HD 5970 Clusterfrak

[STE\/E]

I've been running 2 5970s for almost 2 years. I set the Vcore voltage at 1.13V and they are perfectly stable and content at 850 MHz on either Moo or MW. You can clock higher on Collatz of course.

The last time I sent one of them in for a failed fan they returned a 6990 ... no comparison between the 2 cards. They learned a lot from from the 5970 and corrected the heat problems on the 6990! One of the GPUs in the 6990 running at 880 MHz outperforms a 5870 clocked at 950.

Yeah it's gotta be the User, what would any of us know about Video Cards ...

EDIT: For the Record the closer I get to 850 with the 1 Card the slower it run's, 800 seems to be about the max time reduction for it & anything over that just adds time to the Wu's. Not over heating that I can see & have tried up to 1.75 Volts with the card but only running 1.25 right now @ 850 & the card is 4-5 mins slower than the other Card running @ 850 & 1.0 Volts ... Both Box's have the same Motherboard, CPU & the same amount & Type of Memory, PSU's are the same too ...

[Bryan]

Yeah it's gotta be the User, what would any of us know about Video Cards ...

Steve, I wasn't making a comment on your knowledge of GPUs, I was stating what my experience has been with 5970s. If the card won't get to 850 then there is a problem somewhere ... either the card is defective -or- possibly you need to run the benchmark on that machine and see if it shows "core 0' as the fastest since that is what the automatic selection is choosing for that machine. I had 2 identical machines (dual Xeon servers) that I started running my 5970s in. On 1 machine Moo was fastest on Core 0 and on the other machine it liked Core 3. They both produced the same credits but required a different "core" setting.

My experience with 5970s involves 6 cards. The original 2 failed and were replaced, which eventually failed and were replaced, which eventually failed! The last time XFX replaced 1 with a 6990. I haven't sent in the other 5970 yet but it has also failed. All failures have either been the fan crapping out or GPU 0 throwing artifacts and slowing down where even clocking at 700 wasn't reliable.

On heating ... whatever engineer did the vapor chamber design on the refernce design cost AMD and the vendors BIG bucks. The VRMs for GPU0 are NOT under the vapor chamber and run extremely hot. Those are what limits the OC ability of the card. The temperatures that need to be monitored (GPU-Z) are not the "GPU" temp but the bottom 4 that are shown down at the bottom which are the VRM temps. On GPU 0, the card may be report the GPU temp as 75C but the VRM on GPU 0 may be pushing well over 100C. At 120C the card goes into a self protection mode and starts slowing down the clock.

If the GPU 0 graphics chip starts crapping out you will usually see it in the current being drawn (GPU-Z). Running Moo/MW at 850-900 MHz the chip should draw around 65A but if the chip is having trouble then you will see currents in the 90-95A range. A standard 5870 also draws around 65A when running at 900 MHz.

BTW, the 5970 is NOT two 5850 chips even though they state it is like a dual 5850. According to an AMD interview when the card 1st came out it was designed to be a dual 5870 and it uses the same chips. The problem according to AMD was that when clocked to 5870 levels it exceeded the power specs for a single PCIe slot. It exceeded BOTH the total power spec (300W) and the power required from the MB (75W). That is why the refernce design came out with something like 1.0V on the Vcore ... that limited the power draw to keep it within the PCIe specification. Prior to introduction AMD put out a program (that got pulled before introduction) that allowed the user to raise the Vcore and memory voltages above the stock level. Most vendor did suppy that utility with their cards ... XFX called their version of the program Overvolt.

The bottom line is with the experience I've had with my 5970s I had decided that I would NEVER purchase another dual card. With what I've seen with the 6990 it would be stupid to not purchase another. They have totally fixed the problems that I saw in my XFX 5970s.

[STE\/E]

Well I sold 2 of the 5970's a few days ago & a 470 yesterday & a 570 today for a total of $1400 v the $1200 for the 4 5970's I ordered so I've more than made up for the 2 5970's I've kept with about $150 spare change to boot after Shipping charges ...

[Mike029]

Well I sold 2 of the 5970's a few days ago & a 470 yesterday & a 570 today for a total of $1400 v the $1200 for the 4 5970's I ordered so I've more than made up for the 2 5970's I've kept with about $150 spare change to boot after Shipping charges ...

Great job. I can see some upgrades in you future.

[STE\/E]

Great job. I can see some upgrades in you future.

Well not for awhile anyway, maybe some 1'st or 2'nd Quarter next year. Still totally confused what I want to continue to do in/with BOINC ...

[DrPop]

Well not for awhile anyway, maybe some 1'st or 2'nd Quarter next year. Still totally confused what I want to continue to do in/with BOINC ...

Uh...ermmm...ahh...there's going to be an admin position on a team called SETI.USA in March that yours truly will be stepping down from... hint...nudge...wink.

[STE\/E]

I had 4 GTX 460 Sparkle Calibre's with those types of fans, cooled real good until they either quit running or a fan blade broke off ... ... But they replaced them with 3 GTX 470's & a GTX 480 so I can't complain ...

[Fire$torm]

I know a guy who bought one of the those fan coolers for his 5970 and he loved it. That is until he added a 2nd high end card to the case and things started getting pretty warm. That cooler doesn't vent out of the back, it dumps all the heat from the 5970 into the case. He went back to stock cooling on the 5970.

Your results may vary

Yeah, for that Arctic Cooler you need a case with very good air flow. One with ample exhaust to match the air being pulled into the case. Which has been a real challenge for the majority of cases out there.

[STE\/E]

I think the CCC only allows you to go so low, not near as low as the MSI Afterburner lets you go ...

[Philadelphia]

I think the CCC only allows you to go so low, not near as low as the MSI Afterburner lets you go ...

That is the case on mine, it has 100 on the far left side, but when I slide the adjustment tab, it only goes to 1,000 so I guess that will have to do.