Newbie tips for X1900XTX-card?

[X-it]

Greetings.

Just built a new PC (specs below), and thought I'd try some overclocking. I'm pretty green in that area. Found this ATITool (beta .25) and tried a few settings.

Default is 500 core and 600 memory. I set the values to 570 and 750, respectively. When I ran 3DMark 06 I got a lower score with these settings compared to the default ones. Am I missing something? How much can I expect to overclock this card?

Should I also alter some of the voltages? Current voltages are: VGPU 1.175V, MVDCC 2.086V, MVDDQ 2.086V, VDDCI 1,486V.

The reason I wanted to overclock in the first place is that I'm getting low scores in 3DMark 06. At default I'm getting appr. 5750, but with the card overclocked as described above I get about 5400. When I compare the results online with others with the same specs as me I see that they're getting as much as 8200.

Any tips appreciated.

Specs:

ASUS A8R32-MVP DELUXE
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2 Ghz
OCZ 2048MB Dual Channel Platinum Edition RAM
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB SATA 16MB 10000RPM
Club3D Radeon X1900XTX 512MB PCIe 16x
SB Audigy 2 ZS
Lian Li Miditower PC6070BSCAND w/Hiper R580W PSU
Win XP Pro SP2 w/MS dual-core CPU hotfix

 

[trog100]

unless u wish to become "benching" freak.. dont pay too much attention to the highest scores u see in 2006.. people go to extreme measures to get those..

as a mere mortal i also find it amusing that someone who can aford to buy the latest super duper grfx card immediately aint satisfied with its performance and wants to overclock it.. he he he

oh well.. such is life.. he he

trog

 

[Ravenhaft]

Okay, something really important to keep in mind is that the x1900 uses 3d and 2d clocks, the 3d clocks are 655 mhz core, and 775 memory. The 2d clocks are 500 core, and 600 memory. What atitool does is disable the clock changing, and takes control itself over the clock speeds. So when you're using atitool to "overclock", you're actually underclocking it compared to what it should be with the 3d clocks. So try out the clocks at 655 core, and 775 memory, then you can go up from there. The x1900 xtx can take a pretty good amount of voltages, but don't overdo it. Just check temperatures, and go slowly up from there. I'd work with just the core first, and check for artifacts. Also keep in mind the memory is 1.2ns, and rated for 800 MHz, so you should be able to set it to 800 mhz no problem.
Edit: Also, the benchmarks you're getting are exactly what you should be getting man. Unless you want to spend a thousand dollars or so, get an FX-60 with cascade coolers on everything. So in other words, you're doing perfectly fine with your benchmarks.

 

[X-it]

Thanks for the tips, guys.

Sorry for not responding sooner. I missed the email-notification.

Good to know the benchmarks are good. Those were the main reason I was thinking of overclocking, since I thought something was wrong. But everything works and looks great, so I guess there is no need to worry.

Didn't know about the 2D/3D differences, so thanks for the tip. Tried setting ATITool a bit higher, but the computer froze solid at about 585 MHz core clock. No point overclocking then, since it is actually underclocking the 3D speed. I tried searching for a generic ATI overclocking tool that integrates with Control Center, but I don't think there is any? Mostly used to nVidia cards before, and remember there were som generic overclocking tools for those.

Until ATITool supports different 2D/3D clock speeds I guess it is of no use to me.

Another reason I wanted to experiment a bit is because I have the dreaded 'stutter bug' in Half-Life 2 with this computer. Tried everything to solve it, and have now given up...

Thanks again!

 

[Ravenhaft]

Have you tried setting processor affinity man? All you do is go into task manager, right click on the process HL2.exe, and click "set affinity", then uncheck one of the processor cores, and HL2 should work fine. I have that same problem . That should fix it, it thrashes between the two cores, serious sam does it to the point that it's unplayable. I'm not sure of the program that will do it, but I think microsoft has something that can make your affinity setting permanent. Just look around, I'm not your google Also, if I were you I would uninstall control center before you start messing around with atitool. It's also probably locking up because the 2d/3d clocks use different voltages (I'm almost sure on that). So try raising your voltages a bit, don't be afraid, just don't be stupid (i.e. OMFG SLIDER MAXZZOR OWNDZ 500V) and you should be fine. Good luck with the overclocking!

 

[X-it]

Ravenhaft,

Thank you very much for these tips.

I had no idea there was something called 'processor affinity'. That CPU-switching sounds like a plausible cause for this, as both CPU usage indicators on my keyboard goes up and down like yo-yos when playing. Will give that a go when I get home from work. That will hopefully solve some problems I'm having with other games as well, like Hitman Contracts that came bundled with the graphics card (it freezes after a few seconds).

I'll look around for the program that changes affinity from Windows as well. Little late to change it after a game freezes.

And regarding the Control Center, I've been hoping to find a way to uninstall it, as it eats resources (although it's not too bad now that I have 2 GB RAM). How can I get rid of it?

Earlier ATI drivers came in two versions; one with and one without the Control Center. Now there is only the version with Control Center. I thought I had to keep it installed to adjust settings like AA, AF etc.?

Thanks again for the tips.

 

[X-it]

Home now, and tried the affinity setup. Didn't help. What I did notice was that the game still used both PCUs when running normally, but only one during the pauses. Maybe I should mention that the problem I'm experiencing in HL2 is that the game is running normally for 3 seconds, then pauses for 3 seconds, then normally for 3 seconds and so on.

 

[X-it]

Another quick update: There was a new BIOS for the motherboard, and guess what? It solved all the problems with HL2 and other games!

Very happy about that! Off to play...

 

[D_o_S]

The first thing I would do is make a VREG cooler, as that gets very hot... I've seen it up to 90c in some cases...

Then, I'd oc

 

[X-it]

The first thing I would do is make a VREG cooler, as that gets very hot... I've seen it up to 90c in some cases...

Then, I'd oc

Not sure what VREG is, but I have a decent cooler for the CPU at least (Zalman CNPS9500LED Ultra Quiet CPU cooler). If it's water cooling you mean I draw a line there. Not too serious!

Anyway I notice that the new BIOS has made a difference. Before the update the idle temp of the CPU was about 24 degrees C (30 deg. load), while now it's about 40 deg. (46-48 deg load). I notice everything is going faster, including Win startup and general HD operation.

I didn't have any hopes of the new BIOS fixing anything for me when reading the description below (although I do have a PCI-E card, but only one), but apparently there is more to it:

Version 0311 2006/03/10update

OS All

Description A8R32-MVP Deluxe BIOS Version 0311
Added "P2P write between Gfx ports" in BIOS setup menu.
Fix FRAPS testing program might report incorrect framerate.
Fix PCI-E is always fixed at 100Mhz.