Asus 5850 trifire voltages

[mart280]

I just picked up cheap 3 asus 5850's the ones with the voltage tweak, however no matter what program I use, MSI Afterburner (new and older versions) EVGA Precision, GPU Tweak (crashes system when I oc with it) asus Smart Doctor ( wont initialize) I cant change the voltages for love nor money.

I have flashed the cards so they all have the same bios, but this didnt help, these cards are meant to clock really well with a little voltage tweak but at the moment my cheap plan for a bit of a speed boost isnt working, any ideas chaps ?

 

[mart280]

I know the cards are old guys but maybe someone had the same or similar and couldnt adjust the voltage ?

 

[David Bisset]

Sorry, don't have a decent answer, hopefully someone else can help more.... one thing easily forgotten: did you uninstall catalyst control centre first?

 

[mart280]

No I still have ccc installed, should I get rid ?

 

[mart280]

Well I have had some success, after digging about on the net I found an old thread from another forum somewhere and sussed out I had to get Asus smart doctor working and once I did by installing old drivers I could adjust the voltage, after installing new drivers smart doctor still works, I have pushed the voltge to just under 1.2 and have the core stable at 900, going to 950 and it locks up, anyone know what is the safe limit on the voltage side I can go to ?

 

[Marine-RX179]

Seriously I don't really get why you decided to go down this path (even if the 5850 was cheap).

1) You CPU would be a bottleneck for a even a single 5850 in some games
2) The 1GB vram and relatively low memory bandwidth (comparing to modern cards like 7950/7970) will make performance suffer a lot, especially when applying AA
3) Crossfire performance scaling of 5000 series is kinda poor. Unlike 6000 series onward, you'd get may be around 50-70% extra performance with a 2nd card, and performance gain on the third card would be even less. The 3rd card might not even give any noticeable improvement at all (both down to CPU bottleneck and poor 3rd card scaling), and might actually make games "less" smooth because of higher likeliness of micro-shuttering.
4) Power consumption, heat and higher temp (for the PC and everything inside).

I honestly think you'd probably get a smoother gaming experience by selling off all 3 of your 5850, and just get a single 7850 2GB, or 7950 even if you can push the budget.

 

[mart280]

When I say cheap I mean £0 my mate gave me his two after upgrading to a ROG 7970 (I think) and seeing as my motherboard can take up to four cards i thought why not , I am due an upgrade in the new year but for now I like trying to squeeze the most out of what I have and besides it's fun.

 

[Mariusz]

Well I have had some success, after digging about on the net I found an old thread from another forum somewhere and sussed out I had to get Asus smart doctor working and once I did by installing old drivers I could adjust the voltage, after installing new drivers smart doctor still works, I have pushed the voltge to just under 1.2 and have the core stable at 900, going to 950 and it locks up, anyone know what is the safe limit on the voltage side I can go to ?

I had an 5870 that I flashed the bios on to overclock higher and I put 1.2v through that at 1000 on the core with a custom fan profile keeping temps under 50 degrees and card was fine for the year I had it and still works to this day in a mate's PC, but ymmv

 

[Chrisoldinho]

I had an 5870 that I flashed the bios on to overclock higher and I put 1.2v through that at 1000 on the core with a custom fan profile keeping temps under 50 degrees and card was fine for the year I had it and still works to this day in a mate's PC, but ymmv

I recently sold a 5850 on ebay for £60, bitcoin miners love them for the high k/hash to cost, if it were me I would sell all 3 and buy a single 7950 and pocket the change.

Performance will be the same if not better in most cases, no cfx compatibility issues (microstutter, frame latency issues etc), temps will be better and you will have far better power consumption.

It's a very logical decision, and unless you are doing it "just for fun", there really is no point (IMO )