Volt Mod for Asus 4850 TOP?

[sirRealist]

Hi all!

I just bought the Asus 4850 TOP, to upgrade from my 8800GT (i got it for $130 shipped from egg, so i figured why not... probably a waste of money though):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121272

Anyway, I can get it to about 720/1100 stable, but I want to push it further. I've got an accelero S1 on it, along with copper sinks on all the RAM and volt reg chips.

I want to do the pencil mod found here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/voltmods/151

As you can see, they specify that the mod is for PCB #B50131-00, which I'm assuming is the standard reference board. However, the card I got is slightly different. Despite the picture of the card on newegg's site (see link above), the layout of the card I got is different. Instead of the 4 gray voltage regulators and the 8 little black chips near the back/end of the card, I have 3 gray volt regulators and 9 little black chips (3 behind each volt reg).

I haven't looked at the bottom of my card yet, but I'm figuring that the placement of the little transistor you have to shade is different on mine.

Does anyone out there have the card I'm talking about?
Anyone know why the newegg picture is wrong (it shows the correct "special" cooler, but the layout is different)?
Why did they change the design of this particular board?

Most importantly, does anyone know if the location of the transistor you need to shade is the same?
Finally, if it's somewhere else, where is it?

I can take pictures sometime tonight or tomorrow, but the thought just occurred to me, so i wanted to throw it out there.

[sirRealist]

anyone?

[jason4207]

Looking at your post in the other thread I'd say you need to figure out how to lower your MEMIO temp before you proceed any further. 98*C is too hot.

Mine doesn't run nearly as hot as yours, and I'm volt-modded.

[sirRealist]

Looking at your post in the other thread I'd say you need to figure out how to lower your MEMIO temp before you proceed any further. 98*C is too hot.

Mine doesn't run nearly as hot as yours, and I'm volt-modded.

Totally agree IF thats an accurate read of my RAM temp, but I just touched the sinks and they're warm, but not overly hot and certainly not 204F... that means either the xfer of heat is WAY off, or the reading is wrong. Either way, I need to figure it out before volt modding, unless there is no way that my current OC of 760/110 could be stable (and it is) with RAM temp of 98C...

[ziggo0]

^That is a good point. If your hitting 760/1100 without any voltmods you got a good card. Can you run games like CoD4/5 // Source Engine games for a hour or 2 without them crashing (VPU Recovery Error)? If so then damn, your lucky. The pencil mod is a cheap little way to get the most out of your card...but you gotta double and triple check your work. Both of my cards are penciled to 1.45vGPU and 2.18vDIMM, took me about 2 days to get comfortable with it. Used a piece of vynil electrical tape over the penciling to help prevent degrading.

I'll say this before jason smashes me with his beautiful pictures of his volt modded 4850, hardmod is the only way to go :)

[sirRealist]

^That is a good point. If your hitting 760/1100 without any voltmods you got a good card. Can you run games like CoD4/5 // Source Engine games for a hour or 2 without them crashing (VPU Recovery Error)? If so then damn, your lucky. The pencil mod is a cheap little way to get the most out of your card...but you gotta double and triple check your work. Both of my cards are penciled to 1.45vGPU and 2.18vDIMM, took me about 2 days to get comfortable with it. Used a piece of vynil electrical tape over the penciling to help prevent degrading.

I'll say this before jason smashes me with his beautiful pictures of his volt modded 4850, hardmod is the only way to go :)

I haven't tried any of those games yet, I've only played FO3 with this card and it runs @ those clocks for hours w/o VPU RE.

760/1140 just hit 35min stable from ATI tool... gonna see how far I can push the RAM w/ ATI tool (760 seems to be max for core), then test in FO3. I'll keep you all posted... and any thoughts about my RAM temp readings is appreciated.

Oh, one reason why I might have gotten a "good" card is that I got the ASUS "TOP", which comes factory OCed to 680/1050. While that doesn't necessarily mean that it will go any higher, it does mean that it was tested to go at least that far stable, so you can assume its passed any initial "binning" tests from the company.


EDIT:
Max stable OC is 760/1175 with 45min stable in ATI Tool, no artifacts. 5Mhz more in either core or RAM causes artifacts or VPU RE. Now to see if its stable in games...

[e6600]

I haven't tried any of those games yet, I've only played FO3 with this card and it runs @ those clocks for hours w/o VPU RE.

760/1140 just hit 35min stable from ATI tool... gonna see how far I can push the RAM w/ ATI tool (760 seems to be max for core), then test in FO3. I'll keep you all posted... and any thoughts about my RAM temp readings is appreciated.

Oh, one reason why I might have gotten a "good" card is that I got the ASUS "TOP", which comes factory OCed to 680/1050. While that doesn't necessarily mean that it will go any higher, it does mean that it was tested to go at least that far stable, so you can assume its passed any initial "binning" tests from the company.


EDIT:
Max stable OC is 760/1175 with 45min stable in ATI Tool, no artifacts. 5Mhz more in either core or RAM causes artifacts or VPU RE. Now to see if its stable in games...

is it stable? and did you buy the asus from open box on newgg?

[sirRealist]

is it stable? and did you buy the asus from open box on newgg?

Yeah, I played Fallout3 for 3 hours last night with no "driver failed and recovered" messages, or anything else out of the ordinary.

Chip is still running hot though...