[BLOG] An old X850 and a lot of patience - Part 9
Its been a little while since my last update but now that I've got some reviews out of the way it is time to rock once again. I had a couple of hours to burn last night and managed a few 3DMark 2006 runs with JRW21's old X850. The initial runs went well, and the card manages an almost identical core overclock when compared to my old Sapphire card. This was positive news. To my surprise though, the memory overclocks much better. I was able to push it close to 630MHz compared to about 610MHz on my old card. This will definitely come in handy when I start pushing it harder.
One problem I ran into was that the card didn't rank with the other "X850 Series" cards on the ORB. It goes into a separate ranking called "X850 CrossFire Edition" with quite a few dual card results. I did beat all of the single card "CrossFire Edition" results without much trouble, but I really want to compete in the single card "X850 Series" roster, which is much more competitive. After doing a little digging, I decided to flash this card to an X850 XT Platinum Edition. They are virtually the same card with the same core, same memory and same interface but there are some obvious differences in the PCB layout. I took a bit of a chance flashing it as I couldn't find any examples of success in this specific scenario, but thankfully, it worked perfectly. Upon booting up after the flash, I had an "X850 Series" card as detected by the ATI driver and higher default core and memory clock speeds. I'm not certain, but I believe there are also some minor memory timing optimizations with the Platinum Edition BIOS.
I took the card up to 595MHz on the core and 616MHz on the GDDR3 and managed an impressive 2896 points!
There is still some room in the GDDR3 as well, but pushing 595MHz on the GPU core is the absolute stability limit and 3DM crashes out about 50% of the time. The Q6600 is also on the limit of stability at 4014MHz and probably needs a vcore boost beyond 1.575V. I noticed the core temps are higher than with my sapphire card but I'm certain it is due to the terrible OEM thermal interface material. I had replaced the TIM on my Sapphire card with some premium paste, which made a huge improvement. I probably won't bother reapplying the paste with the retail cooler as I've got the Maze 4 GPU block here waiting to be installed.
Speaking of watercooling, I also picked up about 10 feet of 3/8" Primoflex tubing. I got the black stuff as it looks pretty cool and didn't cost any more than the regular clear tubing. I ran into one snag though unfortunately. The 3/8" barbs I bought for the Maze 4 don't fit. It looks like the revision of the block I have does not use standard G1/4 fittings. I may just put the tubing in hot water and stretch it over the 1/2" barbs on there today. I think it should fit.
I should be ready to get this thing under water shortly but I've got a date with a Vapochill LS and a Phenom II first
Depending on how that combination does, it may be the new platform for this X850 adventure.
Stay tuned!
One problem I ran into was that the card didn't rank with the other "X850 Series" cards on the ORB. It goes into a separate ranking called "X850 CrossFire Edition" with quite a few dual card results. I did beat all of the single card "CrossFire Edition" results without much trouble, but I really want to compete in the single card "X850 Series" roster, which is much more competitive. After doing a little digging, I decided to flash this card to an X850 XT Platinum Edition. They are virtually the same card with the same core, same memory and same interface but there are some obvious differences in the PCB layout. I took a bit of a chance flashing it as I couldn't find any examples of success in this specific scenario, but thankfully, it worked perfectly. Upon booting up after the flash, I had an "X850 Series" card as detected by the ATI driver and higher default core and memory clock speeds. I'm not certain, but I believe there are also some minor memory timing optimizations with the Platinum Edition BIOS.
I took the card up to 595MHz on the core and 616MHz on the GDDR3 and managed an impressive 2896 points!
There is still some room in the GDDR3 as well, but pushing 595MHz on the GPU core is the absolute stability limit and 3DM crashes out about 50% of the time. The Q6600 is also on the limit of stability at 4014MHz and probably needs a vcore boost beyond 1.575V. I noticed the core temps are higher than with my sapphire card but I'm certain it is due to the terrible OEM thermal interface material. I had replaced the TIM on my Sapphire card with some premium paste, which made a huge improvement. I probably won't bother reapplying the paste with the retail cooler as I've got the Maze 4 GPU block here waiting to be installed.
Speaking of watercooling, I also picked up about 10 feet of 3/8" Primoflex tubing. I got the black stuff as it looks pretty cool and didn't cost any more than the regular clear tubing. I ran into one snag though unfortunately. The 3/8" barbs I bought for the Maze 4 don't fit. It looks like the revision of the block I have does not use standard G1/4 fittings. I may just put the tubing in hot water and stretch it over the 1/2" barbs on there today. I think it should fit.
I should be ready to get this thing under water shortly but I've got a date with a Vapochill LS and a Phenom II first
Depending on how that combination does, it may be the new platform for this X850 adventure.Stay tuned!
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Comments
Can you give me a number you are shooting for. Or what you'll need to take top honors?