eva2000

It is disapponting that SLI can't be used on P35/X38 when I have my QX9650 Yorkfield on hand. So decided to grab some budget ATI Crossfire action in the form of 2x 512MB HIS HD3850 IceQ 3 Turbo cards. Default clocks are 720/1820Mhz on the box with a nice default 3rd party heatsink. Unfortunately, the heatsink feels like aluminium painted copper colour as the whole video card is noticeably very light compared to other video cards!





My credit card has taken a severe beating lately, but hope it's worth it LOL

Update:

Used ATI Winflash to save my HIS HD3850 IceQ 3 Turbo bios as a few folks have asked me for my bios.



Download bios here.


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frupert

Both the 3870 and the 3850 have very light and useless stock coolers i have found.. When picking them up you expect them to be a lot heavier than they are! Put them under water though and you will have awesome results!

Rammsteiner

I'd guess some aftermarket coolers would do a quite good job too? Zalman VF1000, Thermaltake Duorb etc.

But indeed, I guess it might be worth it to upgrade the coolers. With upcoming Atitool Beta you'll be able to control Voltage regulation. People who hard Voltmodded there cards could get the core to around 900Mhz. But with no Voltmods Im sure you'll be fine with the stock coolers.

eva2000

So even HD3870 stock heatsink is light weight too ?

Yeah i chose this model for the supposedly better than normal stock HD3850 coolers but still at a decent price $590 for both including courier shipping and CC surcharge.

Will see how far they go though on the IceQ 3 heatsink first

frupert

Yeah even then 3870 stock cooling is very lightweight - i was very suprised... I kinda even feels flimsy its so light - hard to take the card seriously lol...

dinos22

you're a big fan of this brand george

they look great

eva2000

Yeah don't set out to deliberately buy HIS brand, just seems to find my credit card LOL

Light weight heatsink, but man is HD3850 CF pretty amazing!

System:

• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 L739A644 Retail OEM
• CPU cooling = Dtek Fuzion Rad Tower Box
• NB chipset cooling = Radiical Chipset Block/Corsair Cool single 120mm fan Rad/MCP350
• Asus Blitz Extreme 0904 bios
• 2x 512MB HIS HD3850 IceQ 3 Turbo stock speed @715/909
• 2x1GB OCZ PC3-14400 Platinum - DDR3-1800 rated at 8-8-8-27 at 1.9v
• 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA on SATA1 Port
• LiteOn 165H DVD Burner
• Sony FDD
• 1KW OCZ ProXStream
• WinXP Pro SP2

Info & Findings:

• 30-33C idle with peak 46C 3dmark06 load temps. But CCC Auto Tune tests drove load temps to as high as a fluctuating 60-67C max.
• fan speed is much more quieter than my 640MB 8800GTS, 512MB 8800GT, 8800GTX and 2900XT video cards!
• stock HIS HD3850 IceQ 3 Turbo speed = 297/828 2D and 715/909 3D
• stock QX9650 speed + stock clocked HD3850 Crossfire system load power draw during 3dmark06 only 285 Watts!!!
• QX9650 @4203Mhz at 1.608v with 2x HD3850 CF @783/1098 system load power draw during 3dmark peaked only at 425 Watts !
• CCC Auto Tune tests for 2x HD3850 CF went to 890Mhz on GPU and hung on 920Mhz MEM clocks.
• Manual overclocking via CCC for HD3850 CF manages 785Mhz GPU and maxing out CCC's MEM slider at 1100 which equates to GPUZ reported 783/1098
• stock QX9650 speed + stock clocked HD3850 Crossfire 3dmark06 = 16,693 !
• stock QX9650 speed + stock clocked HD3850 Crossfire 3dmark05 = 20,913
• stock QX9650 speed + stock clocked HD3850 Crossfire 3dmark2003 = 58,496
• stock QX9650 speed + stock clocked HD3850 Crossfire 3dmark2001 = 55,798

Catalyst 7.11 Control Center

Enabling Crossfire

Crossfire Mode Overdrive

One card idles 30-33C while other card idles 39-41C




Stock 2x 512MB HIS HD3850 IceQ 3 Turbo stock speed @715/909

• 3dmark06 = 16,693
• 3dmark05 = 20,913
• 3dmark2003 = 58,496
• 3dmark2001 = 55,798

2x 512MB HIS HD3850 IceQ 3 Turbo @783/1098

Some benchmarks seem very cpu limited for 3850 CF

• 3dmark06 = 17,128
• 3dmark05 = 21,069
• 3dmark2003 = 64,080
• 3dmark2001 = 57,135

Let's see how cpu limited 3850CF would be when QX9650 is clocked up to 4203Mhz

2x 512MB HIS HD3850 IceQ 3 Turbo @783/1098

• 3dmark06 = 21,414 - http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=4187412
• 3dmark05 = 28,434 - http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=3788174
• 3dmark2003 = 68,381 but got higher score @4185Mhz = 68,494 - http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5645922
• 3dmark2001 = 76,155 (no LOD used yet) - http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=9302636

eva2000

Some folks asked if AUTO Tune hitting 890mhz was a typo, the answer is no...

No typo.. AUTO Tune went to 900mhz and dropped down to 890mhz before it hung and froze my system LOL

Digital camera shots ...