OcUK / Triplex HD3850 owners

[eyetrip]

The triplex 3870 I have is about an inch and a half shorter than my 2900 pro was (stock cooler etc on that) as well as they zalman flower type cooler which does a great job.

And does this cooler take up 2 slots?

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

Is it just a case of editting BIOS to remove that? I'm very interested in trying to get clocks of 1000/2000 now

Few questions (sorry if I'm getting on your nerves!):
Is there any chance you could link me to the site where you got the vmod from?
What BIOS are you currently running now?
What are the performance gains with the core at ~1Ghz albeit with stock mem? Can we get some 3D06 benchies comparing stock and your highest core clock?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=2828937&postcount=594

I'm currently using a Diamond BIOS, as it's unlocked and seems to give the least artifacts with the memory at stock.

http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...=Diamond&model=HD+3850&interface=&memSize=512

Either of these two, since they are identical.

I'll try asking Triplex for a Version 73 or later BIOS for the card.

Are these cards quite short compared to the normal 3850's?

Yes

And does this cooler take up 2 slots?

Yes

 

[Cairnsey]

Thanks mate,

Will try them out in a sec..... What's your 3Dmark06 score?

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

From memory, I think the following are roughly right:

8k with everything at default
9.9k (I think) with the CPU @ 3.4Ghz
11.8k with the CPU @ 3.4Ghz and GPU @ ~950Mhz, Mem @ 830Mhz

I can't remember exact settings

 

[Cairnsey]

Great, I think I should be good for around 10.5K (everything OC'ed)when I get my new board and around 15K when I crossfire another one of these cards. Just to give me an indication of real world gaming performance of course

 

[silversurfer]

Because I've volt modded it. I can hit almost 1Ghz, although I'm now limited by OCP since the card shuts down with ~ 1.55v. I'm working on removing that.

It's frustrating having the option to go to 1Ghz on the core, but leave the memory at default (newer BIOS) OR be limited to 860 on the core but go around 1Ghz on the memory (default BIOS).

So you must be water cooling the core then ? and the ram chips as well?

Have you hard modded it to take voltage that high, I have my voltage at 1.4v but I can only get 870mhz or so. Temps arent too high on air so wondering what volts might be safe for it

About the bios, I can alter my core or memory to whatever I like its just the memory must be getting too hot so I cant max that out :/
Its Gecube, have you tried it, maybe I can send a bios dump if you want.
Original owner/modder for this card was 4Qman if you want to check out his thread on it



Can you all do the crysis test so I can compare, 3dmark06 is too cpu biased

 

[Cairnsey]

30.2 FPS - 1280x1024 All High NoAA

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

So you must be water cooling the core then ? and the ram chips as well?

Have you hard modded it to take voltage that high, I have my voltage at 1.4v but I can only get 870mhz or so. Temps arent too high on air so wondering what volts might be safe for it

About the bios, I can alter my core or memory to whatever I like its just the memory must be getting too hot so I cant max that out :/
Its Gecube, have you tried it, maybe I can send a bios dump if you want.
Original owner/modder for this card was 4Qman if you want to check out his thread on it



Can you all do the crysis test so I can compare, 3dmark06 is too cpu biased

Yes I'm watercooling the core. RAM chips just have sinks on them.

Yes it's hardmodded with a 100k VR. I seem to remember you were looking for a mod to this card on XS? Have you pencilled yours? With 1.4 volts I could get beyond the 860 lock for sure, 900 seems to ring a bell. I'm now limited to 1.5 volts because of OCP - will try to defeat this tonight.

I've tried a Gecube BIOS from techpowerup's repository but it artifacts at stock (830) speeds. Do you get this? If you could post your BIOS that would be great. With the original BIOS I can go to around 1Ghz with no artifacts, but with ANY other BIOS I've tried, I get artifacts even at stock.

 

[silversurfer]

Ok I will post up the bios for this card later but I dont know that much about it because I was not the guy who modded it originally.

I had a look at the card and the ram seems to cooled by heatpads and the big heatpiped copper heatsink, all except one chip maybe but I need a reference pic to know which chips are ram or not. I dont want to remove the heatsink right now if I can avoid it, Im pretty cautious with gfx tbh and air only

Unlike the original modder:

Q6600 Fat boy cascade @ 1.7v - Supertalent DDR3 @ 2v,Gecube CROSSFIRE 3850 1.64v GPU,vmem 1.94v.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17839124&highlight=username_4qman


So he did vmod the memory or can you do that in bios

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

I tried defeating the OCP and failed. The card still works though.

I'm limited to 1.5v which is a shame = 972Mhz GPU.

Unless I can get another BIOS, the memory is limited to 783Mhz without artifacts!

 

[silversurfer]

http://www.imageshack.us/?pickup=80113123537021

Weird system that, seems to be some sort of p2p, try this

http://rapidshare.com/files/99037066/3850_silversurfer_gecube_modded_unknown_BIOS_Dump.bin.html

bios dump done with ati tray tools


I got the impression he only went to 999mhz or is that just gpu-z not showing the right figures because they are off the scale?


In case theres any confusion thats the bios off a gecube card, no idea of its origin exactly might be stock or not.


Got 31fps on that crysis test at 877/854

Run #1- DX9 1280x1024 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 31.9

Play Time: 75.46s, Average FPS: 26.51
Min FPS: 9.99 at frame 890, Max FPS: 36.13 at frame 1766
Average Tri/Sec: 26112288, Tri/Frame: 985182
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.93
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 61.69s, Average FPS: 32.42
Min FPS: 9.99 at frame 890, Max FPS: 40.58 at frame 986
Average Tri/Sec: 32270360, Tri/Frame: 995352
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.92
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 63.73s, Average FPS: 31.38
Min FPS: 9.99 at frame 890, Max FPS: 40.58 at frame 986
Average Tri/Sec: 31249626, Tri/Frame: 995803
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: 0.92

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

Opened that BIOS in an editor and it said it wasn't a valid 38xx BIOS.

Will try that Crysis bench now.

EDIT - Bah, I only have the demo and it's been weird since I got it. Is there a patch?

 

[silversurfer]

Demo works fine with the crysis bench. Patch was for the full game peeps only afaik

No idea about the bios, I dont flash stuff often but thats what tray tools dumped out. Any other programs I can use?


Run #1- DX9 1280x1024 AA=No AA, 32 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 32.7

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

No idea about the bios, I dont flash stuff often but thats what tray tools dumped out. Any other programs I can use?

Are you using this BIOS on your Triplex 3850?

You could use ATIFlash, but only from a pure DOS prompt - boot from CD / USB / floppy.

 

[eyetrip]

So got 2 of these running in crossfire now.

Initial impressions of single card: pretty good.

Initial impressions of crossfire: bad.

The cards both OC very well, and will happily run 800/945 individually. The only way can think to OC both with crossfire is Overdrive which only allows 730/880.

With my e4300 at 3GHz, I get 12500 crossfired in 3dMark 06, with a single OC I get 10500. These sound about right? I am sure the crossfire results are cpu limited in 3D06... am I right?

Anyway, when it comes to games.... Well, so far have been unable to load cod4, but think that might be related to something else. UT3 framerates are bad though - running 1680 x 1050 with everything maxed the fps can be anywhere from 70 odd, all the way down to the 30's, and it spend far too much time on the lower side of those extremes.

ET:QW performance... am not too sure on. Will play more. HL2:EP2 runs pretty good though with 4xAA, but that runs great with most things.

 

[silversurfer]

Are you using this BIOS on your Triplex 3850?

You could use ATIFlash, but only from a pure DOS prompt - boot from CD / USB / floppy.

No I have a gecube card, but I presume you guys are trying all different makes to see if it works. So I dumped off the bios in case it helps, it appears to be totally unlocked for the clocks

I dont know if its the original bios or not, I think it is

I dont even have a cd drive at the moment now I think about it, give me a link for booting off a usb mem stick into dos


try the crysis test ffallic

 

[eyetrip]

Got into single player COD4. While I do not get high FPS with single card with everything maxed at 1680 x 1050, it is smooth, and generally around 40 FPS. With crossfire enabled, its jerky and unplayable.

Will need to download the crysis demo again.

In mean time, will re-install f.e.a.r ro run its bench. so far, crossfire is running friggin awfully.

 

[Cairnsey]

I tried defeating the OCP and failed. The card still works though.

I'm limited to 1.5v which is a shame = 972Mhz GPU.

Unless I can get another BIOS, the memory is limited to 783Mhz without artifacts!

Well think your self lucky, I've gave up on OCing mine until I get a new motherboard and a multimeter. I'm just running 740/930

Also, do you think that PCI-e frequency could affect the OC?

 

[silversurfer]

No pcie wont effect it afaik

 

[Cairnsey]

Any better air coolers available for this card?