Undervolting X1900XT

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 21:08

ok just a quick question here, i see that lots of people have managed to overclock the core on thier cards at stock volts which gets me thinking. is it possible for me to keep my card at stock speeds but lower the core voltage until its no longer stable then put the voltage up a notch? reason i ask is that lower voltage should mean lower temps which in turn means less noise from the damn cooler.

is this possible or am i just going nutty???

FreeStream · 3 Oct 2006 at 21:12

YOu can do it with clocks too

Im at 400/478 @ 1V/1.950V

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 21:25

no thats not what i mean, i was wondering if i can leave my 3d clocks at stock of 621 core and 720mhz ram but try to undervolt the core so its at something like 1.375v at 621mhz?

also i seemed to have been skanked here, stock speeds in 3d are supposed to be 625 core and 725 ram but im missing a few hertz on both. is this normal?

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 21:27

Concorde Rules said:
YOu can do it with clocks too

Im at 400/478 @ 1V/1.950V

is that your 2d speeds running at 1v and 400mhz? bet that has a low idle temp.

manoz · 3 Oct 2006 at 21:30

If I were you I'd just replace the cooler with a zalman one.

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 21:31

yea could do that but wanted to know if the card could handle the undervolt tactic.

FreeStream · 3 Oct 2006 at 21:37

Well ofcourse, 650/775 can be done at 1.35V/2.2011V

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:06

concorde i got to hand it to you, i just went throughyour guide step by step and its bloody fantastic. im not experimenting with the overclock settings and undervolting.

about to run 3dmark05.

one question, i have 2 profiles now created, a 2D and a 3D profile, is there a way to make the tray tools do an auto profile change when a 3d app is launched or will i have to do it manually, still no bother though sinces it just a few clicks to change profile manually. but auto change would be nice.

FreeStream · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:11

You can do it through a manual profile or you can use the auto 3D overclocking which you can access under the Overclocking area you use in the hardware tab

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:22

mani never believed that this card could be so tweakable.

check this out:

just ran 05 stock clocks of 624 core and 724 ram core voltage is at 1.3v :eek:

the tray tools artifact scanner, the spinning ship thingy shows my current draw to peak at 21.09a

how is this card doing so far? gonna try and see if it will the stock clocks at an even lower voltage. load temps have dropped loads, fan speed at 50% the artifact tester doesn;t exceed 66c.

loving this now. gonna play with it some more and check that auto overclock thingy out.

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:25

yes it works the auto clock setting works, it applies the clock speeds as soon as i launch rthdribl.

one problem though, i can;t seem to change my memory voltage to the 1.95v that your guide speaks of. the only option it gives is 1.8397. and if i increase it and click apply it drops back down to 1.8397.

any idea why this would be happening?

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:26

also at 1.3v on the core, and 21.09a of current consumption when running the tray tools artifact scanner, what would you guys think the cards power consumption would be at?

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:46

dang it, voltage of 1.2500 causes artifacts to be picked up in the artifact scanner tool almost immediatley when i press the scan button.

1.2750 volts on the core takes around 3 mins of scanning before it picks up 1 artifact then dissapears so border line stability.

1.3000 volts on the core is good to go. max current consumption is at 21.82

shame i can;t fiddle with the memory voltage.

FreeStream · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:48

1.3V might not be completely stable, I can run 688 @ 1.35V but It needs 1.4V to be 100% stable.

2ndly, mem voltage, did you uncheck the enable I2C when installing ATT? It has to be disabled for R5xx cores.

Amps seem correct, im a about 26-32 at 688/1.4V

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 23:28

Concorde Rules said:
1.3V might not be completely stable, I can run 688 @ 1.35V but It needs 1.4V to be 100% stable.

2ndly, mem voltage, did you uncheck the enable I2C when installing ATT? It has to be disabled for R5xx cores.

Amps seem correct, im a about 26-32 at 688/1.4V

just ran 3dm05 and 06 and both passed fine no artifacts at 1.300v.
im not sure baout that I2C option, can;t remember now, is there somewhere in traytools where i can check it or does it require a reinstall. not too bothered with it i guess since im not gonna overclock the memory yet. gonna let the card run for a month or so to make sure its fine.

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 23:30

here is a 3dm06 score

seems a bit low for me. but im gonna put this down to bad driver optimisation for X64.

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 23:35

Concorde Rules said:
1.3V might not be completely stable, I can run 688 @ 1.35V but It needs 1.4V to be 100% stable.

2ndly, mem voltage, did you uncheck the enable I2C when installing ATT? It has to be disabled for R5xx cores.

Amps seem correct, im a about 26-32 at 688/1.4V

i see what your saying though about the stability. i guess i could put the voltage up 1 more notch to 1.3250 just for added bonus i guess.

MoD_Callidus · 3 Oct 2006 at 23:39

Cyber I'm dying to know are you happy with it ( thus far natch ) ?

Cyber-Mav · 3 Oct 2006 at 23:58

so far i am happy with it, but its not a massive difference from my overclocked 7900gs. this card offers more tweaking options with the voltages and all so is more fun to play with.

the 7900gs i would have personally preffered to have kept due to its low heat output and low power consumption.

the x1900xt is not that much faster than the overclocked 7900gs i had, th ecore on the gs wen to 650 and the ram to 1450mhz and it scored 4844 in 06 and 9147 in 05.

could be some of the settings i have in the driver since the 7900gs was set to all performance mode, where as the x1900xt i have certain settings such as:

Texture Preference = High Quality
MipMap Detail Level = High Quality
Anistropic Filtering = Quality with full trilinear

one thing im really loving about this card is that High Quality Anistropic Filter option. it just sharpens up the textures in all games and makes them look awsome.

mind you the x1900xt does seem to like higher resolutions a bit better than the 7900gs did. can get away with more stuff at 1600x1200 with AA on.

only 2 games currently giving me problems: Just Cause - seems to run sluggish at high resolutions with everything slapped on full. have to drop resolution to 1024x768 for it to run with a good framerate.
Farcry is the second game giving problems, HDR doesn;t seem to work in the damn game. got no idea why.

7900gs is a good card but the failure rate on them just takes the **** and the card is not worth bothering with to be honest unless you can get a guaranteed perfectly fine working one.