ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide

[Dashken]

As we saw in our review of the ASUS EAH4870 Radeon HD 4870 graphics card, the Radeon HD 4870 was very much superior to high-end graphics cards like the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+. It was also about 2-2.5X faster than its predecessor, the Radeon HD 3870. Now, that is what you call a quantum leap ahead in performance!

Of course, this does not mean we are not going to try overclocking the card. Even though the Radeon HD 4870 will handily tackle practically every 3D game out there, there is still a dragon left to slay and that dragon is called Crysis. The Radeon HD 4870 delivered an average frame rate of 38 fps at 1600 x 1200 and 32 fps at 1920 x 1200. Very good but it would be nice to have better frame rates, wouldn't it? So, let's see how well the Radeon HD 4870 overclocks!

Here's a quote from the guide :-

"The ATI Radeon HD 4870 is based on the long-awaited ATI RV770 GPU, which replaces the RV670 GPU that powered the disappointing ATI Radeon HD 3870 GPU. Both RV770 and the older RV670 are built on the same 55 nm fabrication process but that's where the similarity ends."

Link : ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide

[empire23]

I believe that adding a few other 3rd party utilities into the fray for OCing this beast would help alot. I think that GPU-Z and ATi-Tool are great utilities even for newbies.

Of course simpler things like changing TIM and optimizing airflow can help too. In my 4870 CF setup, the card being blocked by a soundcard and HDD often has 15 Celsius worse temps than the one up top.

[PsYkHoTiK]

Yeah I think some things like AMDGPUClock would help OCing better.

Especially when overdrive limits it to 790 I believe?

[Adrian Wong]

Okay! Will add them then. Was thinking of using existing utilities so that it would be dead simple for newbies but what the heck.. the ATI Control Panel really sucks in that it restricts the GPU to 790 MHz max.

[Chai]

It's been the case since the 9800 days.

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by Chai

It's been the case since the 9800 days.

You would have expected them to increase it to a reasonable limit.

[Chai]

Originally Posted by Adrian Wong

You would have expected them to increase it to a reasonable limit.

Why? If I'm the manufacturer, I wouldn't do that. It increases problem, more RMAs, more support problems.

If there's a workaround, I would rather let the user 'find' the work around. They are probably more aware of what they are doing instead of opening up more problems for ignorant users.

[PsYkHoTiK]

Make it more newbie friendly...

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by Chai

Why? If I'm the manufacturer, I wouldn't do that. It increases problem, more RMAs, more support problems.

If there's a workaround, I would rather let the user 'find' the work around. They are probably more aware of what they are doing instead of opening up more problems for ignorant users.

Nah, unless newbies specifically unlock the feature (minimum three mouse clicks required), it's unlikely to be a problem for them.

[Unixlord]

Well my friend eventually half fried his gpu by doing just that. He's tried everything you'd think of but to no avail. All 3D apps throw up colored lines while 2D is fine. If he'd let me touch it I'd try taking off the stock cooler and reapplying paste.