ATI HD5XXX Series Discussion

[Thrackan]

Remember that rendering of Ruby some time back? It's a really nice light state and check out who they got to model.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/9881/ruby2.png

Ivana Milicevic

Hmm, I was thinking Mila Jovovic first...

 

[Binge]

Get on MSN and tell me about your new video card!

 

[Thrackan]

Get on MSN and tell me about your new video card!

Sorry, no MSN at work. You can try to hit me on Skype though

 

[inferKNOX]

It's DDR2 800mhz, so i won't get anything close to that speed.

Oops, sorry, I missed that. Well try 4GB anyway and see how well it does. At least it will let you troubleshoot and eliminate a possibility.
Oh, and by the way, x64 OS puts quite a bit more pressure on the system and generally lowers how high you can overclock (but that's normally in extreme OCing)

Sorry, no MSN at work. You can try to hit me on Skype though

Count me in that conversation! I want to hear all about it. (PM me your skype name)

 

[bobzilla2009]

Yup. I sold my 2 x 4890 for a 5870. Less noise and more energy efficient with none of the Xfire hassles.

Games run perfectly. No dip in frames. I think i am CPU limited in vantage. I'm running my CPU @ 3.6ghz. Thought it would be fast enough. Guess not.

@ Erocker, I will try running 4gb ram tonight.

@ Bobzilla, what Vantage score are u getting?

BTW I'm running Windows 7 x64/

Thanx for all the help

i was getting about 9k on the standard settings that can't be changed. Tbh i really can't see how we are cpu limited, i've been bouncing around the internet and even though our processor isn't a world beater, it is only about 200 behind (in passmark) the phenom 955 at stock

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

and the 955 has no trouble at all. I can' say if my re-install helped yet, but 3dmark06 didn't budge, installing gta4 (again, i hate xp, it always will find a way to screw up).

To be honest i think the most likely cause is that amd have dropped the ball with compatibility between the two components, since people with worse cpu's are getting better 3dmark scores with this card. Since everything else is different for us except that combination, apart fromt h fact the mobos are both asus, but that is hardly going to be an issue.

 

[mR Yellow]

i was getting about 9k on the standard settings that can't be changed. Tbh i really can't see how we are cpu limited, i've been bouncing around the internet and even though our processor isn't a world beater, it is only about 200 behind (in passmark) the phenom 955 at stock

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

and the 955 has no trouble at all. I can' say if my re-install helped yet, but 3dmark06 didn't budge, installing gta4 (again, i hate xp, it always will find a way to screw up).

To be honest i think the most likely cause is that amd have dropped the ball with compatibility between the two components, since people with worse cpu's are getting better 3dmark scores with this card. Since everything else is different for us except that combination, apart fromt h fact the mobos are both asus, but that is hardly going to be an issue.

I really don't know what the issue could be. I'm gonna try and reinstall Vantage.

 

[bobzilla2009]

so are all your games ok then? what kind of frames do you get? since although all of my games are playable and nice, i'm just getting far lower frames than other phenom II hd-5870 combo systems.
After the re-install didn't change anything i have come to the conclusion that the problem is something to do with the card, either driver level or otherwise, if i don't improve performance by tomorrow evening i think i'll rma.

Cpu bottlenecking is not an issue either, it never reaches anywhere near 100% on any single core.

may be a breakthrough here, just ran a test a few times, one of the time i got half the frame rate despite the cpu running the same speed, that is something either very weird with the power saving functions or the card is dodgy.

 

[mR Yellow]

so are all your games ok then? what kind of frames do you get? since although all of my games are playable and nice, i'm just getting far lower frames than other phenom II hd-5870 combo systems.

All games are perfectly smooth.

I've tested with res *1920 x 1200*
Street fighter (8xAA and 16xAF) = Avg 104fps
World in Conflict (4xAA and 16xAF) with everything maxed = Avg 55
Batman AA never drops below 60fps
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (maxed out and smooth)

I will try GTA IV tonight.

 

[mR Yellow]

Do u guys think it's worth it to upgrade to this mem? I'm currently running vanilla DDR2 800 which is impossible to OC.

http://www.corsair.com/_datasheets/T...6-8500C5DF.pdf

Corsair TWIN2X4096-8500C5D/CMD4GX2M2A1066C5 , Dominator , with DHX technology , Nvidia SLi certrified with EPP , designed for nForce 590/680 SLi , 2 x 2G/2048mb kit , ddr2-1066 ( pc2-8500 ) , CL5 , 2.1v , with heatsink - 240pin - lifetime warranty

 

[bobzilla2009]

to be honest, all my games were smooth, even crysis played lovely at 1680*1050 with 2xaa, it's just annoying that other people do get quite a bit more witht he same gpu, and that i would occasionally drop below 30fps in games like gta4. However i have begrudging come to accept the fact it IS in fact the cpu, although on paper it has the same raw power needed to pump out the frames, something is just plain missing for it to give out the same frames as its am3 socket bretheren. Annoyingly it took going to xp to come tot hat conclusion (silly broken w7 disc, i'll try to get it fixed somehow probably), and meaning i'm going to have to reinstall my games and put up with dx9 for a few weeks

On the bright side, however, it does mean i have about 30%-50% more untapped potential sitting in my gpu that my cpu just can't access, meaning that it will have a nice long lifespan, and you never know, i may just get an i5 or i7 come spring and solve the whole problem, and tbh i think i may be ending up intel for a while now after this, if nothing else for the fact is my cpu is readin 31% usage when it is obviously the bottleneck (i was rattling around the cpu overclock and i was noticing large changes in the 3dmark06 frames earlier, at 2.8ghz i was running about 80-90 in the first few seconds of the first test, and when i can run 3.6Ghz (it seems to be very fussy since i put in the hd5870, swapping speeds regardless of any other variable, even temperature) it runs about 100-110).
it does pain me that amd can't get there own high end processors with ddr2 to work with their high end graphics cards to a standard that is the same as the mid range ddr2 intel offerings.

 

[bobzilla2009]

Do u guys think it's worth it to upgrade to this mem? I'm currently running vanilla DDR2 800 which is impossible to OC.

http://www.corsair.com/_datasheets/T...6-8500C5DF.pdf

Corsair TWIN2X4096-8500C5D/CMD4GX2M2A1066C5 , Dominator , with DHX technology , Nvidia SLi certrified with EPP , designed for nForce 590/680 SLi , 2 x 2G/2048mb kit , ddr2-1066 ( pc2-8500 ) , CL5 , 2.1v , with heatsink - 240pin - lifetime warranty

to be frank, i didn't see any change whatsoever when i run my memory at 1066Mhz as compared to 800, so i don't think its really worth it, unless you can get the phenom 940 to start shifting its weight (its the reason behind our low hd5870 scores entirely methinks)

 

[Thrackan]

to be frank, i didn't see any change whatsoever when i run my memory at 1066Mhz as compared to 800, so i don't think its really worth it, unless you can get the phenom 940 to start shifting its weight (its the reason behind our low hd5870 scores entirely methinks)

Your story makes me suspect your overclock isn't 100% stable, and possibly just about on the edge of stability. What happens when you run OCCT or something similar?

 

[bobzilla2009]

Your story makes me suspect your overclock isn't 100% stable, and possibly just about on the edge of stability. What happens when you run OCCT or something similar?

they're rated for 1066MHz, i just wanted to see the difference, so they are definitely stable.

 

[mR Yellow]

to be honest, all my games were smooth, even crysis played lovely at 1680*1050 with 2xaa, it's just annoying that other people do get quite a bit more witht he same gpu, and that i would occasionally drop below 30fps in games like gta4. However i have begrudging come to accept the fact it IS in fact the cpu, although on paper it has the same raw power needed to pump out the frames, something is just plain missing for it to give out the same frames as its am3 socket bretheren. Annoyingly it took going to xp to come tot hat conclusion (silly broken w7 disc, i'll try to get it fixed somehow probably), and meaning i'm going to have to reinstall my games and put up with dx9 for a few weeks

On the bright side, however, it does mean i have about 30%-50% more untapped potential sitting in my gpu that my cpu just can't access, meaning that it will have a nice long lifespan, and you never know, i may just get an i5 or i7 come spring and solve the whole problem, and tbh i think i may be ending up intel for a while now after this, if nothing else for the fact is my cpu is readin 31% usage when it is obviously the bottleneck (i was rattling around the cpu overclock and i was noticing large changes in the 3dmark06 frames earlier, at 2.8ghz i was running about 80-90 in the first few seconds of the first test, and when i can run 3.6Ghz (it seems to be very fussy since i put in the hd5870, swapping speeds regardless of any other variable, even temperature) it runs about 100-110).
it does pain me that amd can't get there own high end processors with ddr2 to work with their high end graphics cards to a standard that is the same as the mid range ddr2 intel offerings.

I think u might be right. Maybe the mem controller on the AM3 CPUs are much better.
I'm also considering a i5 or i7 rig later on unless AMD release a high end CPU soon.

 

[Thrackan]

they're rated for 1066MHz, i just wanted to see the difference, so they are definitely stable.

I meant your CPU clock.

 

[phanbuey]

I meant your CPU clock.

+1 on that... edge of stability OC's can perform as bad as stock sometimes. (like my 4.0Ghz Cinebench score of 14,000 and my 3.875Ghz score of 16,700)

 

[pantherx12]

+1 on that... edge of stability OC's can perform as bad as stock sometimes. (like my 4.0Ghz Cinebench score of 14,000 and my 3.875Ghz score of 16,700)

+ 1, I get faster pi scores with an e5200 @ 3ghz then I do at 3.5, 4.0 etc.

 

[bobzilla2009]

I meant your CPU clock.

it does indeed make the score worse when i go over 3.6Ghz, hence why i stay below it, but lately i've just gone back down to 3.0Ghz, just to make sure its not affecting the hd5870 results that i've been getting.

Also, just proved that my card is absolutley fine by running the gpgpu test in sandra 2009, where i got #6 and above the values for all the reference cards.

although on the gpgpu bandwidth test i only got 80GB/s internal as opposed to the 150GB/s i'm supposed to get, just a glitch in sandra? or something to worry about? it would be great if someone else could run some of the sandra gpgpu tests to make sure mine's ok

 

[dir_d]

Has anyone seen this thread http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=306272 and used this bios on their 5870 yet...I was going to try it but i dont have a flash drive.

 

[inferKNOX]

Don't forget guys that the PII's IMCs don't like high volted RAM. Getting 2.1V RAM is torture. The ideal is 1.5V, but the good "low voltage" RAM you can find out in the wild is 1.65V, so aim for those if you can.
Also, never bother with going less than 2 steps up in RAM, ie, if you're on 800, don't look at less than 13333, if on 1066, no less than 1600. Anything less is just wasting money for negligable performance gains.

Back on topic, there's a general concencus too, that says don't go less than 3 steps up in GFX cards, ie if you have a 4870, look beyond the 4890 and 5850 at the 5870, etc. I normally follow that, but I'm going from 4890 to 5850. Sigh, it's making me defy all reason.
(utterly unhelpful to say, but at least it's on topic, rofl)

 

[mR Yellow]

Also, just proved that my card is absolutley fine by running the gpgpu test in sandra 2009, where i got #6 and above the values for all the reference cards.

although on the gpgpu bandwidth test i only got 80GB/s internal as opposed to the 150GB/s i'm supposed to get, just a glitch in sandra? or something to worry about? it would be great if someone else could run some of the sandra gpgpu tests to make sure mine's ok

Thats interesting. What PCI-E settings are u using atm?

I did some more testing. Booted into my Vista x64 partition and scores are almost identical as in Win7 x64. So it's def a hw limitation with my system.

I tested SHIFT last night and the game play is much smoother than my 4890.
Silky smooth a 1920 x 1200 with 4xAA

 

[mR Yellow]

Back on topic, there's a general concencus too, that says don't go less than 3 steps up in GFX cards, ie if you have a 4870, look beyond the 4890 and 5850 at the 5870, etc. I normally follow that, but I'm going from 4890 to 5850. Sigh, it's making me defy all reason.
(utterly unhelpful to say, but at least it's on topic, rofl)

It's easier said than done when u are a hw junkie.

Do u guys recon it's worth up grading to an AM3 (DDR3) system from what i currently have.
I would like to stay in the AMD camp but am open to the i7...but have to justify the increase in price.

 

[Thrackan]

It's easier said than done when u are a hw junkie.

Do u guys recon it's worth up grading to an AM3 (DDR3) system from what i currently have.
I would like to stay in the AMD camp but am open to the i7...but have to justify the increase in price.

Well, I dont know about the performance increase, but you can fit your PII on an AM3 socket, so all you would need is a new mobo and RAM.
Plus, as said above, low voltage RAM seems to work better with PII's, DDR3 is lower voltage by default. You might get better OC's that way.

 

[stinzza]

maybe update sandra..

 

[mR Yellow]

Well, I dont know about the performance increase, but you can fit your PII on an AM3 socket, so all you would need is a new mobo and RAM.
Plus, as said above, low voltage RAM seems to work better with PII's, DDR3 is lower voltage by default. You might get better OC's that way.

Are u sure? My PII940 was the first launched and recall that it wouldn't work on the newer AM3 boards due to it having the old mem controller.