Overclocking my HD3870

[ArcAneTSGK]

i was thinking about overclocking my HD3870 just to see if i can get an improvement on my 3DMark06 score of 8180. So is it better to use the ATItool or the ATI Catalyst Overdrive utility?

Thanks

 

[muon]

Should also overclock the e2180. I'd imagine that would give a much bigger gain in 3dmark06 than an overclock of the graphics card.

If you want to overclock the hd3870, overdrive is fine. Atitool works on some 38xxx cards, on others it locks the system.

 

[Cyanide]

Should also overclock the e2180. I'd imagine that would give a much bigger gain in 3dmark06 than an overclock of the graphics card.

Seconded, you should be able to get 3ghz fairly easily and that should give you a much bigger boost than clocking your gpu.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

the bios on your 3870 is broken, it is locked, so you cant go over 850mhz on the core,

here go to this website

http://www.iax-tech.com/video/3800biosmod/03.htm

they have bios mods which help fix the problem, and overclock your card for you, the lowest bios mod should work fine 830, 1200

you can then overclock from there

 

[GothicGhost]

is there any problems like that on the 3850 models?

 

[muon]

is there any problems like that on the 3850 models?

Yes, if you manage to reach 857mhz on the core.

 

[Scougar]

they have bios mods which help fix the problem, and overclock your card for you, the lowest bios mod should work fine 830, 1200

Before you jump on that bios I would test your card at over 830 first. My 3870 doesn't like to go beyond 825Mhz. I believe the reason is the lack of voltage to the card, so will need a slight boost from a pencil mod.

Matthew

 

[ArcAneTSGK]

My dad has an e2180 aswell, he managed to get 3.55GHz on air out of it. I don't think i would push it that high, as i'm a noob at overclocking and don't have the cash to replace anything that would burn up.

 

[J.D]

My dad has an e2180 aswell, he managed to get 3.55GHz on air out of it. I don't think i would push it that high, as i'm a noob at overclocking and don't have the cash to replace anything that would burn up.

3.2Ghz will be easy though. I've had mine at that speed since first boot. The CPU has never been below this speed. Give it 1.350v on the CPU voltage (vcore) and put your FSB to 400 with an 8x multiplier for the 3.2Ghz. Put your RAM to 1:1 so it runs at exactly DDR800 with the timings it's meant to have put in manually and away you go. Disable thermal throttling, diable EIST and C1ST and that should be it.

Run a stress test (small FFT's) and use CoreTemp to monitor the temps. At around 73'C and upwards is when the stress test will fail (different for every CPU) and if that happens then just back down a little bit on the voltage at first and if the PC has trouble booting then you will need to reduce the overclock.

 

[simonnance]

not all HD3870s have the BIOS prob, my Powercolor PCS hits 908Mhz core happily without bios or voltage tweaks...... 54C as well load.

Try it and see before you invalidate our warranty.

might try it with a pencil mod to see how high i can push her.