ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide

Discussion in 'Reviews & Articles' started by Dashken, Aug 24, 2008.

  1. Dashken

    Dashken Administrator!

    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 :-
    [​IMG]

    Link : ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide
     
  2. empire23

    empire23 BRB. Attacking Russia

    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.
     
  3. PsYkHoTiK

    PsYkHoTiK Admin nerd

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

    Especially when overdrive limits it to 790 I believe?
     
  4. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    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. :wall:
     
  5. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    It's been the case since the 9800 days. :haha:
     
  6. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

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

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    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.
     
  8. PsYkHoTiK

    PsYkHoTiK Admin nerd

    Make it more newbie friendly... :mrgreen:
     
  9. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

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

    Unixlord Newbie

    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.
     
  11. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    Requiring just 3 mouse clicks is far too easy. Something like Nvidia's Coolbits hack is good.
     
  12. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    True, it's easier than Coolbits. But I noticed that they are getting smarter in preventing overclocking from killing the card.

    For both NVIDIA and ATI cards, the driver can recover from bad overclocks. The GTX 260 is really good at this. It actually downclocks after it detects a bad overclock. It remains underclocked until you reboot.
     
  13. Unixlord

    Unixlord Newbie

    Requiring a reboot actually sounds like an annoyance.
     
  14. The_YongGrand

    The_YongGrand Just Started

    How about Radeon 4850? They are awesome too. No review? :D
     
  15. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Not yet. :(
     
  16. The_YongGrand

    The_YongGrand Just Started

    Ah, this is the best budget card too!

    You gotta have at least one review about it! :D

    'Cause, I'm enjoying it so hard! And it's not too expensive, neither not too cheap, but did some new gaming job pretty well! :haha:
     
  17. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Will try my best to get a card for review soon! :thumb:
     
  18. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    We have just posted a major update of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide!

    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!

    Now at Revision 2.0, here's a list of what we updated in the guide :

    [​IMG]

    Link : ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide
     
  19. Dashken

    Dashken Administrator!

    ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide Rev. 3.0

    We have just posted a major update of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide!

    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!

    Now at Revision 3.0, here's a list of what we updated in the guide :

    [​IMG]

    Link : ATI Radeon HD 4870 Overclocking Guide Rev. 3.0
     

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