eva2000

Couldn't resist any longer watching folks have folk with their 4870x2s so ordered a HIS HD 4870x2 from Auspcmarket.com.au yesterday and it arrived today

Was initially surprised by how small the box was for this 4870x2 compared to other video cards I have. Even the box seemed light ! Already got a Corsair HX1000 power supply provided by the good folks at Corsair to pair up with this video card so all I had to do was swap out the 620W Corsair HX620 and install the HIS HD 4870x2.


HX1000 Psu rail diagram


for SATA and 4pin molex there's 2 cables for each type

• 2x SATA cables with 4 connectors each = 8x SATA
• 2x SATA cables with 2 connectors each = 4x SATA
• 2x 4pin molex cables with 4 connectors + floppy connector each = 8x 4pin molex + 2x floppy connectors
• 2x 4pin molex cables with 2 connectors each = 4x 4pin molex

for PCI-E express there's 4x 8pin (6+2) pin PCI-E power connectors

System specs

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Q820A599 *0537
• Corsair Nautilus 500
• DFI LP UT X48-T3RS 8/29 official bios
• NB Cooling: Thermalright HR-05 + 80x25mm Sunon 49cfm fan
• HIS HD 4870x2
• 2x1GB Corsair TW3X2G2133C9DF Dominator 9-9-9-24 at 2.0v rated (Samsung ICs)
• Memory Cooling: 3x 60x25mm Sunon 23.5cfm MagLev fans
• 750GB Samsung HD753LJ
• Pioneer DVD-RW
• 1KW Corsair HX1000
• WinXP Pro SP2

Well tried installing Cat 8.9 official drivers and was too smart for my own good and used CCleaner to clean up the drivers and must of wiped out something .net framework. So tried reinstalling .net framework but couldn't load CCC without this error showing



So I uninstalled Cat 8.9 and did the following as outlined here.

1. Check that registry locations are empty:
   a. HKCU/Software/ATI/ACE
   b. HKLM/Software/ATI/ACE
2. Check that (Program Files folder )/ATI Technologies/ATI.ACE is empty
3. Check (Windows folder)/Assembly folder to see if there's any files with Public Key Token of "90ba9c70f846762e" (Sort by Public key token to get a easier view). All these tokens should be uninstalled by right clicking and uninstalling.
4. Check that (Document and Settings)/(User)/AppData/Local/ATI/ACE is empty
5. Reinstall Cat 8.9

And got CCC to load with no probs

Out of box GPU1 ran at 74-81C idle while GPU2 ran at 48-51C idle. I took these readings from Everest Ultimate 4.6.1509 beta with fan set at 100%



Did some stock E8600 + stock HD4870x2 @750/900 runs all seems fine except in 3dmark05 seems a bit low ?

3dmark2003 = 77,338
3dmark06 = 16,999
3dmark05 = 22,931



So let's try E8600 @10x500FSB = 5000Mhz 3dmark05 to see if 3dmark05 scales with cpu clocks... surprised 5Ghz 3dmark05 ran just on H20, but was disappointed to see GPUZ reporting crossfire was disabled ... WTF!



So reinstall Cat 8.9 but now can't 3dmark05 bench at 5000Mhz - probably the tiny Corsair Nautilus 500 not taking the extended heat so well LOL or single GPU a lot less stress on overall system than crossfire enabled dual GPUs ? So drop down to 4960Mhz.

3dmark05 @4960Mhz = 33,333



3dmark06 @4932Mhz = 23,505
3dmark2003 @4932Mhz = 83,665
AM3 @5003Mhz = 294,913



Yup all above are just stock HD4870x2 speeds of 750/900 for now

eva2000

Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit installed, first run on 3dmark vantage at stock cpu/stock card

System specs

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Q820A599 *0537
• Corsair Nautilus 500
• DFI LP UT X48-T3RS 8/29 official bios
• NB Cooling: Thermalright HR-05 + 80x25mm Sunon 49cfm fan
• HIS HD 4870x2
• 2x1GB Corsair TW3X2G2133C9DF Dominator 9-9-9-24 at 2.0v rated (Samsung ICs)
• Memory Cooling: 3x 60x25mm Sunon 23.5cfm MagLev fans
• 750GB Samsung HD753LJ
• Pioneer DVD-RW
• 1KW Corsair HX1000
• Dual boot Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit fully updated / WinXP Pro SP3 fully updated

click image for full screenshot including rivatuner 2.11 monitoring log of temps etc

eva2000

HIS HD4870x2 Overclocking + Rivatuner 2.11

Prior to Rivatuner 2.11, overclocking a HD4870x2 required using Catalyst Control Center (CCC) to properly clock both GPU cores and for you to clock past it's reference ATI bios preset CCC GPU/MEM limit of 800/1000 would of needed to use modded bios or obtaining the Asus HD4870x2 TOP bios which had a higher CCC GPU/Mem limit 900/1000.

But Rivatuner 2.11 has a new pair of power user features which allow to overclock both GPU cores within Rivatuner 2.11. These 2 power user features are EnableClockControlCloning and EnableFanControlCloning which you can find and enable via the Power User tab.


Then to properly overclock the HD4870x2 past the CCC preset limits, you need to either uninstall CCC or as I did, disable CCC from loading by running msconfig and unchecking CCC from start up process and reboot system for it to take effect. I found if I didn't disable CCC then overclocking via Rivatuner 2.11 would only overclock the GPU core clock on the first core on HD4870x2 past the preset CCC GPU clock of 800mhz, but 2nd GPU core would stay around 800Mhz max.


Once done, you can begin to overclock your HD4870x2 without the annoying CCC app by using the Low Level System Settings options available as pictured below.


Personally, when not overclocking to the max, I've custom set my HIS HD4870x2 fan speed to 45% at start up and with 500/500 underclocked value and ramp it up to 100% fan speed for higher GPU/MEM clocks when overclocking.

This keeps my GPU/MEM and shader core idle temps well below 50C at around 44-47.5C once in windows.


Note:

1. when setting clocks, each time you set a clock it will revert the fan speed control to AUTO instead of FIXED, so you need to reset the fan speed each time you set a new GPU/MEM clock setting
2. when you set fan speed to 100% the first time, it will auto reset to around 62-78% so you need to set it a 2nd time to 100% fan speed for it to stick

So now you can overclock HD4870x2 without needing CCC past the preset GPU/MEM limits in reference and Asus TOP versions' bioses using the overclocking features of Rivatuner 2.11. If you do need to use CCC to adjust other options, you just need to re-check back the CCC start up process via msconfig once again and reboot your system

How much further past the CCC 800/1000 limit can I now overclock you ask ? Well preliminary tests for my HIS HD4870x2 is I'm easily benching at 860Mhz GPU core ! Memory has yet to be tested.

Quick benchies at low cpu clock of 4800Mhz with HIS HD4870x2 @860/900:

• 3dmark06 = 23,459
• 3dmark vantage = 14,289
• 3dmark2003 = 92,170

eva2000

HD4870x2 + 3dmark2003 high/low bug

Folks benching 3dmark2003 with HD4870x2 might have come across a yet to be explainable high or low score bug in GT2/GT3 test. Seems I'm suffering from the low GT2/GT3 test bug, so thought I'd do some runs with E8600 @4Ghz - 8x500FSB and HIS HD4870x2 at various GPU/MEM clocks to see how the card scales and whether the low GT2/GT3 score bug exists at all GPU/MEM combinations.

@830/900, @830/925


@840/950, @850/950


Unfortunately, all runs were low GT2/GT3 bugged as I should be some where around 92-96K in 3dmark2003 at those clocks according to some results posted here.

I've tried raising PCI-E to around 105 and not much difference. Tried at 1024x and my windows default 1600x1200 resolution and that didn't help either. 3dmark05, 3dmark06, 3dmark vantage all seem spot on except for 3dmark2003.

So I've decided to wipe my hard drive clean and do some fresh multi-OS boot partitions for winxp pro sp3 32bit and vista ultimate sp1 64bit and see how I go.

eva2000

Fresh OS installs didn't help with 3dmark2003 low GT2/3 bug Anyway, using XP SP3 now for 3dmark2001 and this looks better than Vista 64's 70k score hehe

3dmark2001 @850/950 = 97,916
3dmark06 @850/950 = 23,806



Not bad for dual core 3dmark06

eva2000

Added 2nd HD4870x2 and moved cards to my other rig, DFI DK X48-T2RBS Plus with OP1200 psu. First quick runs before I go to bed 4870x2 CF stock 750/900 i think as GPUZ shows all GPU at 507/500 heh





Any tips for HD4870x2 CF are welcomed

xms3500

It is indeed a very nice card and PSU eva, and exactly the same as I have.

Bold Eagle

Can't wait to see them results. Damn that looks nice, have you got the FSB on that DFI sorted yet? Do you have a home for that HX620?