Powercolor AX6870X2 @ Newegg for $450

[CanaryInTheMine]

Any luck? Also as a side question to anyone does a 6870 reference card perform better then 300 megahash?

Nope...

contacted Powercolor, this was their reply:
"This is restricted by AMD, we can not make memory speed run too low.
        Maybe you can try MSI Afterburner to see if it can do this."

followed up regarding MSI AB, pointing out that that's not an issue.  restated the lowering memory limitation by 100 only... waiting for another response.

also contacted AMD, haven't heard back from them yet.

Really was hoping someone here would be interested in working together on this, but maybe there aren't too many 6870s in use by miners.

[Zoomer]

It's probably a hardware timing limitation.

[CanaryInTheMine]

It's probably a hardware timing limitation.

i'm not sure.  it has been mentioned that if you flash the bios and you run under linux, the settings work. 
under windows the drivers can not load and cause a reboot loop or the always friendly bsod.

it would be great if we could have this confirmed or dispelled.

if it's true under linux, i'd switch for temp and power savings.  otherwise i wouldn't bother.

[mike678]

Found a the same card for 25 bucks cheaper at ncixus (http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=62694&vpn=AX6870X2%202GBD5-2DHG&manufacture=PowerColor&promoid=1365)

Not a great card but if your going for megahash per server this is almost in par with 6990's and 5970's and it beats them in megahash/$

[Pipesnake]

Found a the same card for 25 bucks cheaper at ncixus (http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=62694&vpn=AX6870X2%202GBD5-2DHG&manufacture=PowerColor&promoid=1365)

Any experience with that merchant?

[CanaryInTheMine]

Found a the same card for 25 bucks cheaper at ncixus (http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=62694&vpn=AX6870X2%202GBD5-2DHG&manufacture=PowerColor&promoid=1365)

Not a great card but if your going for megahash per server this is almost in par with 6990's and 5970's and it beats them in megahash/$

not a bad price, but with ncixus there will be a shipping charge...

so, far this card is not on par with 6990 or 5970s on Mhashes alone, but on price that's a different story...

[CanaryInTheMine]

Found a the same card for 25 bucks cheaper at ncixus (http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=62694&vpn=AX6870X2%202GBD5-2DHG&manufacture=PowerColor&promoid=1365)

Any experience with that merchant?

yes, they are fine.  ordered a bunch of 5850s from them a while back. got them OK, took some time.

[mike678]

yes, they are fine.  ordered a bunch of 5850s from them a while back. got them OK, took some time.

Yea I got 5 5850's from them as well. Took them a couple days to finally ship out the product but otherwise I had no problems with them.

[Pipesnake]

How's the noise level compared to a 5970?

[CanaryInTheMine]

How's the noise level compared to a 5970?

couldn't tell you... don't have a 5970. but i suspect it's lower. because youcan down-cklock memory on 5970, thus attaining lower temps whenre the fan can be set to lower setting.  this particular ax6870x2 won't let you reduce memory by much, so it does run hotter and thus louder.  i have to keep fan at 80% .  However, 6990 is obviously louder than all of these...
for me though, noise isn't an issue... all miners are locked in a computer room... so i don't hear them.

[CanaryInTheMine]

Yikes!!

I've been keeping an eye on this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131383R

it was pricey... I last checked a few hours ago and it was still over 200 dollars...

just checked now and wow! someone snatched it for 127... nice deal...

[mike678]

Yikes!!

I've been keeping an eye on this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131383R

it was pricey... I last checked a few hours ago and it was still over 200 dollars...

just checked now and wow! someone snatched it for 127... nice deal...

I saw that sitting there for awhile at 200. 127 is a wicked good deal that's like getting a 5830.

[st4rdust]

Saw that deal as well. Not sure why they had it listed at $200 for so long, obviously nobody would pay that much for a 6870 single GPU card which is why it sat there for weeks. Looks like they wised up and somebody got a great buy.

[kirax]

TO clarify the people asking about flashing 6870's bios and linux: it works fine. All 11 of my 6870's (Stupid hard to get 5830's here in soviet canukistan) are bios flashed and chomp along fine in linux, to increase the volts and fan curve and max OC. I did most of this before the new catalyst came out, letting you OC past bios limits.

So, the problem with the bios flash (at least for single 6870's, so I assume the 6870X2), is very much the windows driver, not the flash itself.

Side note, I have never dealt with NCIX US, but the canadian side I have a few times, and they are legit. No problems with hardware to know how good they are about RMA, though.

[CanaryInTheMine]

TO clarify the people asking about flashing 6870's bios and linux: it works fine. All 11 of my 6870's (Stupid hard to get 5830's here in soviet canukistan) are bios flashed and chomp along fine in linux, to increase the volts and fan curve and max OC. I did most of this before the new catalyst came out, letting you OC past bios limits.

So, the problem with the bios flash (at least for single 6870's, so I assume the 6870X2), is very much the windows driver, not the flash itself.

Side note, I have never dealt with NCIX US, but the canadian side I have a few times, and they are legit. No problems with hardware to know how good they are about RMA, though.

Thanks for the info!  I might be forced into linux after all...

[CanaryInTheMine]

After leaving an appropriate review on newegg.com for this product  (you can see it, review by Canary), the manufacturer responded and offered to help.

Hugo had 2 questions for me.  1st is whether the card crashes. obviously no.

second (regarding lowering memory speed):

PowerColor: "Why would you want to do that?"

So, I emailed Mr. Hugo my previous correspondence with PowerColor and answered his questions.  Let's see if he can help.

But that's not the point.

The point here is that for all you who sometimes think that bitcoin mining is somehow "showing up" on the radar of Radeon manufacturers or that bitcoin mining is making the video card sales go though the roof:

sorry, they have no clue...  we don't exist.

[haploid23]

The point here is that for all you who sometimes think that bitcoin mining is somehow "showing up" on the radar of Radeon manufacturers or that bitcoin mining is making the video card sales go though the roof:

sorry, they have no clue...  we don't exist.

first of all, manufacturers don't make the video cards to tailor it to miners. second, there's no association of mining and memory underclocking. yes, a lot of people on this forum know that you're suppose to underclock the memory to save power and lower temps, but it's not automatic knowledge that you're suppose to do that, and people that barely heard of mining wouldn't even think about doing something like this. and third, you're not suppose to change any of the stock specs that shipped with the video card. this is something that's considered voiding your warranty. at least if you're going to do that, don't let manufacturers know. of course, they do know that a lot of people overclock their cards, but just don't openly admit to it.

[CanaryInTheMine]

The point here is that for all you who sometimes think that bitcoin mining is somehow "showing up" on the radar of Radeon manufacturers or that bitcoin mining is making the video card sales go though the roof:

sorry, they have no clue...  we don't exist.

first of all, manufacturers don't make the video cards to tailor it to miners. second, there's no association of mining and memory underclocking. yes, a lot of people on this forum know that you're suppose to underclock the memory to save power and lower temps, but it's not automatic knowledge that you're suppose to do that, and people that barely heard of mining wouldn't even think about doing something like this. and third, you're not suppose to change any of the stock specs that shipped with the video card. this is something that's considered voiding your warranty. at least if you're going to do that, don't let manufacturers know. of course, they do know that a lot of people overclock their cards, but just don't openly admit to it.

not sure what your tangent is...

my comment is related to many posts that discuss economics of bitcoin mining and how they effect video card sales.  some posters say that mining is creating a noticeable increase in video card sales.  it's been discussed and shown that's not he case.

me posting the question from the manufacturer pokes fun at those discussions to show that yes, the manufacturers do not notice bitcoin mining.

[st4rdust]

Whether or not the manufacturers know we exist is irrelevant. They are not the middleman taking part in the price gouging of radeon cards, or at least those cards which are desirable to us miners. A

As they say, laissez faire.

[CanaryInTheMine]

Addressed to me, from PowerColor tech support:

"I did a  bit of research and was able to confirm what XXXXX mentioned earlier (see my prior quote from powercolor tech support). They don't allow this because it'll compromise the card's performance too much. In your situation it's practically irrelevant because you don't need bandwidth, all you need is GPU power, but unfortunately it's not something that can be done.
 
In my experience with other cards, lowering (or increasing for that matter) memory clocks has a very small effect on overall card temperatures. That's the main premise behind the popular internet argument that memory module coolers are useless and do nothing to improve overclocking capabilities. So I apologize that you're not able to lower the memory clock speeds, but even if you could there would be no reason to expect any kind of drastic drop in temperature.
 
Let me know if you have any other questions."