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4870X2 - support thread

quick note on the drivers - i've checked the .inf files:

8.8 beta is version 8.520.2 last updated 22/07/08

Drivers on HIS CD and website are version 8.520.0 last updated 08/07/08.

So 8.8 betas are most recent, and the ones I'm now using again. Furmark takes a hit with this version but games are running great and that's the main thing.
 
My 4870x2 arrived today, I don't seem to be able to install the drivers.

I've tried the ones that came on the CD (8.52.6), and also beta 8.8 versions 8.54 and 8.52. Uninstalling and using driver cleaner each time. Any ideas how I can get it working?

Oh, I'm using Vista 64, a fresh install.

Another edit: it's not that i can't install them really, they install but say incorrect version for my card when I get back into windows.
 
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My Furmark FPS has taken a nosedive since installing Catalyst 8.8...

---------------------------
oZone3D.Net FurMark
---------------------------
FurMark v1.4.0
Fullscreen Score.

[ SCORE: 2962 o3Marks ]
- FPS Min: 42
- FPS Max: 68
- FPS Avg: 49
- Time: 60000 ms
- Res: 1280x1024 / MSAA: 0X
- Renderer: Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition
- Active GPUs: 2
- Drivers: Unknown version
- CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6700 @ 2.66GHz
- CPU Speed: 4004 MHz
- OS: Windows Vista ver.6.0 build 6001 [Service Pack 1]

Peculiarly it now says "Renderer: Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition" instead of "Renderer: ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2" as it did before.
 
DAMNIT! Do I get this or the 280...I think it has to be this argh

My motherboard's a Gigabyte DS3P 965 rev1 - hopefully it'll last until the new intel chips are out.
 
Morning guys

Reading through this has answered most of my questions on my newly installed GFX card - Thanks :) , but wondered if you could help with a quick Q ?

In Everest it shows GFX Temps:

GPU1: GPU Diode (DispIO) 62 c (144 F)
GPU1: GPU Diode (MemIO) 66 c (151 F)
GPU1: GPU Diode (Shader) 64 c (149 F)
GPU1: GPU VRM 49 c (120 F)

GPU2: GPU Diode (DispIO) 48 c (118 F)
GPU2: GPU Diode (MemIO) 49 c (120 F)
GPU2: GPU Diode (Shader) 49 c (118 F)
GPU2: GPU VRM 50 c (122 F)

Is it the VRM temp that people refer to when monitoring their idle / load temps ?

Cheers

TB
 
If you install a 4870X2 (2GB) on 32-bit Vista (4GB ram) how much ram will Windows use?

First I was told that it would be reduced to 2GB, now I'm being told it can still address 2.99Gb and someone else said 3.25B?! :confused:

Does anyone know the right answer?
 
reflux said:
You should see less than 2gb, so it's totally pointless.
Click to expand...

Yes that's what I originally thought so I was going to get a 280 instead, but if the 4870X2 still allowed 3 (or 2.99)GB of ram that would change everything. Seems surprisingly hard to get a definitive answer so far. I don't suppose anyone has a 4870X2 on a 32-bit OS?
 
D3lirious said:
1. One of my cores is running idle at 82c, the other at 60c. Not sure this is healthy?
Click to expand...

On my 3870x2 the two cores had to different heatsinks within the same cooler. One was copper the other aluminium, that may give you different temps. You could also check the thermal pest on both chips to make sure it has an even spread/good contect.
 
Rezident said:
Yes that's what I originally thought so I was going to get a 280 instead, but if the 4870X2 still allowed 3 (or 2.99)GB of ram that would change everything. Seems surprisingly hard to get a definitive answer so far. I don't suppose anyone has a 4870X2 on a 32-bit OS?
Click to expand...

You would definately only see 2gig with a 4870x2 installed on a 32bit system with 4 gig ram installed because of the 32bit limitation to address more than 4 gig of memory, so it would read 2 gig off the card then 2 gig off the system ram.
Thats why the amount of ram that people can see with their 32 bit system and 4 gig of ram differs depending on what card you have installed and the amount of memory thats present on the card.
 
the operating system take into account the memory on your gfx card as well as the system RAM? Learn something new everyday...

So im on 32bit vista with a 4870x2 and 4gb of ram (about to upgrade to 64bit)..so im only seeing 3gb of the total 6gb available?
 
Rezident said:
Yes that's what I originally thought so I was going to get a 280 instead, but if the 4870X2 still allowed 3 (or 2.99)GB of ram that would change everything. Seems surprisingly hard to get a definitive answer so far. I don't suppose anyone has a 4870X2 on a 32-bit OS?
Click to expand...

The 4870X2 is unique in that it only needs to map 1GB - so you will in fact get about 2.5-2.8GB addressable (of course apps can only access up to 2GB regardless, so the extra 500-800MB is almost wasted anyway).

Games that will use all 1GB of available video memory will very likely also use 2GB+ system memory (games often cache textures in system memory too) - so you'll still want to move to XP x64 or Vista x64 sooner or later.
 
Eggman said:
the operating system take into account the memory on your gfx card as well as the system RAM? Learn something new everyday...

So im on 32bit vista with a 4870x2 and 4gb of ram (about to upgrade to 64bit)..so im only seeing 3gb of the total 6gb available?
Click to expand...

The OS doesn't 'take into account' the memory. Basically for both performance and ease of programming reasons - almost every device is mapped to memory addresses. Technically it's not memory - but here's the great part - it's accessible as if it were. Need to send some instructions to the sound card? Load the sound to the memory address, the card will handle the rest.

This means every register within almost every IC in the PC will be mapped to memory addresses, and often every bit of memory - system or otherwise. Devices are always mapped to the very end of the CPU's addressable space, this minimises the chances that it'll overrun system memory (mapped addresses take priority since if they aren't mapped the device will fail - system memory isn't as critical).

32bit CPUs can address up to 4GB, so work backwards from there to work out how much RAM you'll have available. 64bit CPUs can address terabytes of memory, so the whole memory mapping issue becomes a non-issue once again - just like it was a non-issue when 32bit CPUs first came out.

For those curious (or bored or sad), the 4870 X2 is unique in that while it technically has 2GB memory - only 1GB (well.. a teeny bit more than 1GB) is mapped. This is because the second GPU's memory is basically a carbon copy of the first. Via some clever work by ATI (who must have been thinking about 32bit OSes as well as performance) the memory is automatically copied transparently to the second bank of 1GB. Unfortunately I would imagine this might have some ramifications for Folding@Home etc. Without having the second GPU easily accessible, you're probably limited to one client rather than two. Unless ATI have done some clever driver stuff to make it work.
 
There were some rather horrid 36bit physical address extensions (servers?), iirc used page tables to map the 4GB address into the 64GB+ range.

In case you were wondering where the numbers came from.

2^32 = 4,294,967,296

2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616

That's exabytes, be awhile before that'll fit on a motherboard :)

If you're having trouble sleeping > http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infoc...pic=/com.ibm.zconcepts.doc/zconcepts_102.html Although virtual address space is limited to a tiny 8 terabytes in 64bit Windows.
 
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fornowagain said:
Although virtual address space is limited to a tiny 8 terabytes in 64bit Windows.
Click to expand...

Isn't that due not only to MS wanting to save a bit of effort for the time being - but also because both AMD and Intel 64bit CPUs can't actually address the full range 64bit offers. To save costs they've gone for 48bit addressing instead?
 
That's true, the whole 64bit processor is a bit of a misnomer, it depends which bus or instruction set they're referring to in the sales lit. A 32bit processor could be described as 64bits simply because it has a 64bit data bus, when the internal registers are still only 32bits. Iirc the Athlon X2 had a 40bit address bus but was limited to 48bits of the 64bit address space. It used a 'Long Mode' address. Basically a 16bit word + 32bit offset to give a single 48bit address. I'm not sure about the virtual limit with 64bit Windows, I have a vague recollection it may have been a 16TB limitation of the x64 instruction set extensions. Probably due to the shear number of unique pointer values for the address lines, the physical memory required to map such a space would be enormous.
 
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