5870 Users! Clock Speed, Memory, Voltage, SDK and CCC Version, Flags, etc.

[Clavulanic]

Just looking for some discussion on optimizing the 5870 and pushing it to its limit. I'll try and update my first post with really useful information for those running 5870's as well. Also looking for advice on mine.

My setup is is two 5870's. I'm using MSI Afterburner to configure both of my cards independently. To adjust voltages and lower memory speeds really low you have to edit the MSIafterburner.cfg file like so

Change "UnlockVoltageControl      = 1"
and
[ATIADLHAL]
EnableUnofficialOverclocking   = 1
UnofficialOverclockingEULA   = I confirm that I am aware of unofficial overclocking limitations and fully understand that MSI will not provide me any support on it
UnofficialOverclockingMode   = 2
AccessibilityCheckingPeriod   = 0

I have one at 980MHz core 180MHz memory and 1.2v and another at 960MHz core 180MHz memory and 1.2v core. Temps stay bellow 80 depending on how much I crank up the fan.
My .bat file to start the latest phoenix miner using slush's pool looks like this.

start /DC:\Bitcoin\phoenix phoenix -v -u http://xxxxxxxxxxxxx@mining.bitcoin.cz:8332/;askrate=10 -k poclbm device=0 WORKSIZE=128 VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=7 FASTLOOP 

I'm using CCC 11.4 and SDK 2.4.
Each card pulls ~400Mhash/s at these settings in windows 7. I have a Core i7 at 3.8GHz and 6GB DDR3 RAM.

What works best for you guys? Mine clearly isn't ideal and I need to adjust it, I'd also like some input on that..
I've heard using -f 1 or -f 0 can increase your output quite a bit, how's that work for everyone?
What voltages are people running at? I had a hard time getting this stable and went up to 1.2v, but I see people with a lot less. I can't even get my aggression above 7 atm, above that it is likely to crash. I've heard SDK 2.1 is the best, but how does it compare to 2.4? I removed 2.4 and installed 2.1 and my client wouldn't pick up both my cards. Does anyone use their crossfire bridge while mining? I did a short test and couldn't find a difference in productivity, and it's easier for me since this is my gaming system as well.
If anyone needs dummy plugs here's the guide to make them http://www.overclock.net/folding-home-guides-tutorials/384733-30-second-dummy-plug.html.

[EgoPaintedGrey]

Try this, set your mem clock to 300 and on the bat file remove fastloop and add aggression=13. With sdk 2.4 and 980/300 i´m getting 415Mhash/s.

[Clavulanic]

Try this, set your mem clock to 300 and on the bat file remove fastloop and add aggression=13. With sdk 2.4 and 980/300 i´m getting 415Mhash/s.

When I tested memory clocks 180MHz-185MHz had the highest increase in speed for me. I do need to adjust core clocks so I'll likely end up adjusting memory clocks as well.
The problem is I can't get aggression=13 to run without crashing yet, even with my relatively high vcore. As soon as finals are over I'm going to try and optimize this as much as possible, and that's why I'm looking for some info from the experienced people around here.

Have you tried SDK 2.1 at all? Nice speeds their, beating me by ~15 at the same core clock.

[EgoPaintedGrey]

If I increase or decrease mem clock performance decrease, I don´t remember trying 185 will try. The one time I tried to install sdk 2.1 opencl didn´t work.

[Clavulanic]

If I increase or decrease mem clock performance decrease, I don´t remember trying 185 will try. The one time I tried to install sdk 2.1 opencl didn´t work.

Yeah, I believe your ideal mem clock depends on what your core clock is at.

And I had the same issue with sdk 2.1. I need to look into that more (can't wait for finals to be done).

[d3c0n808]

Just for a comparison I run 2 5870s at stock voltage 990 core, 800 mem.  Its a gigabyte and if i run it below an 800 mem clock it tends to wig out, or crash.   Currently im running  Slackware 13.37 stream 2.1 sdk, 11.4 catalyst and am averaging about 420 mhash/gpu.   none of the 5870s are connected to a monitor currently I use onboard gpu for my graphics, and it seems to work much better without tieing down one of the cards to the gui. 

[Clavulanic]

Just for a comparison I run 2 5870s at stock voltage 990 core, 800 mem.  Its a gigabyte and if i run it below an 800 mem clock it tends to wig out, or crash.   Currently im running  Slackware 13.37 stream 2.1 sdk, 11.4 catalyst and am averaging about 420 mhash/gpu.   none of the 5870s are connected to a monitor currently I use onboard gpu for my graphics, and it seems to work much better without tieing down one of the cards to the gui. 

That's pretty darn good. Perhaps I rushed my overclock too much (that's what school does to you : /), seeing as how you got their on stock voltage. And using onboard graphics is a great idea, I wish my mobo had that as well or I would have already tried it!

[d3c0n808]

Just for a comparison I run 2 5870s at stock voltage 990 core, 800 mem.  Its a gigabyte and if i run it below an 800 mem clock it tends to wig out, or crash.   Currently im running  Slackware 13.37 stream 2.1 sdk, 11.4 catalyst and am averaging about 420 mhash/gpu.   none of the 5870s are connected to a monitor currently I use onboard gpu for my graphics, and it seems to work much better without tieing down one of the cards to the gui. 

That's pretty darn good. Perhaps I rushed my overclock too much (that's what school does to you : /), seeing as how you got their on stock voltage. And using onboard graphics is a great idea, I wish my mobo had that as well or I would have already tried it!

Yes switching the onboard graphics has really helped my mhash performance.   Ive also speculated that instead of onboard perhaps a small pci hd3000 series or something would also suffice since they are both ati you shouldnt have much trouble with the drivers.   The only thing with windows i believe you will have to have dummy plugs for the adpters or the catalyst won't let you use them or configure them and im not sure what the performance would be with a dummy card as well.

[smgoller]

I'm running 2x5870 @stock voltage, 1Ghz core/ 300Mhz mem. I'm getting about 440Mh/s per card. Catalyst 11.3/Stream SDK 2.1/Ubuntu 10.10.

[tiberiandusk]

I'm running my 5870 @ 950mhz core and 180mhz memory with stock voltages. I'm getting about 400 Mhash/s. I would push my OC higher but it has been really warm here the last few days and it has been running a little hotter than I like.

[timmmay]

I'm running 4 x 990/610, stock voltage, fans 100%, Catalyst 11.5 SDK 2.4, poclbm -v -w128 and pushing 410-420MH/s
Temps around 60C on all cards (all are in separate PC's)

Whenever I try to go to 1000 or above the cards instantly lock up.

I'll be trialing linux tomorrow with SDK 2.1

[Turix]

I use my 5870 in my gaming rig so the following configuration only runs overnight (got a couple of batch files I run with different settings) but:

950Mhz Core
300Mhz Memory
210W Power Use (188 + OC)
Peaks at 80C on XFX stock cooler, drops to 65-70 if I leave my window open (British summer time at its best  )

420Mhash/sec (Well, it averaged 419.83 last night so close enough)

Using phoenix miner 1.48 on Windows 7 x64 with the following settings:

-k phatk VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=14 WORKSIZE=256

Using CCC 11.5 and SDK 2.4.

I can get it to spike to almost 450 using a high clock speed up to around 990 (1000 causes instant crash and I don't feel like toying with the BIOS/Voltage) but these clock speeds aren't amazingly stable and I don't fancy a crash in the middle of the night while I'm asleep.

[50Million]

Forgive me for asking the noob questions (feel free to flame / point me in the right direction)

But.... I have an i7 w 6GB ram Win7 64bit etc, and an MSI 5870 Lightning, decent card, but on stock gives me only 260MHs (1.12V, 900Clock and 1200Mem).... Starts off with 380, but then winds down over a couple of mins to 260, fan at 100% all the time. Card is sitting at 96 degrees (3 days non stop so far), but is actually cold to the touch (took side fans off to check its really that hot).

Anyway, I tried to follow the above with flags and edited my config for MSI (both that and CAT are latest), and would only let me drop the mem clock down to 600. As soon as i apply that, thinking its going to run ok, the temp goes from 96 to over 100, and at that point, the pc locks up (when mining, is stable in the os for that, temp goes up about 10 degrees but no issues).
Feeling a bit silly with only 260 and def not sure what im doing wrong....

[richwest]

Forgive me for asking the noob questions (feel free to flame / point me in the right direction)

But.... I have an i7 w 6GB ram Win7 64bit etc, and an MSI 5870 Lightning, decent card, but on stock gives me only 260MHs (1.12V, 900Clock and 1200Mem).... Starts off with 380, but then winds down over a couple of mins to 260, fan at 100% all the time. Card is sitting at 96 degrees (3 days non stop so far), but is actually cold to the touch (took side fans off to check its really that hot).

The card shouldn't be running that hot - I would guess the reason it's slowing down after a few minutes is that thermal protection is cutting in. I wouldn't recommend running a 5870 at more than 90C for extended periods (and obviously lower is better).

The fact that you're getting those temperatures at stock settings suggests a problem with your setup. Probably the most likely thing is no airflow. Work out where the air is going - make sure you have case fans that are working properly and are configured to take hot air away from the graphics card. Also check that the graphics card fans are working properly and that the heatsink is properly seated on the GPU.

If all else fails install the latest MSI afterburner (or equivalent) - if you decrease the stock voltage by about 10% (exact amount is trial and error, test for stability) and the memory clock down to about 600MHz the card should run a little cooler without reducing hashing performance. I suspect you have a hardware issue though and that any amount of tweaking won't make a vast difference, so look into that first.

[DavinciJ15]

Try this, set your mem clock to 300 and on the bat file remove fastloop and add aggression=13. With sdk 2.4 and 980/300 i´m getting 415Mhash/s.

Cool thanks for the info I did not think I could push those cards any more than what was out of the box.

[chiropteran]

I do NOT have a 5870.

However, my 5850 is pulling 350MHash/s with -v -w128, 965MHz GPU, 1000MHz Mem, catalyst 11.5, default voltage

[50Million]

Yeah, am starting to think is hardware. My rig is in a large case with 2 (120) fans drawing air in from the front, one from the side directly onto the vid card, and then two drawing out the top(140's) and one out the back(120), so airflow is not a problem.
Have a large Zalman cooler on the CPU, and that sits and 40-50 on full load, have fantastic cable management (there is a huge amount of space around the vid card for nice airflow) and the fans on the card are defntly working. Am thinking the temp sensor on the card is wonky, or something isnt right. Its getting full voltage from the psu (the card has LEDs that change depending on how much power is going in, and these are always on full).

[anodyne]

50Million: I'd start with checking if the cooler is properly mounted on the card. If the heatsink is cold to touch, it would be a likely indicator that it doesn't connect properly to the components.

Edit, more info: The low hashrate you're seeing would probably be due to the GPUs thermal throttling kicking in. When you try to change the memory setting it probably overrides the throttle and tries to run the core at default clock rate, which causes the card to overheat and crash/shut down.

I had a GTX 260 with the earlier version of MSI's twin cooler. It's a card with similar heat output (overclocked from 580 to 655 as well), and it kept the GPU well below reference temperatures with the fans running at about 45%. So, I'm at least fairly confident that you're having a cooling problem.

[zapeta]

Anyone else have a Gigabyte GV-R587UD-1GD?  I've only managed to get keep it stable at 950mhz clock, and it appears that other 5870's have been able to go considerably higher.  I think it could go higher if I could increase the voltage a bit but I haven't found a software yet that will do it and I don't want to tinker with the BIOS unless someone else has had success.  Just wondering if anyone has gone higher on that card and what suggestions/settings they might have.

[MiningBuddy]

Anyone else have a Gigabyte GV-R587UD-1GD?  I've only managed to get keep it stable at 950mhz clock, and it appears that other 5870's have been able to go considerably higher.  I think it could go higher if I could increase the voltage a bit but I haven't found a software yet that will do it and I don't want to tinker with the BIOS unless someone else has had success.  Just wondering if anyone has gone higher on that card and what suggestions/settings they might have.

I have an xfx 5870 that wont go stable above 940 in linux, I have flashed the bios with RBE but the voltage control table is missing all of its information and I cannot figure out how to increase it to make it stable.
I have a sapphire version also that goes right up to 985 stable without having to modify the bios.

Very strange