3850 AGP OC'ing, Vmods, experiences, suggestions, where to buy

TRWOV,

I suggest you try a lower voltage with the 823Mhz setting. You may find your card will be stable with lower voltage. My GPU is much more stable now at 0.974V (see screen capture from RBE 1.28 (Radeon Bios Editor from here at TPU downloads).

Tested again with the fan manually set at 80% and managed to complete 3dmark06 with 824/1251. Almost got 12000: http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16386367

Anyway, even with the fan at 100% and memory at stock clocks, with the GPU at 837 I can't even complete the first test. Retried with high AGP voltage and the situation didn't improve.

So, with appropriate cooling, 824/1251 is doable with stock voltages.

Here are my 3DMark06 Results. These are on a very cold morning 18°C in my room.

At 837Mhz (7802):
http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16328471

At 823Mhz (7761):
http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16328309

At 810Mhz (7686):
http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16319283

You should try lower voltage - try 1.094V

jtleon said:

TRWOV,

I suggest you try a lower voltage with the 823Mhz setting. You may find your card will be stable with lower voltage. My GPU is much more stable now at 0.974V (see screen capture from RBE 1.28 (Radeon Bios Editor from here at TPU downloads).

Click to expand...

I've been toying with the idea of editing the bios for a higher overdrive threshold so that I wouldn't need to rely on MSI Afterburner. Is it relatively safe? I haven't tried because I don't have a spare card.

RBE - Radeon Bios Editor is hosted here at TPU:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/Utilities/RBE/

I have used it at least 30 times with my card, and I have no problems.
You must copy the original bios to RBE and save a backup version.
Then use a bootable floppy with atiflash.exe to flash your bios from DOS boot.

I use ATIFLASH 3.59 because it is small enough to fit a floppy and will recognize the HIS card with no problem.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1061/ATIFlash 3.59.html

The DOS command to backup your bios is (saves to file backup.bin ):

atiflash -s 1 backup.bin

The DOS command to program your bios with your new bios file name "faster.bin"

atiflash -p 1 faster.bin

Tmax is at 106C in the bios No wonder the fan never goes beyond 56%.

Sorry for not getting back to you.

I did some further testing and I've set my desired clocks at 824/1242. At 1251 I got some minor artifacts from time to time so I dialed it back to 1242.

This looks OK?

WOW, so your 823/1242 - a very fast combination.

I see you are running low voltage 1.094V.

So you are stable with these settings?

Did you run FURMARK for more than one hour? Is your room warm above 20°C??

You must make sure you can be stable during the summer heat!

Great Job!

jtleon said:

WOW, so your 823/1242 - a very fast combination.

I see you are running low voltage 1.094V.

So you are stable with these settings?

Did you run FURMARK for more than one hour? Is your room warm above 20°C??

You must make sure you can be stable during the summer heat!

Great Job!

Click to expand...

Testing with Furmark ATM

EDIT: http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/furmark_192_score.php?id=30884

Do you think I should try lower voltages? Maybe 1.054v? I might lower the RAM clocks a notch more just in case.

I think that you could take the RAM to 1100 at least, that's the lowest I've seen these get to.

Going to run Furmark for an hour


EDIT 2: benchies

Cinebench OpenGL 37.95



SF4 11806



FF XIV 2208


The Last Remnant 79.90



Lost Planet 2 35.8



STALKER



more benchies tonight... I have a QX6700 coming in soon, so I might be able to get higher scores if it holds with the x12 multi (3.2Ghz)

That looks very stable now!

You have a great HD3850 - let me know one day if you want to sell it!

I would just wait until summer to see if you have crashes - it might be OK - If there is a problem you can reduce the voltage again.

Enjoy!
jtleon

Just a question, if I leave "Clock info 00" at stock (669/829 1.214v), would the card boot fine, regardless of the modded voltages in the rest of the settings?

I think I'll shoot for 0.974v but I fear that the card wouldn't even boot if I put it at that. The clock info 01-09 are only active in Windows, right?

Clock Info 00 is only for boot up and DOS operation. Never used in Windows.

I set mine for 540Mhz/829Mhz/0.974V with no problems. You might try this too.

If you can run 823Mhz @ 0.974V, then you have a majical HD3850! Good Luck!

If I understood correctly:

- clock info 00 = 669/829 1.214v
- clock info 01-09 = 824/1242 0.974v

Even if 01-09 is unstable in Windows, during boot up 00 should work fine, right? So I should be able to flash it back without problems, shouldn't I?

Yes that is correct!

TRWOV said:

Testing with Furmark ATM

EDIT: http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/furmark_192_score.php?id=30884

Do you think I should try lower voltages? Maybe 1.054v? I might lower the RAM clocks a notch more just in case.

I think that you could take the RAM to 1100 at least, that's the lowest I've seen these get to.

Going to run Furmark for an hour


EDIT 2: benchies

Cinebench OpenGL 37.95
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6213/cinebenchh.png


SF4 11806
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/7317/sf4k.png


FF XIV 2208
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/3143/ff14i.png

The Last Remnant 79.90
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/1565/tlr.png


Lost Planet 2 35.8
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/6790/lp2a.png


STALKER
http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/6125/stalkerpt.png


more benchies tonight... I have a QX6700 coming in soon, so I might be able to get higher scores if it holds with the x12 multi (3.2Ghz)

Click to expand...

OMG OMG THIS IS AN HD3850 just like my ! and look wat this baby can doo! men give me 5! hehe and this gra card can take more than some of a new card's with bus PCI-E so let the AGP live a bit more

well my sister's rig, it was mine previouslly:

Ic7-Max3
P4 3.2E SL7E5 (can easly do 4.0GHz)
2Gb of Patriot XblK (samsung Tccd chips)
Sapphire HD3850

Ah, everything is watercooled

I might just give it a try and see how it performs!

only got 5.6K on default settings 3Dmark 06....
I guess the cpu is killing it

Success

824/1233 0.974v



I think it can do 850. I'll run some benchmarks and see.


EDIT: No luck. At anything over 824 the GPU locks up after few seconds of 3D load. The low voltage seems to have affected the memory as I got some artifacts at 1242 and 1233 so I had to reduce the RAM speed to 1215. Ran a few benchmarks and there's no artifacts present so final settings are 824/1215 0.974v.

TRWOV said:

Success

EDIT: No luck. At anything over 824 the GPU locks up after few seconds of 3D load. The low voltage seems to have affected the memory as I got some artifacts at 1242 and 1233 so I had to reduce the RAM speed to 1215. Ran a few benchmarks and there's no artifacts present so final settings are 824/1215 0.974v.

Click to expand...

Very Excellent - Remember if you upgrade and want to sell - let me know! Your card should have no problems in the summer!
jtleon

Now consider if you want to go faster, you must improve your cooling. I have upgraded my cooling so now you see my maximum is around 60° C (per Furmark below). But my card is not so good as yours - you may reach 900Mhz if you have better cooling. I have attached a picture of my new cooler - its from ZEROtherm - but I have changed the fan.

http://www.zerotherm.net/eng/product/GX815.asp

I have reached 837.5 stable so far - but not with the HIS card.
Now I am running a Sapphire HD3850agp and stable at 837.5/1033 GPU/MEM.
The voltage is set at 1.254. This card seems to have more speed available, so I will try a faster clock and report.

Is that so? Now I wish I hadn't sold my old Sapphire 3850 AGP

I'm thinking about installing a better cooler on my HIS, this one specifically: http://www.gelidsolutions.com/products/index.php?lid=1&cid=17&id=52

but I don't know if the mounting holes match the HIS card. I hate when the specs say "Compatible with X, Y, Z" instead of listing the distance between the mounting holes

I've measured and apparently the HIS has 73mm spacing. I'm waiting to receive a reply from the manufacturer about the mounting hole spacing.

The hole spacing is 53mm square pattern. 73mm may be the diagonal distance - I never measured. I know 53 is correct, as I have installed many custom heatsinks drilled at 53mm.

You have the greatest card - you have the best performance at the lowest power!

Be VERY careful with your card - it is "one-of-a-kind" ! I want to buy it when you upgrade.

That GELID cooler looks very powerful if it will fit!
jtleon

TRWOV said:

I've measured and apparently the HIS has 73mm spacing. I'm waiting to receive a reply from the manufacturer about the mounting hole spacing.

Click to expand...

Yes, 73mm is the diagonal distance. Apparently there wouldn't be any clearance issues, the heatsink sits about 10mm above components. What I like is that it isn't any taller than the card, my case has about 1.5cm of clearance above the cards due to the side fan.

jtleon said:

That GELID cooler looks very powerful if it will fit!

Click to expand...

Yes, and the blue fans will match the board

I haven't heard back from Gelid but I finally found a review that states the mounting spacing and it also has a diagram:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/gelid-icy-vision_2.html

I've made some preliminary measurements and it seems that it should fit the card nicely. The only thing I don't like a lot is that the fans are 2000RPM. In my experience, for 92mm a quiet fan must be around 1400RPM. I'll look into voltmodding them.



Got the QX6700 New benchmarks with QX6700 @ 3.24Ghz (270FSBx12) and HD3850 @824/1215/0.974v


3dmark06 12418 http://3dmark.com/3dm06/16460120

3dmark05 17327 http://3dmark.com/3dm05/5435472

3dmark03 37660 http://3dmark.com/3dm03/6459461

This was with a Q6700 2.66Ghz and 3850 @ 810/1251/1.254v
3dmark Vantage P5206 http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3796394

Is it's just me or Vantage is REALLY crash happy? I've seen the whole benchmark run ONCE. That result above was obtained after 5 crashes with my previous setup. I don't know how much the score scales with CPU speed but I'd guess my present config would get about 50 extra points because of the increased CPU speed (+600Mhz)



UNIGINE Tropics benchmark (DX10)


The Last Remnant


Final Fantasy XIV


Resident Evil 5 Play Test DX10


Resident Evil 5 Fixed Test DX10


Street Fighter 4


Lost Planet 2 Test A DX9


Lost Planet 2 Test B DX9


Monster Hunter Frontier Bench 3


Monster Hunter Frontier Bench 2


Monster Hunter Frontier Bench 1


World in Conflict Very High 1440x900

Nice. Best AGP system. 10/10