The HD 3870/50 Thread

[RAA]

Got this card yesterday and am loving it. All at stock ATM but I like how it works with only the display driver installed, doesn't even need CCC or those fuddy ATI processes. Got 14561 in 05, seems to be about right I think for my system. I'm not sure about OCing it, it's fast as hell at stock and a good balance for my CPU.

 

[IAmMoen]

so here was my latest run. This is with the 7.11 drivers rather than the 7.12 and my proc upped to 2.75. I also had the card at 860/1210 I believe.

 

[Gripp]

so, compared to a 8800GTX how do two of these stack up? (being that this is about equal in price...)

 

[Keitosha]

Wow @ benchies!

Now i really can't resist the HD3870. Here in The Netherlands the're being sold for a mere €170 while the cheapest 8800GT sells for €300 (according to many pricewatching sites here).

The only problem with the HD3870's here is that the're very popular and almost never in stock.

 

[HousERaT]

so, compared to a 8800GTX how do two of these stack up? (being that this is about equal in price...)

For benching it's the best way to go with the Crossfire setup. Broke all my personal records against my single GTX. I'll let the gamers talk about the games.

 

[erasmus372]

Anyone else see an extreme heat jump from overclocking?

With my fan at 50% speed, idle temps at stock are 29-31ºC

With the gpu at 825mhz the idle temps jump up to 65ºC! 80ºC at load, both are fine but man that's a huge difference for 50 mhz.

(I have AS5 on my gpu)

 

[HousERaT]

Anyone else see an extreme heat jump from overclocking?

With my fan at 50% speed, idle temps at stock are 29-31ºC

With the gpu at 825mhz the idle temps jump up to 65ºC! 80ºC at load, both are fine but man that's a huge difference for 50 mhz.

(I have AS5 on my gpu)

This happens when you use something other than CCC to overclock.

 

[erasmus372]

This happens when you use something other than CCC to overclock.

Is that to insinuate that CCC does not actually overclock a card? I was using Rivatuner.

 

[Coreyhm1]

When you use CCC to overclock the card will still downclock on idle, with rivatuner it doesn't downclock on idle.

 

[RAA]

On the box it says this card needs 30A from the 12V rail. Well I have a 520W Corsair which has 3x 18A. Obviously the recommended 30A is taking into account an entire system. It does take a lot of juice I think, very rarely I get these tiny green square errors. Maybe only one or two and I remember those errors from when I had a PSU that wasn't up to the job. Well I think that's the case here and remember my CPU is using a lot more power when at 1.4V 11x250. So I'm going to use a 270W PSU dedicated to my HD3870 and that will sort it.

The cooling is excellent, when I use 100% power for the fan it doesn't even break 50'C full load! Noisy as hell but very efficient.

 

[RAA]

Actually when I first got it BF2 got crazy errors and when I exited and checked temps they were 106'C. This was just with stock drivers and CCC so why didn't the fan speed increase! I may have damaged my card don't you think? It was only at that temp very briefly maybe 30 seconds max. But where does it say I have to use rivatuner or ati tool to control the fan speeds? Crazy and why isn't there a safe guard?

 

[Coreyhm1]

In Rivatuner go to low-level system settings / fan and set it to a fixed speed of 50-60%

What are you guys getting in a stable OC? Im thinking of trying 860/1200 again, last time i got a BSOD in crysis, but i guess it could have had nothing to do with the OC..?

Im scared to flash it to the newest bios

 

[RAA]

Well I've got it working OK now with ATI Tool, I can pick any percentage I like and the temps are very low. But what do you think the chances are of my card being damaged after reaching those temps? I was playing BF2 for maybe five minutes and then when I got back to the main menu there were some bad errors so I exited and then saw that the temps were 106'C. It soon cooled down and then I started using ATI Tool. I think I might RMA it anyway cause otherwise I cannot rule a damaged GPU out as a possible cause of errors if I keep getting them. This is entirely ATI's fault, these cards should force a game to desktop if it reaches 90'C and reboot a system if it reaches 100'C AND the fan should definetly work if everything is installed correctly from the CD.

 

[baggedmazda]

wow a fellow bf2 player ya i always set my fan up to 100% when i enter a game i got headphones on so it don't matter to me. I have tryed to go to 7.12 but it didn't like it at all

 

[baggedmazda]

well i just ran 3dmack06 for the first time and got 6683

PC specs
amd 3400+ single core at 2750
nforce4 sli mobo
2 gigs of ocz plat
new HD3870
is that kinda low i havn't realy messed with the oc on anything yet just kinda when with what i know will run i play cod4 just fine and that is the most demanding game i got at the moment

 

[RAA]

I got about 7500 ..

 

[baggedmazda]

i think i need to oc my whole system a bit more

 

[Coreyhm1]

Your cpu is a fairly large bottleneck..

What socket is the 3400? may not cost much to upgrade it.

 

[baggedmazda]

it is a 939 i got a deal on here so i couldn't pass it up i needed something so i could move from my apg system

 

[CGR]

Ok, finally pulling the trigger. Going to buy my 3870 tomorrow. I just wanna ask everyone's opinion.

Should i get the Sapphire or Asus? The Asus is 10 bucks more which isn't enough to help me decide..
None here seems to have the Asus, any specific reason?

Plz, time is running out and i can't decide!
thanks in advance!

My choice would be the Asus. They have better support imo.