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Powercolor 5850 PCS+ Overclocking

unnddd

unnddd

unnddd

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1 Jul 2010
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42
I got this card because I don't like noisy cooling solutions, and I thought that the decreased temperatures would be useful when overclocking. I also recognise the fact that I'm not able to tweak the voltages, but the overclocks I'm getting are low even for stock voltage.

For example, I can't seem to push the VRAM beyond 1100 Mhz. A review of this card shows them hitting 1200 Mhz. Also, when I increase the core to about 800 Mhz, it starts becoming very unstable.

Shall I just eBay the card and get a reference one instead?
 
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yes u can overclock the pcs+ and adjust it's voltage.

have u tried enabling unnoficial overclocking in afterburner and adding the type of voltage regulator to the config file
 
bigjimmyauk said:
yes u can overclock the pcs+ and adjust it's voltage.

have u tried enabling unnoficial overclocking in afterburner and adding the type of voltage regulator to the config file
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that the voltage was hard wired. How would I go about adding the voltage regulator to AB?
 
as far as i know, you have to flash th bios as the power color pcs+ is locked. ive got one myself and i use to run it at 825/1115. any more than that and it would fall over.

now i just run mine at stock 760/1050 as the idle 2d clocks go up. and to be honest, all my games run fine on stock anyway.
 
gazjones105 said:
as far as i know, you have to flash th bios as the power color pcs+ is locked. ive got one myself and i use to run it at 825/1115. any more than that and it would fall over.

now i just run mine at stock 760/1050 as the idle 2d clocks go up. and to be honest, all my games run fine on stock anyway.
Click to expand...

I find it interesting that a reference card can run much, much faster than this more expensive card with a better cooler. To be honest I feel like I've been ripped off, paying the extra money for the better cooler, that can't even go up to 850 Mhz, when techPowerUp claim to have got it all the way to 950 Mhz.
 
tell me about it. thats the main reason i got the card, because i though i could overclock its brains out.

if i could go back in time i would have got the asus or msi as they are unlocked. and to be honest.....cooling solutions do not matter on this card as its cool and quiet no matter what.
 
Just to follow up, I take everything bad I said about this card back. Somehow just by modifying the newer version of the BIOS and flashing the card, I'm able to get 900/1200 stable. It has passed the Crysis benchmark and 3DMark06 without crashing or showing any signs of being unstable.

This is truly incredible.

Edit: If anyone is interested in doing the same thing with their card, here's what I did:

Note: You might want to backup your current BIOS using GPU-Z.

1. Download this BIOS: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/68332/Powercolor.HD5850.1024.100118.html .
2. Download Radeon BIOS Editor: http://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/ .
3. Open up RBE and click on Load BIOS. Navigate to the BIOS you just downloaded and select it.
4. Switch to the Additional features tab and under Method 2 increase the sliders to 1000/1275 or anything reasonable. 1000/1275 seems to work well, leaving some room for changes.
5. At this point you could switch to the Clock settings tab and increase Clock info 03 to 900/1200 like I did, but I would recommend that you flash the BIOS without changing that, or at least keep it low. You can then test the GPU to find the optimal settings for your card, and then put them in the BIOS before flashing again.
6. Make sure that after clicking on Save BIOS, you change Save as type to All Files, and save the file with a .bin extension.
7. Detailed instructions for flashing are available here: http://www.overclock.net/ati/671675-how-flash-your-5850-bios.html . Just flash and go. Nothing else is needed at this point, if you've entered the optimal settings for your card.

Hope this helps someone out there :) Also please note that flashing can be risky, and I don't take responsibility for any irresponsible actions that result in the bricking of a card. However, in the worst case scenario as long as you have the original BIOS on the flash drive you should be able to do a blind flash.

-unnddd
 
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