only 500 and 500 across the board and let it sit for a hour to see if that one card is still hotter.

 

[Wile E]

I see. Yeah, if there isn't much space between the cards, one could be starving of intake air. Maybe get a fan in the side panel to push some cool air in there?

 

[MarcusTaz]

hmm, you could always use a couple of those molex to pci-e adapters if you have any laying around. im cleaning out my old drivers right now to try the new ones. i think allot of my problem is the amdgpuclocktool not displaying the proper clock speeds but i still just cant figure out why that one card is so much hotter than the other.

Ah I have some of them from my 7900 cards.... Great call will give it a go and post back...

 

[MarcusTaz]

Ok boys got them both installed and here are the numbers off my first run on 3dmark06:

Drivers Cat 7.5

Proc=AMD X24800+
mem=Corsair 3500LL Pro
Mobo=Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe
PSU=Antec 650watt
1 ATI 2900XT

3Dmark06=8659

2 ATI 2900XT

3Dmark06=10,001

Not bad I am sure I will get better numbers once I get my water cooled kit in and I am able to get the CPU up in frequency... As it is now I can only OC my CPU stable to 2.7 Ghz... I want to get it to 3 ghz. The proc is my bottleneck and I wish I had a Core 2 Duo, but I spent 632 on this CPu and I am not about to change my platform until I go Quad core..

 

[Wile E]

Wow, that cpu is a bigger bottleneck than I thought. (No offense intended here). With my card at stock, and my cpu at 2.9Ghz, I scored 9682 in 06. With my cpu at 3Ghz and the card at 800/900 I managed 10,091.

Perhaps a clean Windows install is also in order?

 

[MarcusTaz]

Just a few pics for the ATi fans to enjoy..

Will post more once I get my Sifttech Watercooled kit installed...

wheres me pics??? they said uploaded.. Does a mod need to approve them??

 

[MarcusTaz]

Wow, that cpu is a bigger bottleneck than I thought. (No offense intended here). With my card at stock, and my cpu at 2.9Ghz, I scored 9682 in 06. With my cpu at 3Ghz and the card at 800/900 I managed 10,091.

Perhaps a clean Windows install is also in order?

I think I will as I moved this Vista Ultimate OS from my A8N32-SLI deluxe board. When I moved the HD the OS booted fine without an a reinstall, recognised everything so I just left it... My game play fine but I think a fresh install may help..

I am not a seasoned overclocker and I prob have much to learn.. Vista gives me a 5.2 score even though I know that number sortof unimportant. All my other components give me a 5.9 excpet my Proc which is 5.2... I run the Proc @ 12x multiplier 2.7ghz and mem @ (216) 433mhz with 2.5-6-3-3 timings...

 

[Wile E]

You definitely have enough cooling to go higher on the overclock. You should try to get her up to at least 2.9Ghz, and once you find your max stable overclock, do a clean re-install of Windows. Should get you hummin along nicely. Also note that Vista will diminish your 3dMark scores some, when compared to XP. Not saying you should dump Vista, just pointing it out.

 

[MarcusTaz]

yea I here that.. I paid mucho for vista and love the interface but the performance definetly needs improvment... I can dual boot and reinstall my XP pro but I dono, DX10 is comming soon and my clan is looking forward to Quake wars and more specifically MOHA AIRBORNE so I want DX10... As far as 2.9ghz.. I can get it there but it is not stable, at least at the 12x multiplier. I could try lowering the freq on the mem and loosening up the timmings a bit but I dono I think I will just wait for the water cooling.. my CPU at 1.45 volts @ 2.7ghz runs at 53 degrees during gaming... Any higher and she BSOD... Any specific advise on bios settings with my rig I am open ears... Check my Specs and let me know...

Thanks

 

[Wile E]

You don't have the Swiftech kit installed? That's what I was basing my advice on. If it's not installed yet, then by all means, wait until it is. I have the Swiftech kit, and when you said you hit 53c on 1.45v, my jaw hit the floor. lol.

So yeah, get water kit installed->overclock->reinstall. lol. And if you like Vista, just keep it. So long as you can play all your games in it, at the settings you want, it doesn't matter. Benchmarking isn't that important.

 

[fern420]

you know i think it really might be a air intake issue on my number one card causing all the heat. i went and put two fans in front of the cards just to help and it did lower the one by almost 10 degrees at idle but the cards are absolutely stacked on top of each other, there isnt even a 1/4 inch between them so i bet that card is just choking for air since the intake is on the top of it and the top of it is slammed right underneath the second card. anyone seen any after market air coolers for these cards yet? water would be ideal but i dont think my current water system could support 2 video cards.

 

[Wile E]

you know i think it really might be a air intake issue on my number one card causing all the heat. i went and put two fans in front of the cards just to help and it did lower the one by almost 10 degrees at idle but the cards are absolutely stacked on top of each other, there isnt even a 1/4 inch between them so i bet that card is just choking for air since the intake is on the top of it and the top of it is slammed right underneath the second card. anyone seen any after market air coolers for these cards yet? water would be ideal but i dont think my current water system could support 2 video cards.

What are your specs? Can you fill out the system info in your profile?

 

[fern420]

i filled them in on my profile. basically its:

core 2 duo E6700

HD2900XT CROSSFIRE

mushkin REDLINE 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000)

duro 900 AND Juice Box EP-450CD UNI

intel D975XBX

bios version 1479

SONY FDW-900

74 gig raptor


this intel board has the pcie slots right on top of each other so its really had to get air in between them.

 

[Wile E]

And what water cooling do you have?

EDIT: Let me make that more clear. What's a Hydrocool and Volcano 4005?

 

[fern420]

its the old corsair hydrocool 200, its absolutely nothing special thats why im sure it isnt enough for two video cards. the volcano is some combo deal i fell for from thermaltake that is a water block with a loop radiator for a little extra cooling on it, again nothing special at all but it does the job just fine, ive never broke 40 degrees even at the most extreme overclocks.

 

[Wile E]

I imagine those could be worse. At least they aren't the Cooler Master Mini-Aquagates. I was stuck with one of those for a while. What about modding the Hydrocool for a better rad?

 

[Dos101]

Well I picked up the Sapphire HD2900XT yesterday, wow this thing blows through games. I have to say I'm a little disapointed in its ocing ability (maybe its cause I have two 6 pins plugged in instead of a 6 and an 8). Here are some before and after pictures of 3dmark06:

this is at stock speeds, 11281 is a huge improvement over my X1950XTX's 7329

with the engine clocked 92MHz higher to 835 and the mem clocked 179MHz higher to 1007 I get 871 more marks. If I overclock it anymore it becomes unstable and freezes while playing games or running 3dmark06.

ps: I'm using cat 7.5

 

[MarcusTaz]

Awesome man... hey, it is very easy to enable the ATI overdrive. All you need to do is this:

The 8 pin PCI-E plug has a ground wire on the top row with the 3 yellow 12v leads. So the top right hand corner of the pin plug just get a piece of wire and jump a ground from one of the bottom 3 black ground leads to the top right hand corner and this will enable overdrive and possible improve you OCing ability.. I have mine maxed out in over drive and it is stable...

858mhz on the core
898mhz x2 on the memory and gonna run 3d mark again now...

BTW, WILE E I reinstalled Vista last night and the PC is much smoother although I still failed to break far above the 10k Crossfire score. unfortunatley I am back to a single card as I just shipped the other one to my friend up north...

 

[fern420]

Awesome man... hey, it is very easy to enable the ATI overdrive. All you need to do is this:

The 8 pin PCI-E plug has a ground wire on the top row with the 3 yellow 12v leads. So the top right hand corner of the pin plug just get a piece of wire and jump a ground from one of the bottom 3 black ground leads to the top right hand corner and this will enable overdrive and possible improve you OCing ability.. I have mine maxed out in over drive and it is stable...

858mhz on the core
898mhz x2 on the memory and gonna run 3d mark again now...

BTW, WILE E I reinstalled Vista last night and the PC is much smoother although I still failed to break far above the 10k Crossfire score. unfortunatley I am back to a single card as I just shipped the other one to my friend up north...

yes that does work but you need to remember, that 8 pin plug is putting out almost twice the wattage as a regular 6 pin, im sure it all works fine but they really did intend that 8 pin to get almost 2x the power of the 6 pin. i havnt seen any difference whatsoever except for the overdrive from when i had two 6 pin plugs on the cards and now with one 6 pin and one 8 pin so im sure its just ati overkill anyway.

 

[MarcusTaz]

OK here is a pic with a single card OCed, vista reinstall running cat 5 drivers... Scores getting better.. Somthing tells me Crossfire was not working properly when I got the 10.001 score...

Today scores: 9451 with 1 card



Moderators why are my pics not showing up. Sorry if i am being a noob here but I am uploading them with the provided link and it tell me uploaded but they are not showing up. I am sure it is user error, can someone help out???

 

[Tatty_Two]

OK here is a pic with a single card OCed, vista reinstall running cat 5 drivers... Scores getting better.. Somthing tells me Crossfire was not working properly when I got the 10.001 score...

Today scores: 9451 with 1 card



Moderators why are my pics not showing up. Sorry if i am being a noob here but I am uploading them with the provided link and it tell me uploaded but they are not showing up. I am sure it is user error, can someone help out???

Are they within the size restrictions? ie 190KB for JPEG?

 

[MarcusTaz]

yes that does work but you need to remember, that 8 pin plug is putting out almost twice the wattage as a regular 6 pin, im sure it all works fine but they really did intend that 8 pin to get almost 2x the power of the 6 pin. i havnt seen any difference whatsoever except for the overdrive from when i had two 6 pin plugs on the cards and now with one 6 pin and one 8 pin so im sure its just ati overkill anyway.

Wow I did not realize that is puts out almost 2 x the wattage, thanks... I will eventually have to upgrade my PSU, but I just bought this one... For now this will have to work, my wife will not stand for more ...

 

[MarcusTaz]

Are they within the size restrictions? ie 190KB for JPEG?

it is just one jpg, not large at all.. and it says uploaded successfully.. Maybe I have to be approved by a mod to post pics??