Gigabyte 5870 GV-R587UD-1GD Overclocking

So I have this gigabyte 5870. Anyone else running one of these and have any thoughts? How do I figured out what the stock voltage is?

My initial impressions:

1. The OC Guru software is terrible, and unfortunately necessary for voltage control
2. It is stock at 850Mhz on the GPU, and I can only get it to 930Mhz at around .85V. Around 1V temperatures get out of control, even with my 300CFM blower in 0-3C winter air.
3. OC Guru sucks

I am on the F8 Bios. Using the latest version of OC Guru. Running the latest driver from the Gigabyte site:
AMD Driver 8.791 2010/12/20

This is the product page for this card:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3355#sp

A lot of people are getting 5870's up to 1Ghz on the GPU... I have had my 4890 up to 1030 on air.

Any guidance, feedback, or input is appreciated.

Why don't you use MSI AB?
You can control voltage from there AFAIK (you have to manually activate the function but you probably already know that).
I would get the newest driver form AMD...

Hope this helps

I am not sure about voltage on these cards, as mine doesn't have the voltage regulator, but I heard it was around 1.15v stock... So I am not quite sure what is the voltage you are talking about. .85v-1v sounds like 2D mode voltage...

My card uses a non reference vreg. So I only use oc guru to set volts, and use Msi afterburner to set frequency. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I thought the voltage sounded really low also, however oc guru lets me go up to 1.036 or something weird... if I do that, temps fly past 100c and everything goes dark, requiring a power off/on.

I have heard of people talk about 2d and 3d voltage but I haven't seen any software that lets you set them separetly. I also only have of guru for voltage readings, so it is possible it is listing voltages wrong but I have jobway to be sure... I just know it runs well at the setting for. 85 in of guru, but at vgpu of 1v temps go suicidal until the system crashes.

This is benchmark oriented, I don't game or anything and don't care much if the card dies... I really want more than 930mhz out of it though.

Thanks for the input so far. I really am out of touch with gpu overclocking, and only know a little from working with the his radeon 4890 I have used also lately. I might try remounting the heatsink tomorrow and see if it affects temps.

More info greatly appreciated.

I was getting 0.95v in 2D. Ran unigive not in full screen to force the card to run @ 3D mode and I get 1.125v reading in AMD Gpu clock tool (for 5870).

My guess is that you are trying to increase the voltage of the 2D mode. I saw some review of your card and they had no trouble running it with voltage higher than what I have (@950 to 1000)!

I saw a review on bjorn3d where they ran it at 950, but I haven't seen any other reviews on my particular card. I'll have to try the windowed 3d thing and see what the voltage says, good idea there.

Agreed on the voltage issue... check there first. That VID (.85) for 3D seems WAY low and is likely 2D VID.

AS far as temps... thats just odd at only 1v, making me question what is the stock voltage.

Maybe grab a bios capture tool and see what the 2D and 3d voltages are supposed to be.

Instructions on that earthdog? I'm not familiar with bios capture tools or editors, but I have heard of people using them around to read and modify default settings.

ATI is not my bag... I know for Nvidia we use Nibitor to capture and edit.

EDIT: Try a program called RBE (Radeon Bios Editor). There is a tutorial link there as well.