PowerColor HD 4870 PCS Faces a BIOS Glitch

[btarunr]

When pictures of the PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 PCS (Professional Cooling System) first hit the internet, it caught the attention of many for having a very upscale hardware feature set. It comes with a 6-phase power circuit, it is based on the SuperRV770 design methodology, comes with a cooler made by ZeroTherm that looks promising. As expected the card comes with overclocked GPU and memory parameters.

Expreview decided to give one of these cards a go before they hit the markets. They spent a day extensively testing it and found a glitch with the BIOS with which the card's stability at those parameters is marred. The BIOS has a very low fan-speed limit (the maximum speed to which the fan can be adjusted by the user). This results in a very hot GPU and instability during prolonged operation. To give you an idea, the card was able to clear the 3DMark Vantage benchmark but simply gave up on them when running the FurMark benchmark, it failed to clear the tests. Nonetheless, this product gained a very positive opinion, hopefully with this glitch cleared by PowerColor, the card could prove to be promising.



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[newtekie1]

I would think this would be something that would be caught very early, especially with the insanely hot RV770 core.

 

[chron]

Testing a card like this should involve testing it in a higher-than-normal ambient temperature but aparently not. At least it isnt something important like memory timings.

 

[Megasty]

If anything, I would think they would have a bios glitch with the fan spinning too fast Low fan speeds will just kill this thing. The regular gpu gets hot enough. If I was to get one of these I would want to feel the air of the fan not the heat of the gpu RV770s & low fan speeds just don't mix. They better up it now & save themselves a lot of blown cards in the future.

 

[Zehnsucht]

Furmark and 4870's are more or less a common problem???
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=66763&

 

[oli_ramsay]

I thought these so called super R770's were supposed to be clocked at 1GHz! Not a measely 50MHz more than stock.

 

[Nkd]

Pretty Bull, it is pathetic and sad at the same time, that these companies cant really figure out that they need to turn the fan up, we are talking about 800 shader processors, not 320,and not to mention that the memory has to have airflow too, I am sure that fan is quiet on more than average speed, but for companies to just through the product out there before testing it is pretty sad, and ati seriously need to set the fan speed to 38% under load, the fan is pretty quiet up to that speed and makes one hell of a difference in temps. as far as this cooler goes they need to really test the product before putting it out there, just because it has four heatpipes does not mean it can run passive, lol.

 

[KainXS]

yeah I have to agree, I remember on some of the 3850 and 3870's some companies did not cool the voltage circuitry and from what I've heard, those cards overclock terribly

 

[Scrizz]

good thing they haven't hit the market yet

 

[Deleted member 24505]

48xx cards really do need after market cooling.

 

[PCpraiser100]

I'm glad of that too, as that would be embarrassing for OC'ers competing for fun on their new toys.

 

[captainskyhawk]

Aye, just like the 8800GT's -- damn good card, but crappy stock cooling.

 

[eidairaman1]

better to have preliminary tests before the unit is released, the cooler looks nice but i guess the bios needs a update.

 

[btarunr]

I thought these so called super R770's were supposed to be clocked at 1GHz! Not a measely 50MHz more than stock.

But allows you to take the core to < insert wonderful number > MHz/GHz

 

[gerrynicol]

It's already here! Link
about £10 dearer than normal card.

Was thinking of picking one up, don't think I'll bother now

 

[WarEagleAU]

Nice idea and card, bad bios deal. I just want a product that works pretty much from the get go.