Asus 5870 Benchmark & Question

I got my shiny new Asus 5870 today and ran some benches you might be interested in reading.

Current setup
Q9550 @ 3.81ghz
4 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix 1142
Asus 5870 Stock
3DMark06 20,500
3DMark Vantage 14,896



I am having a problem though and hope someone can help as I have never owned an ATI card until today.
When the card is at stock settings it works flawlessly but when I overclock it even the slightest bit eg 5mhz I get weird figures come up from the core and memory sensors and a flickering on the screen.
I havent been able to get the flickering screenshot but this shows the core speed reducing etc.
I have noticed when the card isnt being utilised it underclocks it to a core of 400mhz to save power and reduce heat no doubt but when its not at the stock clocks the power save changes the clocks to stupid amounts.



Hope someone can help

You might have to disable PowerPlay (the thing that downclocks on idle) when overclocking to not have glitches. I think the only way to do this is edit the BIOS and then flash the firmware. I personally wouldn't overclock it.

The odd clocks is indeed the powerplay feature. You can use a tool like this:techPowerUp! :: Download GPUTool Community Technology Preview 1 (NB* This is an example app. I don't know if works with the 58xx series cards yet)

When you say flickering, does it only occur on that screen in Catalyst Control Center? If so, then it's nothing to worry about. It's just the drivers. If the screen is flickering when CCC is closed, then that is not normal.

Is your card a 'vanilla' card or a factory Overclocked one? If it's a vanilla model you should still be able to push it further with stock voltages. Just watch the temps.

If it's a factory OC'ed card, then it's probably already at the stability wall.

EDIT:

Thanks for the benchmarks.

many thanks for the reply, thats just the answer I was looking for. Didnt know what ATI called their power saving feature.

All the 58xx series cards are vanilla atm so should have some headroom, especially with Asus SmartDoctor which is a utility which can boost the voltage to the card from 1.15 up to 1.35v

I have seen some reviews hit over 1ghz core with the volt mod.

Anyway, I Googled it and found a way to disable it.

Will post back to see if it works.

Just in case anyone else has this problem, this is how to disable powerplay (although not tested yet)

For anyone with ATI cards here is how to properly set your card up to not use powerplay which causes stuttering and low performance.
go to the directory,
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\ATI\ACE
Keep that directory open.
start up catalyst control center
hit the Overdrive tab
hit the paddle lock image to enable the overdrive settings
hit the profiles tab at top of page
select profiles manager from drop down list
name a profile in blank box (Custom Power is my chosen name)
under "this profile includes" section at bottom of page select the dot for "the following settings". In the tree make sure only ATI Overdrive checkbox is selected.
hit the save button
hit the Activate and close button at bottom of page
now go to your open directory
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\ATI\ACE
You should see 5 new files in there in total.
One file is the same as you named your custom profile, right click it and select edit (my file is called Custom Power.xml)
The file will open in notepad where you can now change settings to nullify powerplay
Here are my new settings for example, I increased the core speed and voltage and applied a slight overclock to the 3dmodes in gpu and memory. I also increased the fan % to 100% from 41%.
Make your changes, close and save changes to the file. Rt click the file choose properties and change the file to read only. You are done.
<Profile>
<Caste name="Graphics">
<Groups>
<Group name="Overdrive5">
<Feature name="CoreClockTarget_0">
<Property name="Want_0" value="77600" />
<Property name="Want_1" value="80000" />
<Property name="Want_2" value="80000" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="MemoryClockTarget_0">
<Property name="Want_0" value="112600" />
<Property name="Want_1" value="120000" />
<Property name="Want_2" value="120000" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="CoreVoltageTarget_0">
<Property name="Want_0" value="1300" />
<Property name="Want_1" value="1300" />
<Property name="Want_2" value="1300" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="MemoryVoltageTarget_0">
<Property name="Want_0" value="0" />
<Property name="Want_1" value="0" />
<Property name="Want_2" value="0" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedProtocol_0">
<Property name="FanSpeedProtocolProperty" value="Percent" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedAlgorithm_0">
<Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Automatic" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedRPMTarget_0">
<Property name="Want" value="0" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_0">
<Property name="Want" value="100" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="CoreClockTarget_1">
<Property name="Want_0" value="77600" />
<Property name="Want_1" value="80000" />
<Property name="Want_2" value="80000" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="MemoryClockTarget_1">
<Property name="Want_0" value="112600" />
<Property name="Want_1" value="120000" />
<Property name="Want_2" value="120000" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="CoreVoltageTarget_1">
<Property name="Want_0" value="1300" />
<Property name="Want_1" value="1300" />
<Property name="Want_2" value="1300" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="MemoryVoltageTarget_1">
<Property name="Want_0" value="0" />
<Property name="Want_1" value="0" />
<Property name="Want_2" value="0" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedProtocol_1">
<Property name="FanSpeedProtocolProperty" value="Percent" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedAlgorithm_1">
<Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Automatic" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedRPMTarget_1">
<Property name="Want" value="0" />
</Feature>
<Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_1">
<Property name="Want" value="100" />
</Feature>
</Group>
</Groups>
<Adapter name="PCI_VEN_1002&DEV_9501&SUBSYS_E620174B&REV_00_4&16020E22&0&0008A">
<Aspect name="Overdrive5" />
</Adapter>
</Caste>
</Profile>

If you restart your computer, just make sure to open catalyst and ensure that your profile is activated. Simple once done.

you are probably already aware of this but when you disable powerplay you will not get the low idle power consumption figures the 5000 series are known for (18W). If you are just benching it is fine to leave it at max clocks but I wouldn't keep it like that 24/7

also your power consumption goes through the roof when increasing clock speeds and voltages so make sure you have adequate active cooling and heatsink. The efficiency of the card is diminished when overclocking

Good find on the manual editing. I completely forgot about editing the .xml files


Although, I haven't found the low clock speed to be detrimental to desktop performance. The clocks adjust when they need to and the temps are definitely lower when it's underclocked/under-volted.

I noticed you set your fan to 100% - Hows the noise on a single 5870? I can't tolerate my cards noise at 60% when I game - It would drive me insane having both fans cranked all the time

The 58xx and 48xx are pretty similar in architecture, so the same voltage tolerance and capability should apply.

Thats not my config its one I pulled from the net to know how to change the values, Anything over 35% can be heard above the other fans in my system. 100% sounds like a plane taking off under my feet

I have found out what the problem is with the flashing on screen, Its because I have 2 monitors attached. When the overdrive button is selected it makes the second monitor flash. If I disconnect it so I only have 1 monitor everything is fine.

I done some benchmarking last night and found got some pretty good scores, on 3DMark Vantage I hit P16,500 which is quick.

The problem i'm finding now is that in a game eg COD5 & NFS:Shift, my FPS is crap. On COD5 my old GTX260 192 sits at 91 FPS almost all the time only dropping to about 80 in thick smoke.

This card is sitting at about 80FPS and in smoke ive seen it drop to 35 and I get some noticable lag.

Any thoughts on this?

Firestrider said:

also your power consumption goes through the roof when increasing clock speeds and voltages

Click to expand...

This is not entirely true. It's misinformation. With most cards, raising the clock speeds and voltages does not cause a huge increase.

"Power consumption does not change a great deal when overclocking (as seen on page 6 of the first ² link), a rough guide is to say the power consumption increases at a slightly greater rate than the overclock. So a 10% overclock will cause a ~11% increase in power and so on."

Quote taken from this link - The Truth About Graphics Power Requirements V2 - Graphic Hardware - Forums - www.atomicmpc.com.au