View Full Version : My experience with HD 4870
Joined the club! =]
*snip*
First impressions: fast, heavy and noisy piece of hardware!
MC
I have that exact card. I run it in a stock Antec Sonata III case.
Shoot. I hope yours is not defective! Aside from the initial spin up I get at boot up I barely hear mine unless I stick my head under the desk. It appears to be about as loud as the average case fan. Acoustically it seems to be about the same as my old eVGA 8800GT.
C.
I'm just going to buy a HD 4870 to give ATI/AMD a little boost to stay in the game. Even if GTX260's drop well below HD 4870 prices (which I don't think they will, because 4780's will drop to match).
Plus I always like to favour the underdog, it's always good to see the big players get humbled a little and be reminded that price gouging their customers will just come back to bite them in the ass.
Ya. Last year I would have done the same but the 8800GT was the value champ against the 3870 being that they ended up almost the same price. So I went that route.
This year was 4870 for me even if I do run into a few warts which I have not yet. Still trying different games. Have not run into one yet that dissapointed me.
So far Bioshock, COD4, Grid, Race 07, HL2 and the Orange Box collection, Crysis and FEAR are all super smooth and looking great.
C.
Hi all,
I recently bought a Sapphire 4870 and have been happy with its graphics performance.
I am aware it has the ability to carry 5.1/7.1 digital audio over HDMI but cannot seem to enable this feature.
I am able to send digitial surround from DVD/Blu-Ray via optical out on my motherboard (ASUS PQ5L-E) which works fine and is therefore my current set up, but i'd like to use one HDMI cord to carry everything.
I have installed the ATI HDMI audio driver and Realtek R2.00 HD Audio. In the Realtek HD contol panel there is no option to set speakers as 5.1 surround. Instead the drop down box is greyed out with stereo mode selected. In the Vista sound panel there is also no surround speakers option.
Is anyone aware of a fix for the Realtek/Vista lack of 5.1 option, or of a reason why optical will produce surround but not HDMI?
A friend advised there may be a physical jumper to set on the motherboard or the graphics card to enable HDMI digital surround but there's nothing in the manual.
Thanks for any help!
noisy?? how noisy
its not noisy on default 20% fan speed. It is loud on 100% though....:headexplode:
its not noisy on default 20% fan speed. It is loud on 100% though....:headexplode:
:( ear muffs then
35% is what you want to set the thing at, it drops the temps by nearly 50% without a large aircraft taking off inside ure case.
35% is what you want to set the thing at, it drops the temps by nearly 50% without a large aircraft taking off inside ure case.
:D concorde
Heinz68
08-13-08, 10:42 PM
Hi all,
I recently bought a Sapphire 4870 and have been happy with its graphics performance.
I am aware it has the ability to carry 5.1/7.1 digital audio over HDMI but cannot seem to enable this feature.
I am able to send digitial surround from DVD/Blu-Ray via optical out on my motherboard (ASUS PQ5L-E) which works fine and is therefore my current set up, but i'd like to use one HDMI cord to carry everything.
I have installed the ATI HDMI audio driver and Realtek R2.00 HD Audio. In the Realtek HD contol panel there is no option to set speakers as 5.1 surround. Instead the drop down box is greyed out with stereo mode selected. In the Vista sound panel there is also no surround speakers option.
Is anyone aware of a fix for the Realtek/Vista lack of 5.1 option, or of a reason why optical will produce surround but not HDMI?
A friend advised there may be a physical jumper to set on the motherboard or the graphics card to enable HDMI digital surround but there's nothing in the manual.
Thanks for any help!
I have Windows XP and the audio works over HDMI cable, I'm sure Vista will do the same, no need for any jumper set-up.
Find the 'Sound and Audio Devices' in the Control Panel and in the audio pull down menu select the ATI HD Audio. I can also double click the Volume Control icon on Task Bar to open it, than select Option > Properties and again in the pull down menu select the ATI HD Audio.
In order to have surround sound the receiver must have it.
ahheadlock
08-14-08, 04:37 AM
HDMI audio works fine for me in vista. As above, just make sure you have your audio output set to the HDMI.
methimpikehoses
08-15-08, 12:14 AM
$213 before MIR. $193 after, free ship.
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=HIS-4870&c=pw
Just got a Diamond 4870 but I noticed even at 35% that it's kinda loud in my p182... ?
Heinz68
08-15-08, 06:28 AM
$213 before MIR. $193 after, free ship.
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=HIS-4870&c=pw
Great sale price! Not sure if I would buy from ewis but according to PriceGrabber (http://reviews.pricegrabber.com/ewizcom/r/915/2/st=page/) User Ratings they look OK
Just got a Diamond 4870 but I noticed even at 35% that it's kinda loud in my p182... ?
Meh...
I left mine all at stock. 78C at idle is nothing to worry about. ATI engineers did it on purpose and wanted silent. The cooler I make my case the quieter the card gets. :)
Although I am having some thoughts about changing the fans in the BIOS. I wanted to stress test a little last night and it was 30C (f'ing hot!) in the room last night and I ran Devil May Cry 4 for an hour looped maxed out and it reached 93C.
Although Grid only managed to get it to 85C as do alot of other games. Vantage gets it to about 85C as well.
But it is rarely that warm here. Still have not made up my mind on the fan speed. Stock is getting it done unless it's stupid hot in the house.
C.
Still baffles me that people are "fixing" what is not broken. I still have not seen one person with evidence that running the card with out the hack causes additional system heat, instability (aside from the Furmark boondoggle for some users) or high failure rates.
It is a high end video card. It is also very quiet. What I have learned from looking around the web at threads about the 4870 is that people are trying to shoe-horn them into pschittay cases with little or improper airflow with crap PSUs. And then running Furmark after overclocking, trying to kill the card and then starting FUD about the cooling set up.
I sincerely hope these people never buy coffee at McDonalds.
And it still baffles me that you do not see the advantages of running the card cooler with a simple fan hack.
None of these cards have been out long enough yet to show any side effects from the heat but I can gaurantee you that the cooler running cards will have a longer life.
Its louder, it takes away automatic temperature control and it is pointless in regards to system temps.
If operating temperature range control is the reason for the stock fan profile, then many that are using the fan hack may end up with issues in the future from failed solder and heat cycle related PCB cracks. I say that because when playing COD4, the fan spools up from idle, maybe up to 1800 rpm, but during level loads and cut scenes, the fan slows back to idle speeds. The temps are very elastic on the 4870. If you set your fan to the popular 35%, aside from being too loud for me, the temperature range will be much more than 78C-85C I see from gaming.
Again, the engineers designed the fan speed control profiles. I'll leave it as is. Moreover, I apparently do not have the Furmark "bug" because I have adequate airflow for my case while still being nearly silent. My two 120mm case fans and 120mm CPU fan all turn 800rpm and the only other fans are an Antec Spot Cool, moving air past the northbridge and feeding the GPU's fan, and the PSU fan in it own chamber so it is not like I have tornadic activity in my PC. I had an extra exhaust fan installed with my 8800GTX because of its open design. My system temps are the same with the 4870 with that fan removed, no fan hack required.
Damn, this reply blew up. It was going to be two sentences.
Thanks for the insight BrianG, I have now just decided to leave it default and trust ATi engineers know what they are doing. Enjoying it being silent atm :)
Hi
After weeks trying to decide GTX260 or HD 4870 I eventually went for the HD 4870.
I purchased the Club 3d OC version of the HD 4870 512MB, identical to the powercolor pcs+ using the ZeroTherm cooler. After the purchase I came across a review at expreview.com. http://en.expreview.com/2008/08/23/powercolor-hd-4870-pcs-stability-issues-check/
After reading I thought I may have made a poor choice, and should have stuck to the reference version. I installed the new card and checked the GPU temp via gpu-z currently at 49oC and highest VRM temp at 63oC. I have a 120mm fan blowing air directly on to the side of the card, as it is mounted onto the case side window.
I decided to fix the fan speed at 40% via the profile modification after reading a couple of posts to see how temps would be affected, as the ZeroThermfan only seems to spin up briefly at 100% every now and then.
I have run through 3dmark03, 3dmark06 and 3dmarkvantage without lockup.
Checked the temps afterward in gpu-z, GPU temp hit around 49oC and the highest VRM temp was at 73oC. Overall very happy with this card, seems to have about doubled the graphics performance of my system over the good old 8800GTS 640MB, and fan nose wise only slightly louder than the GTS fan on 85%.
Attached a couple of gpu-z screen shots and a pic of the card and box.
nekrosoft13
08-27-08, 10:37 AM
nice card jjelmo, love the fan RPM ;)
1 RPM
This may be true, but I ran some tests with and without the hack. I ran my card at 30% and used hardware monitor to record highs and lows. It never got really hot even after hours using 30%. This was playing Crysis, Grid, Wow, UT3.
Without the hack, it ran much hotter, but I never had any problems. At 30% it was consistently quiet, but without the hack, the cards fan would slowly throttle (not sure what it went up to) from the 23% to whatever. It never got loud, but the variable changes to the fan speed were audible. So, since keeping it at 30% never allowed it to get nearly as hot as without, keeping it overall a lower temp, I decided to keep it at 30%. 30% is still very quiet and cools it perfectly fine. In fact, when the card is stressed, 30% fan speed is still cooler than without just sitting at the desktop.
30% hack during load = ~61C
30% hack at desktop = ~48C
Default at desktop = ~78C
Default during load = ~90C
I doubt bumping the fan from 23% to 30% is that much of a strain on things.
Also, as "baffled" and annoyed you seem about people's obsession with the temps and fans of this card, I'm baffled as to why it bothers you so much that people want a cool card and system, regardless of it's designed spec.
Still baffles me that people are "fixing" what is not broken. I still have not seen one person with evidence that running the card with out the hack causes additional system heat, instability (aside from the Furmark boondoggle for some users) or high failure rates.
It is a high end video card. It is also very quiet. What I have learned from looking around the web at threads about the 4870 is that people are trying to shoe-horn them into pschittay cases with little or improper airflow with crap PSUs. And then running Furmark after overclocking, trying to kill the card and then starting FUD about the cooling set up.
I sincerely hope these people never buy coffee at McDonalds.
nekrosoft13
08-27-08, 12:19 PM
Yaboze is right is much better having cooler component, and this "hack" won't damage your card in anyway.
Welcome to NVN jjelmo!
Thanks for the welcome Tr1cK :)
Hi nekrosoft13
At 1 RPM my ears were nearly bleeding :D
I think this card has been set to spin up to 100% once the GPU reaches
a predetermined temperature, once cooled to another predetermined level spin back down to off. Perfect for a silent PC but I have a few case fans so do not really notice the fan on 40%. The 100% fan speed is LOUD though !!!!!!
Yaboze I think along the same line also, surely a cooler GPU/CPU/Memory/HDD whatever it may be will potentially last longer, but then the other points like narrower operating temperatures between idle and load make sense also, less heat related stress. I think though the more heat you can get away from the GPU core/Regulation circuit the better, as prolonged high temperature can also cause stresses over time. But saying that how may pieces of hardware get swapped out well before they have a chance to fail. The GPU at 70oC to 80oC could last 10 years! I did notice on gpu-z though a 3A difference in power draw between manual 40% fan control and automatic fan control.
BrianG I agree with you that it "is not broken" ATI seem to have designed it that way to run quieter, and it runs no hotter than other GPU cores from what I have read, even my 8800GTS ran at 60oC idle @ 85% fan speed. Fan speed at either manual or automatic no additional system heat seemed evident. At the end of the day the GPU/Voltage regulation circuit is still dissipating the same amount of heat via the heatsinks. "If operating temperature range control is the reason for the stock fan profile, then many that are using the fan hack may end up with issues in the future from failed solder and heat cycle related PCB cracks." Time will tell but by then most will have swapped to the next latest and greatest from Nvidia/ATi. For now anyway I think I will go for the running cooler option as in my mind I feel better running cooler than hotter. It's just a matter of choice:)
Still baffles me that people are "fixing" what is not broken. I still have not seen one person with evidence that running the card with out the hack causes additional system heat, instability (aside from the Furmark boondoggle for some users) or high failure rates.
It is a high end video card. It is also very quiet. What I have learned from looking around the web at threads about the 4870 is that people are trying to shoe-horn them into pschittay cases with little or improper airflow with crap PSUs. And then running Furmark after overclocking, trying to kill the card and then starting FUD about the cooling set up.
I sincerely hope these people never buy coffee at McDonalds.
Haha, excellent post. I couldn't agree more.
Heinz68
08-28-08, 01:16 PM
This may be true, but I ran some tests with and without the hack. I ran my card at 30% and used hardware monitor to record highs and lows. It never got really hot even after hours using 30%. This was playing Crysis, Grid, Wow, UT3.
Without the hack, it ran much hotter, but I never had any problems. At 30% it was consistently quiet, but without the hack, the cards fan would slowly throttle (not sure what it went up to) from the 23% to whatever. It never got loud, but the variable changes to the fan speed were audible. So, since keeping it at 30% never allowed it to get nearly as hot as without, keeping it overall a lower temp, I decided to keep it at 30%. 30% is still very quiet and cools it perfectly fine. In fact, when the card is stressed, 30% fan speed is still cooler than without just sitting at the desktop.
30% hack during load = ~61C
30% hack at desktop = ~48C
Default at desktop = ~78C
Default during load = ~90C
I doubt bumping the fan from 23% to 30% is that much of a strain on things.
Also, as "baffled" and annoyed you seem about people's obsession with the temps and fans of this card, I'm baffled as to why it bothers you so much that people want a cool card and system, regardless of it's designed spec.
The 30% fan setting is not any strain, the problem is the Fan Hack eliminates the auto control.
So the danger of overheating is more possible. I guess that is why ATI didn't implement such option in drivers. Few people looking for ultra quiet PC would likely destroy the card.
Such low setting sure depends on how good the case ventilation is and on the room temperature. Anybody with such low manual fan settings should be checking the 3D temp much more often.
Gainward ExpertTool ATI v4 (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1747670&postcount=6) also includes the Fan Control but the Fixed Speed (Manual) setting is limited at 50%, I believe exactly for safety reasons. So the only option there is to run the card more noise or go for the auto settings, that's why I uninstalled the tool.
jjelmo welcome at NVNews Forums
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.