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

[icaci]

I'm running 32-bit Windows 7. What you can probably do is to modify your card's BIOS. I've read stories of people flashing their cards' bioses with reference ones from ATI and/or editing existing power states. There are number of tools to do that, for Windows only I presume. Personally I have never done such a thing as my mining rig is a dedicated one and I had access to a genuine Windows 7 license.

[Mousepotato]

ATI HD5870
Catalyst 11.5
SDK 2.4
975MHz core / 333MHz memory
1.250v

Phoenix parameters: -u device=0 VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=14 WORKSIZE=256 -k phatk

430.xx MH/s, stable
69-70C @ 50% fan speed with case-cover on

Everybody told me to try 300MHz for the memory and that kicked the MHz up quite a bit.  After a little experimenting I found the sweet spot to be 333MHz (using ATI GPU Tool) which increased the hash rate by about 6-8 MH/s over 300MHz memory clock on my system. YMMV.

[mlouca]

what kind of motherboard and psu unit are u guys running?

[willphase]

I'm running 2x xfx 5870 and found the sweet spot was 970/386. Getting stable 427mh at 62 degrees. Didn't change my voltage. Sdk 1.4 and ccc 11.5 on win7 64. Only issue is 100% cpu but turns out it's not actually using 100%... I.e. the box can still happily act as a fileserver with no drop in performance. Using phatk with phoenix. Remember that phatk is specifically written for the 5870 so if you have one you should be running it!

 Will

[Clavulanic]

Didn't realize so many people had been responding lately. Anyways I've got my 2 5870's in a good configuration now.

They are at 980 core, 180 memory, 1.187vcore. I keep em around 55% fan speed depending on if i'm in the room or not and the cards are at ~77c and ~82c. My whole system (i7 920, 2 hard drives and 6gb of ram) consumes about 550W at the wall. I'm using phoenix (a few versions older than the newer one) with phatk at aggression 13 and fastloop=false. Each runs just bellow 440mhash/s in phoenix using the latest amd drivers. This is all in windows 7 64bit.

[PaZer]

ATI HD5870
Catalyst 11.5
SDK 2.4
975MHz core / 333MHz memory
1.250v

Phoenix parameters: -u device=0 VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=14 WORKSIZE=256 -k phatk

430.xx MH/s, stable
69-70C @ 50% fan speed with case-cover on

Everybody told me to try 300MHz for the memory and that kicked the MHz up quite a bit.  After a little experimenting I found the sweet spot to be 333MHz (using ATI GPU Tool) which increased the hash rate by about 6-8 MH/s over 300MHz memory clock on my system. YMMV.

How did you get the 1.250 V setting? Under Ubuntu with AMDOverdriveCtrl I can only get 1.165 V. That's a maximum. Running at 975 MHz Core is pretty much unstable. Do I have to flash the GPU BIOS?

[hugolp]

ATI HD5870
Catalyst 11.5
SDK 2.4
975MHz core / 333MHz memory
1.250v

Why do you have the voltage at 1.250v? Is your 5870 unstable with less voltage at 975MHz?

[PaZer]

ATI HD5870
Catalyst 11.5
SDK 2.4
975MHz core / 333MHz memory
1.250v

Why do you have the voltage at 1.250v? Is your 5870 unstable with less voltage at 975MHz?

Hi hugolp,

in my case when I go up to 975 Core @ 300 Mem the system freezes few seconds later... I think the GPU gets too less power?
Using Ubuntu 11.04 with SDK2.1.

EIDT: This GPU is the main graphics card onboard, which means it has to support the GNOME GUI as well. Maybe you can run 975/300 with a second GPU responsible for mininig only?

[hugolp]

Hi hugolp,

in my case when I go up to 975 Core @ 300 Mem the system freezes few seconds later... I think the GPU gets too less power?
Using Ubuntu 11.04 with SDK2.1.

EIDT: This GPU is the main graphics card onboard, which means it has to support the GNOME GUI as well. Maybe you can run 975/300 with a second GPU responsible for mininig only?

Hi, its weird. Im using Ubuntu 11.04 with SDK2.4 phoenix/phatk. I have 2 Asus 5870 with 1005Mhz core and 335Mhz memory with 1.070V (one needs 1.072V) and they have been running fine for 3 or 4 days now. Today I got an XFX 5870, had to flash it with the Asus limits because it would not allow to go over 900Mhz by default. Now its running with core at 995Mhz and memory at 335Mhz with 1.070V and it has been there for a couple of hours without a problem. I pretend to push it to 1005Mhz slowly.

I understand some differences from different vendors, but needing 1.250v to get 975Mhz seems too big of a difference.

EDIT: One on the Asus was taking care of the screen (with Gnome-Unity) and it was fine. Now the XFX is taking care of it, but I dont think it makes an impact, I mainly use it through ssh and the screen is off all the time. Is there an advantage of using traditional gnome from unity while mining?

[RedLine888]

With what soft do you measure your voltage?

I have ASUS HD 5870 V2 with 1.212 stock voltage and it does not want to go even to 1GHz core speed(((

And what are the temps?

I live in Ukraine and it is quite hot here now, so my cards with 100% fans do not go higher than 82C according to MSI AB.

I've got 1xASUS 5870 and 3xGigabyte GV-R587UD-1GD with core\mem 990\365 for ASUS and 960\365 for others. Found out that this is the best mem speed for my setup!
Wanted to push voltage higher on Gigabyte cards with Trixxx and AB but got no success. The only way is modifying voltages with RBE but there are a lot of cautions over the forums that any voltage manipulations with non-reference cards result in BSOD.

The wierd thing is that I updated BIOS on Gigabyte cards (had F1, F5 and F7) to F8. RBE shows that stock voltage is to be 1.163 but GPU Shark says that one of the cards is working with 1.125 core voltage. WTF?

Anyone has some experience in voltage manipulation with GV-R587UD-1GD?

[hugolp]

With what soft do you measure your voltage?

I have ASUS HD 5870 V2 with 1.212 stock voltage and it does not want to go even to 1GHz core speed(((

Im setting it with AMDOverdriveCtrl.

[PaZer]

Hi hugolp,

in my case when I go up to 975 Core @ 300 Mem the system freezes few seconds later... I think the GPU gets too less power?
Using Ubuntu 11.04 with SDK2.1.

EIDT: This GPU is the main graphics card onboard, which means it has to support the GNOME GUI as well. Maybe you can run 975/300 with a second GPU responsible for mininig only?

Hi, its weird. Im using Ubuntu 11.04 with SDK2.4 phoenix/phatk. I have 2 Asus 5870 with 1005Mhz core and 335Mhz memory with 1.070V (one needs 1.072V) and they have been running fine for 3 or 4 days now. Today I got an XFX 5870, had to flash it with the Asus limits because it would not allow to go over 900Mhz by default. Now its running with core at 995Mhz and memory at 335Mhz with 1.070V and it has been there for a couple of hours without a problem. I pretend to push it to 1005Mhz slowly.

I understand some differences from different vendors, but needing 1.250v to get 975Mhz seems too big of a difference.

EDIT: One on the Asus was taking care of the screen (with Gnome-Unity) and it was fine. Now the XFX is taking care of it, but I dont think it makes an impact, I mainly use it through ssh and the screen is off all the time. Is there an advantage of using traditional gnome from unity while mining?

Hi hugolp,

that's really weired. Same brand but different behaviors... Maybe it has something to do with the relationship between core and mem speed. I tried 950, 980 and 1000 core speed at 300 mem speed. All freezed. Now I'm running really stable at 930 core and 300 mem speed (410 MHash/s phoenix/phatk). Maybe I should take mem speed up a little bit to 333 or 335. Maybe that's the point. I don't think SDK 2.4 makes the difference. And I don't think there is a diffenernbce in Gnome Classic and Unity. I don't like unity, that's all.

[PaZer]

With what soft do you measure your voltage?

I have ASUS HD 5870 V2 with 1.212 stock voltage and it does not want to go even to 1GHz core speed(((

Im setting it with AMDOverdriveCtrl.

I'm setting it with AMDOverdriveCtrl as well, but cannot go over 1.165 V on XFX HD5870 XXX.

[hugolp]

Hi hugolp,

that's really weired. Same brand but different behaviors... Maybe it has something to do with the relationship between core and mem speed. I tried 950, 980 and 1000 core speed at 300 mem speed. All freezed. Now I'm running really stable at 930 core and 300 mem speed (410 MHash/s phoenix/phatk). Maybe I should take mem speed up a little bit to 333 or 335. Maybe that's the point. I don't think SDK 2.4 makes the difference. And I don't think there is a diffenernbce in Gnome Classic and Unity. I don't like unity, that's all.

Thinking about it I think that at 1005Mhz if I pushed the voltage higher it would run for a while and then crash. You might want to test at 995, 1000 or even 1005 at lower voltages, like 1.070v for me. At 1010Mhz and 1015Mhz it would run for a while but there was no way of making it stable. Also, by lowering the voltage you get better consumption theoretically.

If this does not work its very weird because I could have gotten a couple of mega-asus, but Im almost in the same situation with the XFX.

[RedLine888]

And what are the temps?

I live in Ukraine and it is quite hot here now, so my cards with 100% fans do not go higher than 82C according to MSI AB.

I've got 1xASUS 5870 and 3xGigabyte GV-R587UD-1GD with core\mem 990\365 for ASUS and 960\365 for others. Found out that this is the best mem speed for my setup!
Wanted to push voltage higher on Gigabyte cards with Trixxx and AB but got no success. The only way is modifying voltages with RBE but there are a lot of cautions over the forums that any voltage manipulations with non-reference cards result in BSOD.

The wierd thing is that I updated BIOS on Gigabyte cards (had F1, F5 and F7) to F8. RBE shows that stock voltage is to be 1.163 but GPU Shark says that one of the cards is working with 1.125 core voltage. WTF?

Anyone has some experience in voltage manipulation with GV-R587UD-1GD?

[hugolp]

And what are the temps?

Quite low, never over 60º. Its getting hot here too but I run it without a case in a room with two windows open and a 20W fan next to the whole thing. Here you go:

Adapter 0 - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
                            Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    995           335
             Current Peak :    995           335
  Configurable Peak Range : [600-1200]     [335-1400]
                 GPU load :    99%

Adapter 1 - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
                            Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    1005           335
             Current Peak :    1005           335
  Configurable Peak Range : [600-1200]     [335-1400]
                 GPU load :    99%

Adapter 2 - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
                            Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    1005           335
             Current Peak :    1005           335
  Configurable Peak Range : [600-1200]     [335-1400]
                 GPU load :    99%

Adapter 0 - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
            Sensor 0: Temperature - 55.50 C

Adapter 1 - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
            Sensor 0: Temperature - 56.00 C

Adapter 2 - ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
            Sensor 0: Temperature - 56.50 C

Voltages are (0)1.070, (1)1.072 and (2)1.070.

I will post pictures of the whole thing when I  get the fourth.

EDIT: The fasn are running at 95% (dont like to run them at 100%) and if I turn the big fan off the temperature raises like 10º, never over 70º, although the fan has been always on when it has been hot. Actually, the big fan is on for the rest of the parts of the card that seem to run very hot. Does anyone know how to access the rest of temperature sensors of the 5870 from linux?

[RedLine888]

Cool in every sense

Thanx!

I'm thinking of installing a fan now

Here is my rig:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=7216.msg226664#msg226664

[PaZer]

Hi hugolp,

that's really weired. Same brand but different behaviors... Maybe it has something to do with the relationship between core and mem speed. I tried 950, 980 and 1000 core speed at 300 mem speed. All freezed. Now I'm running really stable at 930 core and 300 mem speed (410 MHash/s phoenix/phatk). Maybe I should take mem speed up a little bit to 333 or 335. Maybe that's the point. I don't think SDK 2.4 makes the difference. And I don't think there is a diffenernbce in Gnome Classic and Unity. I don't like unity, that's all.

Thinking about it I think that at 1005Mhz if I pushed the voltage higher it would run for a while and then crash. You might want to test at 995, 1000 or even 1005 at lower voltages, like 1.070v for me. At 1010Mhz and 1015Mhz it would run for a while but there was no way of making it stable. Also, by lowering the voltage you get better consumption theoretically.

If this does not work its very weird because I could have gotten a couple of mega-asus, but Im almost in the same situation with the XFX.

I will give it a try in the next days, will come back here withn the results.

[bitcoin0918]

WinXP-32
guiminer/poclbm -v -w128 -f 1
SDK 2.1, Catalyst 10.11
Sapphire 5870
73-75 C, 40% fan speed
stock voltage

Core: 900
Mem: 314
Rate: 392 MH/s

I will eventually attempt to overclock it some more, but want to verify stability at this level.

Things that I found are bad:

1. Having Catalyst Control Center installed. If I got a crash, the next time I rebooted, CCC would attempt to set ridiculously low clock speeds, which would immediately crash the computer again. Gone.
2. Attempting to underclock the memory while the miner is running. This caused crashing when I dropped the memory below 500. Now I am down to 300-314 without issue.

Things that are good:

1. Installing SDK 2.1 in place of 2.4 boosted hashrate by up to 10 MH/s.
2. Slightly increasing the fan speed using a custom profile in Afterburner helped reduce the temperature to a more comfortable setting.    
2. Dropping memory clock to about 1/3 of core clock: lowered temperature by another 7-10 C.
3. Increasing memory clock by 14 after setting it to 1/3 of core clock: increased hashrate by 1-2 MH/s.

Things that made no difference:

1. Installing Catalyst 10.11 in place of the latest version. (I verified that the driver version was correct in device manager).

[hugolp]

1. Installing SDK 2.1 in place of 2.4 boosted hashrate by up to 10 MH/s.

This depends on the software you are using to mine. F.e. poclmb goes better with 2.1 and phatk goes better with 2.4. I get better results with phatk+2.4 than any other combination.