2900XT OCs

[binormalkilla]

Wondering what everyone has reached for these for 24/7 gaming use. I was able to bench 3dmark 06 at 860/150, but I can't even get 858 stable in catalyst 7.8 with Overdrive....I just bought an 8pin adapter cable, so now I can use Overdrive.

 

[TonyStark]

3dMark06: 858/1000 | Tested at Gaming: 840/1000 stable.

I use ATI Tool, since CCC doesn't go higher than 900 on the memory.

 

[Dos101]

835/1007 stable. Any higher on both core and mem speeds and my games freeze. This is using the AMD GPU tool, for me it oc's better than ATI Tool for some reason.

 

[Lt_JWS]

i've been up to 850/1000 benching and seems fine for DX9 gaming.... DX10 artifacts @ those speeds.....

 

[binormalkilla]

i've been up to 850/1000 benching and seems fine for DX9 gaming.... DX10 artifacts @ those speeds.....

Hmmm interesting....sounds like a driver issue. What's strange is that I can bench at 860/1050 when OCing with Rivatuner, but I freeze at those speeds with Overdrive....weird.
What temps are you guys at while gaming? My max was 86 in BF2142 when at 798.....I don't think it's supposed to be that high considering my good case cooling....

Also, how the hell do you get this cooler off???? I got all the way past the 4 screw GPU brace and past the several screw memory plate on the back....but it seems to be hung by the DVI port side....the screw looks like you have to take the plastic guard off to get it...I want to reseat with AS5, but I can't get it off! Any ideas?

 

[binormalkilla]

Well here we are at 823/1070. This is stable for two runs (on the core clock, 1 run with mem and GPU) in Lost Coast stress....Overdrive is more stressful than AMD GPU clock tool...I have a feeling that I wasn't really running 860 like it said before I tried Overdrive (I got the adapter)
I maxed out at 73C in this test. I'm about to run some gaming with BF2142 for some extended period of time.
I really want to reseat with AS5....my temps are really high! I know that this card runs hot, but I think I can get it lower with AS5. My case and ambient temps are great, as you can tell by my CPU temps. I have my E6600 at 3 GHz with 1.424V Vcore....22C idle

 

[binormalkilla]

Reseated with AS5 and temps dropped by 4C at load and idle!!!! woot

 

[mandelore]

u guys changing voltages at all?

im on stock volts, since going watercooling can go 890core and 2350 memory 24/7 have been to 900 core but crashed after about 30 minutes.

meh, me wants voltages damnit!

 

[mandelore]

Hmmm interesting....sounds like a driver issue. What's strange is that I can bench at 860/1050 when OCing with Rivatuner, but I freeze at those speeds with Overdrive....weird.
What temps are you guys at while gaming? My max was 86 in BF2142 when at 798.....I don't think it's supposed to be that high considering my good case cooling....

Also, how the hell do you get this cooler off???? I got all the way past the 4 screw GPU brace and past the several screw memory plate on the back....but it seems to be hung by the DVI port side....the screw looks like you have to take the plastic guard off to get it...I want to reseat with AS5, but I can't get it off! Any ideas?

theres 2 screws on the front panel plate it got me when i tried fitting my waterblock

 

[mandelore]

out of curiosity, if you are indeed changing your voltages, by how much are you doing so? because i plan on a whole set of overclocking "adventures" to see how far this liquid cooling + voltage bumps can take this card

 

[binormalkilla]

u guys changing voltages at all?

im on stock volts, since going watercooling can go 890core and 2350 memory 24/7 have been to 900 core but crashed after about 30 minutes.

meh, me wants voltages damnit!

I haven't changed my voltages....not on air! (well...yet)
BTW, are you cooling the memory with your water block???? Those are some insanely high memory clocks.....I froze up in BF2142 after about 10 minutes at 1070..but I could run the Lost Coast stress test.
I am currently running 823/1000 (stock mem)
One thing that concerned me was that I saw what looked like a defect on one of the chips (when I reseated AS5).....I hope that this isn't causing memory instability..
BTW, have you guys OCing memory tested real game benches to see if more freq. past 1000 MHz helps any for FPS? Our cards are severely bottlenecked by the core, as the memory bandwidth is massve on these cards.

I am going to up the GPU some more.

 

[binormalkilla]

I am now completely stable (1 hour +) in BF2142 at 843/1000. I turned my PCI-E bus from 105 to 115. I think that it will help, as I locked up as soon as I entered 3d mode at the next step up from 843. i'm going to bed! Tomorrow I'll post my findings. I should be able to max out the core tomorrow on stock voltages...not going any further.
I am also going to see if overclocking the memory past 1000 MHz will do anything for real world gaming....my be is no.

 

[Lopez0101]

Mine is perfectly stable at 874.12/999. I haven't yet tried going over 1000 mem so I'll probably do it later. but my max temps is around 70C at 44% fan speed. Anything over 874 causes my computer to auto-reset instantly or after a few minutes.
I've got a whole thread of what I've done with the card.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=37550

 

[mandelore]

I haven't changed my voltages....not on air! (well...yet)
BTW, are you cooling the memory with your water block???? Those are some insanely high memory clocks.....I froze up in BF2142 after about 10 minutes at 1070..but I could run the Lost Coast stress test.
I am currently running 823/1000 (stock mem)
One thing that concerned me was that I saw what looked like a defect on one of the chips (when I reseated AS5).....I hope that this isn't causing memory instability..
BTW, have you guys OCing memory tested real game benches to see if more freq. past 1000 MHz helps any for FPS? Our cards are severely bottlenecked by the core, as the memory bandwidth is massve on these cards.

I am going to up the GPU some more.

yup, im using the new DangerDen full coverage waterblock, I reviewed it here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/DangerDen/DD-29XT_Radeon_Waterblock

its pretty damn awsome, i dont even break 52C under full load @ 890/2350

the block watercools the core/memory/voltage regulators

my card is heavily bottlenecked by my cpu but im replaying Dark messiah, and at 1920x1200 and 16x Antialaising the overclock does help the fps. Im hoping to move to a quadcore phenom later this year so that should releave the bottleneck somewhat

 

[Oliver]

850/1007

I run 850/1007 stable through 3d03; 05 ; 06......with amd gpu tool

 

[binormalkilla]

Mine is perfectly stable at 874.12/999. I haven't yet tried going over 1000 mem so I'll probably do it later. but my max temps is around 70C at 44% fan speed. Anything over 874 causes my computer to auto-reset instantly or after a few minutes.
I've got a whole thread of what I've done with the card.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=37550

Great stuff man.

I don't know if this is really odd for the 2900XT or any card for that matter (I didn't do much substantial testing with my old X800XT when I OC'ed it) but increasing the speed has a smaller impact on performance than I would think when compared to increasing the core speed. Even with an increase of 324Mhz for the memory at stock core speeds only netted 156 Marks (About 137 when the core and mem were OC'ed vs. OC'ed core and stock mem).

Just FYI, this is due to the fact that our memory bus is 512 bit and has a HUGE bandwidth compared to cards in the past. It used to be that cards were almost always memory bandwidth bottlenecked, thus creating a huge performance gain when OCing, but now it't the other way around.
I tested this with Lost Coast stress. I ran my card at stock GPU, stock memory, then ran the test maxed out at 1920*1080. I then OCed the memory to 1070 and ran it....exact same FPS. I then OCed the GPU and ran the memory at stock....then ran the memory and GPU OCed....same scores as just the GPU OCed.
IMHO, don't even bother OCing the memory.
MIne doesn't even seem stable in gaming anyways.....I just got a lockup at 1050.

 

[binormalkilla]

I run 850/1007 stable through 3d03; 05 ; 06......with amd gpu tool

Yea but I doubt it's stable in games...maybe, but I think we need more VGPU to be stable 24/7 in gaming past 850.

 

[Oliver]

Yea but I doubt it's stable in games...maybe, but I think we need more VGPU to be stable 24/7 in gaming past 850.

Yeah you may be right because the setting are somewhat downgrades by Amd GPU tool seeem the card is really churnig along at 847/999 but still its way killer on 3d scores

 

[yogurt_21]

875/980 stable in games, at least for 3+hrs, don't game longer than that so cant vouch, slight bump in vcore about .1v more 70c load at 100% fan though, ouchies, I really need to watercool this thing. lol

 

[binormalkilla]

I'm assuming that you have the 512Mb version to be able to overvolt? Bastard....LOL W1zzard hasn't released the beta that supports VGPU increases in ATI TOol yet...

 

[yogurt_21]

yup 512mb, though voltigns a bit tricky, have to check it's enabled several times lol.

 

[binormalkilla]

Bah! I want voltage adjustments NOW!!!

 

[zOaib]

NICE ocs there guys , keep it up.

 

[mandelore]

Bah! I want voltage adjustments NOW!!!

I want voltage adjestments LAST MONTH hahaha

oh, i made it onto the main page on the DangerDen website

 

[binormalkilla]

Awesome dude! Get your expensive water block on! I'm sure it will be worth it....I'm think about WCing my GPU only.....