Mining with 5850, boost performance?

[rezin777]

I have a XFX 5850 and it will only go to 775MHz core. Looks like I would have to reflash BIOS. Was hoping I wouldn't have to. If I flash the 5870 BIOS to my card are there any benefits other than giving me a higher clock setting? Like say if I wanted to use the card for gaming or something a few months from now. Would it effect it's performance at all?

Take care to make sure the BIOS you are flashing is compatible with your card. Many XFX are not reference boards and have different voltage regulators on the board.

It might be safer to use RBE to get the BIOS from your card and edit the overclocking limits yourself, then flash the edited BIOS back onto the card.

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[djex]

I have a XFX 5850 and it will only go to 775MHz core. Looks like I would have to reflash BIOS. Was hoping I wouldn't have to. If I flash the 5870 BIOS to my card are there any benefits other than giving me a higher clock setting? Like say if I wanted to use the card for gaming or something a few months from now. Would it effect it's performance at all?

Take care to make sure the BIOS you are flashing is compatible with your card. Many XFX are not reference boards and have different voltage regulators on the board.

It might be safer to use RBE to get the BIOS from your card and edit the overclocking limits yourself, then flash the edited BIOS back onto the card.

Yeah did some searching looks like I don't have a reference model.... sigh. Oh well I am able to overclock in Windows with MSI Afterbuner (unlocked) to 900MHz core 1000MHz memory, I wish there was a way to do it in Ubuntu though. I get about ~299Mhash/s with it at those clocks in Windows using the -f 1 in poclbm. I assume if I were to use Ubuntu I could get 310Mhash/s or more.

[grndzero]

I have a XFX 5850 and it will only go to 775MHz core. Looks like I would have to reflash BIOS. Was hoping I wouldn't have to. If I flash the 5870 BIOS to my card are there any benefits other than giving me a higher clock setting? Like say if I wanted to use the card for gaming or something a few months from now. Would it effect it's performance at all?

Take care to make sure the BIOS you are flashing is compatible with your card. Many XFX are not reference boards and have different voltage regulators on the board.

It might be safer to use RBE to get the BIOS from your card and edit the overclocking limits yourself, then flash the edited BIOS back onto the card.

Yeah did some searching looks like I don't have a reference model.... sigh. Oh well I am able to overclock in Windows with MSI Afterbuner (unlocked) to 900MHz core 1000MHz memory, I wish there was a way to do it in Ubuntu though. I get about ~299Mhash/s with it at those clocks in Windows using the -f 1 in poclbm. I assume if I were to use Ubuntu I could get 310Mhash/s or more.

It doesn't have to be a Reference card specifically. There are all kinds of BIOS mods: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/index.php?page=1&architecture=ATI&manufacturer=&model=HD+5870&interface=PCI-E&memSize=1024

My performance scaled pretty linearly. I get ~317 at 900, ~300Mh/s at 875, ~275 at 850, and ~250 at 825. I'm using -f 0 -v -w 128.

I'm not worried about the power tweaking too much.. I set mine up, got it working, and it's sitting in the corner doing it's thing. I hardly connect to it, just watch my balance on the pool site. I shut down a lot of unneeded services and can administer it and stop/restart any processes I need to from a remote connection.

[NiLO]

It doesn't have to be a Reference card specifically. There are all kinds of BIOS mods: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/index.php?page=1&architecture=ATI&manufacturer=&model=HD+5870&interface=PCI-E&memSize=1024

My performance scaled pretty linearly. I get ~317 at 900, ~300Mh/s at 875, ~275 at 850, and ~250 at 825. I'm using -f 0 -v -w 128.

I'm not worried about the power tweaking too much.. I set mine up, got it working, and it's sitting in the corner doing it's thing. I hardly connect to it, just watch my balance on the pool site. I shut down a lot of unneeded services and can administer it and stop/restart any processes I need to from a remote connection.

Using the standard voltage as much as I can is 820 MHz and 250 Mh / s with the temperature at 70 ° C
What voltage do you use on 900 mhz? And what temperature is it?

[djex]

Using the standard voltage as much as I can is 820 MHz and 250 Mh / s with the temperature at 70 ° C
What voltage do you use on 900 mhz? And what temperature is it?

What are you running on? I can get 250Mh/s with a core clock of 765MHz on my 5850 with a steady voltage. You should be able to get ~270Mh/s with a clock of 820MHz.

[NiLO]

Using the standard voltage as much as I can is 820 MHz and 250 Mh / s with the temperature at 70 ° C
What voltage do you use on 900 mhz? And what temperature is it?

What are you running on? I can get 250Mh/s with a core clock of 765MHz on my 5850 with a steady voltage. You should be able to get ~270Mh/s with a clock of 820MHz.

Well I'm using:
Windows 7 x64
2.3 SDK
11.3 ATI drivers
poclbm -w 128 -a 1 -f 120

[grndzero]

Using the standard voltage as much as I can is 820 MHz and 250 Mh / s with the temperature at 70 ° C
What voltage do you use on 900 mhz? And what temperature is it?

Not sure since I didn't tweak the BIOS myself. The one I'm on says VID1, but I think it's 1.163v.

My temps are around 70 C with the fans at 70% and the case open.

[NiLO]

Using the standard voltage as much as I can is 820 MHz and 250 Mh / s with the temperature at 70 ° C
What voltage do you use on 900 mhz? And what temperature is it?

What are you running on? I can get 250Mh/s with a core clock of 765MHz on my 5850 with a steady voltage. You should be able to get ~270Mh/s with a clock of 820MHz.

ooh now I saw what was wrong, was missing the tag -v
its 267 Mh/s here

Using the standard voltage as much as I can is 820 MHz and 250 Mh / s with the temperature at 70 ° C
What voltage do you use on 900 mhz? And what temperature is it?

Not sure since I didn't tweak the BIOS myself. The one I'm on says VID1, but I think it's 1.163v.

My temps are around 70 C with the fans at 70% and the case open.

I tested this voltage and it worked, but the fan is almost 80% and 74°C too noisy and hot

[grndzero]

I tested this voltage and it worked, but the fan is almost 80% and 74°C too noisy and hot

YMMV. My cooler runs most of the day, so ambient air temperature probably helps a bit.

74 C is not that bad. Everything I read before starting said that 80 C was the boundary that most of the serious gamers didn't want to cross. Obviously cooler is better in the long run when running 24/7 but supposedly the internal cutoff of these cards is in the 110-120 C range.

[NiLO]

I tested this voltage and it worked, but the fan is almost 80% and 74°C too noisy and hot

YMMV. My cooler runs most of the day, so ambient air temperature probably helps a bit.

74 C is not that bad. Everything I read before starting said that 80 C was the boundary that most of the serious gamers didn't want to cross. Obviously cooler is better in the long run when running 24/7 but supposedly the internal cutoff of these cards is in the 110-120 C range.

Hum understood. Exactly, in my case I am using almost 24/7 so low temperatures are important

[djex]

Well I'm using:
Windows 7 x64
2.3 SDK
11.3 ATI drivers
poclbm -w 128 -a 1 -f 120

Why not SDK 2.1? Unless I don't know something about SDK 2.3 , SDK 2.1 is suppose to be recommended for optimal hash rate. Also if you just use the computer for mining why not use -f 0?