Crossfired ATI HD4870s - Page 3

New benchmarks

Cracked 20K with the 3.6cpu and simple790/1100 cf

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=7600293

and P14973 Vantage

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=258354


prob have 10x too much paste, had the heatsink on off too much while trouble shooting. I'll probably do the plastic bag on finger method as a preference, got good stuff - MX2 from artic-cooling.com


The bridges, it will work fine with 1 but ATI say stick 2 on anyway as it helps share the data:

"For CrossFire operation, you do not have to use both CrossFire interconnects, using one will work. However, using both is suggested as it provides more bandwidth for GPU-to-GPU communication."

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=268204

but (see thread) users report no difference in synthetic benchmarks

I left them both on as they look better

Okay GQ I'll give it a shot that way when I redo it. Its just that the large heat sink "floats"on the paste until I can get the damn screws in the retention bracket. You got me googling qx9650 prices, ouch!

I'm just a casual gamer, this build is mainly for my trading, but will load up some games today for a lookie. Spent all the time so far tinkering. Very happy to be @ 3.6 stable; tried 3.8 but into windows only, will take a lot more understanding of what I am changing to get there, if at all, so sticking with 3.6 for now.

Fans should be here Monday so going to tear it down and rebuild it.

I don't want to get masseffect etc until I get a higher res LCD. Just have 2x 17" @ 1280x1024 now so the cf res advantage won't be seen

Crysis demo, benchmarks

7/28/2008 9:34:18 AM - Vista 64
Beginning Run #1 on Map-island, Demo-benchmark_gpu
DX10 1280x1024, AA=No AA, Vsync=Disabled, 64 bit test, FullScreen
Demo Loops=3, Time Of Day= 9
Global Game Quality: High
==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 65.50s, Average FPS: 30.54
Min FPS: 22.63 at frame 1952, Max FPS: 38.90 at frame 865
Average Tri/Sec: -29220752, Tri/Frame: -956920
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.96
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 41.04s, Average FPS: 48.74
Min FPS: 22.63 at frame 1952, Max FPS: 71.72 at frame 116
Average Tri/Sec: -46517300, Tri/Frame: -954431
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.96
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 41.38s, Average FPS: 48.33
Min FPS: 22.63 at frame 1952, Max FPS: 71.72 at frame 116
Average Tri/Sec: -46123580, Tri/Frame: -954339
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -0.96
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

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7/28/2008 9:34:18 AM - Vista 64

Run #1- DX10 1280x1024 AA=No AA, 64 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 48.535

Replaced fans today with Noctua NF-P12 and NF-S12, could not get the backplate cooler to install without it shorting on the motherboard, so junked it

Running all fans on max, much much less sound, tomorrow or next day play with fan settings and add additional fan on lower tray

(haven't played the crysis demo - will come back to that, just ran a quick bench)

well that worked, did the line, then had to take it all apart as the backplate cooler was shorting it out and saw that the paste had spread out nice and even

thanks, a lot simpler and quicker to do

Cheers for that

I got the fans all installed tonight, had to move the lower hard drive cage back a little (from silentpc website), happy with lower noise on max than stock fans for what should be similar or hopefully better cooling performance

I'm basically finished so wrapping up the thread. It's been fun, learned a lot.

On the to do list are: software fan control, cut the slats on the lower internal doors for less airflow restriction (like buck and silentpc website), reload software for a simple Raid 1 setup (just concentrating on data integrity), play some games, and much later see if this chip can do 3.8 reliably (I'm keeping an eye on that thread at extreme), & get my head into ATI

Thanks for all the forum help & research. Hopefully the links in the thread will cut the learning curve for anyone looking at this motherboard/cpu or crossfire

Cheers for reading!

Update: Fans and 4870 video card and Raid 1

Just a quick update: rearranged fans,

lower intake fan plugged into power
2 exhaust fans and upper intake plugged into chassis fans 1,2 and 3
cpu fan 1 into cpu fan and cpu fan 2 into power (left @ max revs)
ram fan plugged into power (max revs)

Tried Asus Qfan, which runs in bios and software. What a crap software, does not work properly. Googled around and could only find Speedfan. I was seriously looking at fan controllers, hardware but managed to get speedfan working enough for what I need

I found that if I toggle down what speedfan2 sees as Speed02, it pulls down all chassis fans (1,2 and 3). At ~60% I get down from ~1400rpm to 800-900rpm (as monitored in Speedfan and checking visually for rpm reduction. Asus pc probe (software fan reading) miscounts chassis3 for some reason.

Anyway, its working so far so good. With the 2 exhaust and mid intake fans on lower RPM, I still have the lower intake on max, temps not a problem, noise much reduced - but note that the noise with everything on max revs is much much less than the original 2 exhaust and 1 intake antec fans.

_________________________________

Briefly tried the Asus orange/white ports for a quick raid1 and it didn't like it, think its looking for windows on a 3rd drive which is pretty pointless for raid1 if you ask me. Going to try the "normal" sata ports and raid1 there. If its a hassle I'll just continue to use acronis.

__________________________________

The guys are flashing generic HD4870s with Asus Top Bios which gives a higher default clock in catalyst control panel (which an individual card may or may not be able to run without artifacting due to normal card variance) AND also gives a much better fan RPM control - idle is lower temps PLUS it auto ramps up when loaded, so its like the earlier work around but best of both worlds. I've not done it yet as I don't need it here, will see how it pans out with user experiences

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=196551

Bioshock

Loaded up Bioshock - recently finished it on my laptop

Wow, very smooth, I did a simple fraps benchmark near the start, made sure I ran around and fighting scene, this is what I got:

Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
2598513634524322190.583

I don't know where the 24 came from, lowest I eyeballed was 110

Fantastic!

(all settings high, only have 1280x1024 17" lcd though)

Some work/fun

Got Q-fan to work, stepped down a bios to 901 and uninstalled the fan expert pc probe software. Q-fan works in bios on startup, not so handy for gaming but okay for general work

I tested the cpu for hours and its prime stable @ 3.6. Using minimum parameters where I can. I'll post my settings soon for other board users reference

I also tested with case door open and shut and its 2deg C difference while running prime, not a big deal for less noise

Runs crysis demo great - all settings high and @ 1280x1024 2xAA its roughly the same FPS as the benchmark, anywhere from 40-60fps which is like gaming on a laptop, but with better IQ

Freeking stalker will not run on my quad, binned it, ill just play on my laptop. I hope the developers make a better job of clearsky as that looks good

COD4 runs like butter

Overclock settings for this motherboard

(this is a copy and paste of a post I just did on another forum)

"My Bios Settings"

Processor Q9450
RAM Corsair Dominator 8500 2x2GB
Asus P5Q Deluxe

My original core vis is 1.15 and 1.25 at x6 and x8, according to Everest/CPUz

Rather than clog up the board, I'll edit this post for my current overclock settings. I had some problems trying lower settings and bioses, and this is what I came up with

BIOS 803
(tested stable prime95 6hrs at time of post, Aug 14th)


AI TWEAKER:
AI Tweaker:
Ai overclock: manual
CPU ratio setting: auto
FSB frequency: 450
PCIE freq: 100
FSB strap to NB: Auto
DRAM freq: Auto
everything Auto then
DRAM static : Auto
DRAM read training: Auto
MEM OC charger: Auto
Ai Clock Twister: Auto
Ai Transaction booster: Auto
Common Performance level: Auto
Pull ins all set: disabled

CPU Voltage: 1.34375

CPU GTL Voltage Reference (0/2): 0.635
CPU GTL (1/3): 0.675
CPU PLL: 1.54
FSB Termination: 1.34
DRAM: 2.02
NB Voltage: 1.3
NB GTL Reference: Auto
SB Voltage: 1.20
PCIE Sata voltage: 1.50

Load line Calibration: Enabled
CPU spread: disabled
PCIE spread: disabled
CPU clock Skew: Auto
NB clock skew: Auto


Next page: Advanced: CPU Configuration
CPU Ratio Setting: Auto
C1E Support: Disabled
Max CPUID Value Limit: Disabled
Intel Virtualization: Disabled
CPU TM: Disabled
Execute Disable bit: Disabled
Intel Speed Step: Enabled

and that's it, 3.6 stable

Air cooling, thermalright IFX-14 (without the backplate cooler as it was shorting on the P182 case). I use Noctuas on IFX and inplace of case fans

Real temp under prime showing ~61deg C on one core rest ~56deg C

When I tried >3.6 it gets unstable and so after reading around, happy with settling for 3.6 with speedstep for 24/7
Stability is important to me - I upped the vcore from 1.33 to keep stable. Temps are okay.

Got Raid1 working through the intel chip

The board has its own raid1 or raid0 type SATA ports (orange and white) but read that the intel chip is slightly quicker so used that - the coloured ports just act as normal SATA if you dont use them in "Drive Expert" mode

Busy day, reloaded software when set up Raid, all good now

Saving up for LCD panels, but thats everything I set out to do finished, so this time its really " th' th' that's all folks"

cheers

Yeah, you were right lol

Raid 1 fell over on me during a windows update, just using acronis now as that was a lot of shitty downtime

Updated post#54 with my current overclock settings, same 3.6 but auto'd a lot and upped the vcore slightly as was having issues.

Cheers

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...89437&page=180

I'm user mac_1969 on that forum, and my signature there has current bios overclock settings - tweaked a little to what was earlier in this thread

Learned a lesson in immature Asus bios. There was a problem with bioses greater than v803 for users with an Q9450 or Q9550 quad, which basically manifested in instability

It has been fixed with v1406 bios though, and now the system is fully stable

Got to say I'm loving casual playing or Crysis with the 4870s crossfired. Getting very high frame rates, and I am looking forward to farcry2 and mass effect

Now that my system is stable I'm very happy. The CPU is really fast, noticeably more than the 2.8 in my laptop, and the whole package only got around $2000 at time of purchase. Time marches on and if I were building today I would be looking at the 1gb 4870 cards for ~ the same price. All the other components I'd keep as is right now, except maybe get a deal on larger drives.

Bit of a revamp

Noise and heat nagging me. Gaming its okay but general computing I find I need the fans on ~38% to keep cards cool, and its noisy in comparison to the rest of the system.

The new cat drivers (.12) are good, leaving fan at 20% is great for noise level, but still getting about 69deg C thrown out of the back of the computer though

Ordered up some aftermarket air coolers to have a bit of a play about. May need to mod the case for the lower GPU or mod the cooler, will see - supposed to take a wee bit more than 2 slots

http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/pro...-acc-twinturbo

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=166


What I'm trying to achieve is this:

-Cooler GPU temps under normal computing for low decibel fan speed
-Quiet under above conditions
-Same or similar 3D performance - willing to take a wee hit in performance ie amount I can overclock from stock clocks; at the moment I can set sliders to max without any artifacts, not gone higher than that (flashing etc)

Pair of fans was ~$100cdn with shiping from Ncix.ca so not much

I'll post pics when I get them installed