HD2900 pro overclocking thread.

[cuke2u]

There is an official patch avaliable now from Futuremark

Hi, ran 3dmark06 just fine, didn't need the patch, got around 13500 without any tweaking. New motherboard as well so I've yet to get to grips with that although I might need to watercool my system as motherboard temps hit 55c....
ChrisC

 

[divuk83]

Got my 2900pro yesterday, just having a fiddle with ATI tool now.

I know these cards run hot but could anyone give me an idea of what kind of temp range I need to be looking at? What is the ideal idle temp and what would be considered too hot?

Cheers

Dave

 

[Predator]

My Sapphire HD2900Pro 1024MB gave me the following results so far

831/1050 (stock speed is 600/925)

3DMark Score 10633 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 4555 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 5246 Marks
CPU Score 2433 Marks

My new AMD 6000 is currently running at 3.3Ghz

Here's what the system runs as stock, so you can see its quite a nice increase.

3DMark Score 8632 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 3608 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 4083 Marks
CPU Score 2187 Marks

 

[decto]

Got my 2900pro yesterday, just having a fiddle with ATI tool now.

I know these cards run hot but could anyone give me an idea of what kind of temp range I need to be looking at? What is the ideal idle temp and what would be considered too hot?

Cheers

Dave

Hi,

Idle temps are usually around 50C and the card ramps up the fan once the temps hit 65C. Typically in a warm room I'm getting around 75C with the fan at 38% clocked as an XT

As the fan ramps up with temps it should stabilise the temperature.

With the fan forced to 100% temps stay in the low 60's even at 840Mhz core.... just a shame it's soo loud

Regards

AD

 

[Peve]

Hi

I have a really werid problem. The higher I push the Memory Clock the lower my 3Dmark becomes.

750/800 - 8586
750/850 - 8764
750/875 - 8592
750/900 - 8548

It seems after I go over a memory clock of 850mhz the 3dmarks take a nose dive. Any ideas would be great I am using Rivatuner to overclock

 

[divuk83]

Hi,

Idle temps are usually around 50C and the card ramps up the fan once the temps hit 65C. Typically in a warm room I'm getting around 75C with the fan at 38% clocked as an XT

As the fan ramps up with temps it should stabilise the temperature.

With the fan forced to 100% temps stay in the low 60's even at 840Mhz core.... just a shame it's soo loud

Regards

AD

Getting an idle of 67 and it peaks at 73 when pushed hard, fan is at 38% and I'm running it at 750/820, its in a pretty warm room as well which might not be helping, I think I'll open a window or two!

At stock I get 9109 at the above speeds I get 10349, and I'm sure theres more to come.

Cheers

Dave

 

[J.D]

Hi

I have a really werid problem. The higher I push the Memory Clock the lower my 3Dmark becomes.

750/800 - 8586
750/850 - 8764
750/875 - 8592
750/900 - 8548

It seems after I go over a memory clock of 850mhz the 3dmarks take a nose dive. Any ideas would be great I am using Rivatuner to overclock

MVDDQ (Memory buffer voltages) 2.099 or 2.102V <--- shows both for some reason but nothing to worry about.

Raise that to about 2.150V and then re-run 3dmark 06 and see if that helps?. If it does then keep backing the volts down one increment until your scores start decreasing again.

I tried raising the memory voltage and was having problems passing 1000Mhz and no memory voltages helped me but raising the output buffers voltages stabilized my memory and I got it up to 1071Mhz . I didn't run 3dmark at this speed. I just ran an artifact test until there were no glitches left and only raising the output buffers volts sorted this.

I'm going to post my findings soon. I got 847/1000. Good luck with yours!.

Dave, what speed is your 165 Opty at?.

 

[Peve]

MVDDQ (Memory buffer voltages) 2.099 or 2.102V <--- shows both for some reason but nothing to worry about.

Raise that to about 2.150V and then re-run 3dmark 06 and see if that helps?. I tried raising the memory voltage and was having problems passing 1000Mhz and no memory voltages helped me but raising the output buffers voltages stabilized my memory and I got it up to 1071Mhz . I didn't run 3dmark at this speed. I just ran an artifact test until there were no glitches left and only raising the output buffers volts sorted this.

I'm going to post my findings soon. I got 847/1000. Good luck with yours!.

Dave, what speed is your 165 Opty at?.

Wow thanks for that I managed to get it to 9300 at 750/900 by turning of Catalyst Control Center as I think it was mucking about with the overclocks. Where do I find the setting for MVDDQ in RivaTuner?

 

[divuk83]

Opty was at 2.6 however I have just replaced it with a E6750 which is currently at stock, going to have a fiddle with that later on.

Dave

 

[J.D]

Wow thanks for that I managed to get it to 9300 at 750/900 by turning of Catalyst Control Center as I think it was mucking about with the overclocks. Where do I find the setting for MVDDQ in RivaTuner?

I never seen that you are using Rivatuner . Sorry for that.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=725 This is what I'm using. ATI TOOL 0.27 b2 (b2 = Beta 2 for those who don't know)

 

[J.D]

Opty was at 2.6 however I have just replaced it with a E6750 which is currently at stock, going to have a fiddle with that later on.

Dave

Ahhh. I was wondering about your scores as well. I was thinking that your opty must be at 3.3Ghz+ with your overclock to get 10349 at 750/820 but with an E6750 it's easily possible . From Decto's scores it seems as these cards are definitely CPU bound in some cases (more so in 3dmark than games I think though). I wonder at what CPU speed for AMD and Intel is going to stop increases for SM2, SM3 and HDR scores?.

 

[J.D]

My overclocking of the 2900Pro.

Before I start I have to say that I was laughing my head off when I heard the fan at 100%. I thought my X1900XT at 100% was loud!!. Now I can sympathise with users who bought this card and now dislike it because it sounds like someone is blow drying their hair from another room.

Apart from the leaf blowing accessory that AMD were so nice to include , the card clocks amazingly. All ex X1900 owners will agree with me on this one too as the x1000 series aren't good to overclock at all. My first jump was straight to 750Mhz on the core and it ran it no problem at all. Then up to 800Mhz, fine. Then on to 820Mhz, then 833Mhz. All of these speeds were showing nice increases so I then backed down to 750 core and started upping the memory. No problem at all running at 900Mhz first time and then on to 1000Mhz and still showing gains . I tried 1050Mhz but on the dragon test my memory gave out on me and I needed to reset. I left it at 1000Mhz and then started to bench the core with this memory speed.

I benched all the way up to 833Mhz core with gains but when I went to 847Mhz I started to lose some points on SM2 and SM3 scores. I wasn't too happy with this and I benched 4 more times to make sure that it wasn't anything to do with background tasks. I even reset my PC twice during this to eradicate any problems but nothing helped. I went into ATI Tool and had a look at the voltage settings and decided to just give it a shot as I was wary with it being a beta. I put my volts from VDDC 1.150v to 1.225v and got over 100 points in my total score as well as raised SM2/SM3 scores so I knew for certain that the card needed a little volts to go further and that that ATI tool was actually working. I went back to stock volts and started raising the VDDC volts up at 1 increment at a time to see what voltage was needed. I went 1.150v > 1.163v > 1.175v > 1.188v > 1.200v then on the 5th 3dbenchmark I found out that 1.213 was enough volts to give my 2900Pro enough juice to run 850 (847) core and get the full benefits from it. I tried to get 864 on the core but as I had been testing for hours as well as memory overclocking past 1000Mhz It was already light (am) so after a few volt increases I left it as I was happy enough for one nights testing.

I had a shot of getting the memory stable past 1000Mhz and found that raising the MVDDC (memory volts) had no effect. I tried a few voltage increments but didn't go nuts on it as I just got the card. I thought 1000Mhz was going to be it but I had a little shot of the (MVDDQ) memory buffer voltages any way and to my surprise it worked. I raised from 2.099v to 2.150v and I think that stabilized 1017Mhz or 1035Mhz. I kept on increasing the MVDDQ volts as needed until I got to 1071Mhz but by then I was too tired to continue. For these memory tests over 1000Mhz I was just using ATI Tool to scan for artifacts. Raising the MVDDQ removed these artifacts so i'd run for 5 mins and then progress. All other tests were done on 3dmark06.

All I can say is that I'm happy I bought this now. I was going to skip it as I have a lot more to spend this christmas than usual but even with that looming I feel as I got a steal . Fan @ 100% is a joke though.



Sapphire 2900Pro Stock Votlages in ATI Tool

VDDC (VGPU/CORE) 1.150V

MVDDC (memory voltage) 2.200V

MVDDQ (Memory buffer voltages) 2.099 or 2.102V <--- shows both for some reason but nothing to worry about.



2900Pro @ stock // 2.8Ghz

SM2 = 3706
SM3 = 4249
CPU = 2136

Total = 8805

2900Pro @ 752 - 801 // 2.8Ghz -- 7.9's

SM2 = 4108
SM3 = 4700
CPU = 2132

Total = 9439

2900Pro @ 806 - 855 // 2.8Ghz -- 7.9's

SM2 = 4166
SM3 = 4853
CPU = 2129

Total = 9655

2900Pro @ 820 - 1000 // 2.8Ghz -- 7.9's

SM2 = 4309
SM3 = 4951
CPU = 2135

Total = 9849

2900Pro @ 833 - 1000 // 2.8Ghz -- 7.9's

SM2 = 4326
SM3 = 4990
CPU = 2135

Total = 9891

2900Pro @ 847 - 909 // 2.8Ghz -- 7.9's

SM2 = 4202
SM3 = 4965
CPU = 2128

Total = 9768

2900Pro @ 847 - 1000 // 2.8Ghz -- 7.9's

SM2 = 4232
SM3 = 5013
CPU = 2133

Total = 9834

2900Pro @ 847 - 1000 with 1.213V on VDDC // 2.8Ghz -- 7.9's

SM2 = 4352
SM3 = 5080
CPU = 2134

Total = 9979

This is on an 8 month abused O/S so a fresh install and format should help me break 10k!!!.

Oh Dear, but if it makes you feel any better I have had two or three system restarts in the past 24 hours!

None of them have been while I am gaming, just surfing etc? At the moment I am just doing a complete test on my Samsung hard disk in case it has gone bad but actually I think the real reason is my Antec TruePower Trio 550w is struggling to feed the HD2900XT!

Think I may re-install my X1950XT for 24 hours and see if that helps, I have a big PSU on order so that should be with me in a day or two.

Regarding overclocking these cards (on WInXP machine) I can't get any of the normal tools working, ATI Tray Tools is showing me the wrong info for GPU/Mem speeds and ATI Tool won't even start lol!

sorry to hear that m8. I'd like to tell you that the new PSU is working perfectly and the only system reset I've had is from overclocking the snot out of this 2900pro.

Hopefully the new PSU will sort things out for you. ATI Tools 0.27 b2 is what I used with 7.9 drivers. Report back when you're back up and running please as I'd like to know how you get on.

JD,

Bad news on your PSU but at least you have another on the way. I don't think your 1GB will help you much, I was running that in my AMD system recently and found that an increase to 2GB made things much smother especially at higher details settings. Audibly less HDD thrashing too.

Enjoy

AD

It's all sorted now. The 1Gb hasn't been much of a problem so far but I've only tried UT3 Demo, CoD4, Bioshock, World in Conflict and Pro Evo 6 and everything ran great. I was well surprised by World in Conflict after the overclock. Ran great at 1600x1200 @ full settings. I'll keep my eyes out for a cheap pair of DDR1 1gb modules but as DDR3 is nearly here I'd want to spend as little as possible on old memory.

 

[decto]

Fan @ 100% is a joke though.

Sure is, good job it runs at a just audible 38% most of the time.

It's all sorted now. The 1Gb hasn't been much of a problem so far but I've only tried UT3 Demo, CoD4, Bioshock, World in Conflict and Pro Evo 6 and everything ran great. I was well surprised by World in Conflict after the overclock. Ran great at 1600x1200 @ full settings. I'll keep my eyes out for a cheap pair of DDR1 1gb modules but as DDR3 is nearly here I'd want to spend as little as possible on old memory.

Your core seems similar to mine except that I get a grey screen with white pin stripes when I push the core too hard and the only option is a reset. I can get to around 820 fan at normal or 840 fan at max though I've flashed to stock XT speeds and run it like that unless I'm benching. Increasing the volts doesn't seem to make any difference to me but I do get some variability in my 3dm score as like you I've an old install that needs replacing.... one thing at a time though.

As for memory, for some reason it's quite noticable on the opty 165. Just at those points where the next part of the level loads or a few more things to shoot jump out. Even at the start of BIOshock when you emerge from the pod it gets a little stuttery at the point the flying machine gun thing gets the splicer but 90% of it is fine.

Surprisingly this was fixed by the memory upgrade rather than the swap to an DC cpu as I'd have expected. I picked up a couple of 2x512 kits second hand at a good price. I didn't bother with anything fancy, just some standard PC3200 crucial vanilla but single sided as you can run 4 single sided dimms at full speed.

Anyhow, this could be for a number of reasons on my system, including that it's running SLI, The cards have 256M frame buffers or just that even in SLI there not as fast as a OC'd 2900.

I'm still waiting on a couple of PCI-E's to molex and then I'm going to test the 2900 in the AMD to compare gaming frame rates between to core2 and DC opty.

Have fun.... enough with the benchies..... go play.

AD

 

[Noble]

Ok im new to Ocing so go gentle on me
I've been lurking around here and trying to learn what i can for the last couple of months and have recently (within the last week) rebuilt my system.

I bought a HD2900XT from OcUK a couple of months ago but really needed to upgrade my entire system as on my old P4 3.8 based system i was getting a 3dMark06 score of 6025

So I bought a bundle from OcUK and built my new system which is now based on...
Abit IP35 pro
Q6600 quad
2Gb ballistix 8500c5
HD2900XT
WD 74Gb Raptor 10k rpm

I originally ran 3dMark06 at stock speeds and was pleasantly surprised to get a score of 11341.
After spending sometime working on Overclocking my CPU to 3Ghz i then ran it again and got 12294.

I then ran the ATI overclocking tool which maxed the settings at 843 / 1000 and my 3DMark Score was 13245 which im hoping is at least respectable for someone with limited knowledge...

I have to admit that im getting a really strange thing happening which i need some advice on but i'll stay on topic and save it for another thread.

 

[Peve]

Hi

This is going to be a stupid question but what are the stock speeds for a 2900XT?

 

[Big.Wayne]

what are the stock speeds for a 2900XT?

 

[blod32]

Sapphire 2900 pro@766gpu mem @909 http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=capturecy3.jpg

 

[jrodga2k5]

Well guys I managed to find the guts to clock mines some more

Just done a 3D mark run and some gaming @ core 816.75Mhz(820set) mem 1890Mhz(950set) and its all a go Nice to see we are all sporting an XT as we all assumed we would be, cracking cards and cracking performance!

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=3406458

If only my CPU could be clocked higher with this rubbish memory lol!

 

[decto]

Well guys I managed to find the guts to clock mines some more

Just done a 3D mark run and some gaming @ core 816.75Mhz(820set) mem 1890Mhz(950set) and its all a go Nice to see we are all sporting an XT as we all assumed we would be, cracking cards and cracking performance!

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=3406458

If only my CPU could be clocked higher with this rubbish memory lol!

 

[decto]

Thats's still a good 3dmark score for the cost of these cards..... I see you also flashed to XT...

I'm not convinced there is that much difference in gameplay one you have a core2 above the mid 2Ghz range. Though in honesty I have been looking at Quads and contemplating if 14K is achievable.... and then I was thinking it would be better on a P35 mainboard than my 650i..... and then I kicked myself back into reality and concluded it's more than fast enough for any game I'm playing so I'll make do with new card reader (mine does 0.8Mb/sec zzzz) a cheap fan controller and a couple of new fans...

... and maybe Crysis when that comes out.

AD