Question about HD 4870 X2

Hello all hope u are fine
Look @ the screen shot:


Does any one know why the PIXEL FILRATE,TEXTURE FILTRATE,MEMORY CLOCK and BANDWIDTH of one is lower than the other?
I thought it was for power saving and will become the same as the other one in gaming,but it remains slower.

I am using catalyst 8.9.

The strange thing is that CCC is showing one card as a Primary adapter and the other one as Linked. and the specs of them are the same,so why CCC is showing different speeds.... compared to GPU-Z?

OK, theres a problem with the second core downclocking on the card, but I thought the 8.9s elimanted it, maybe its the 8.10s, tho theyre betas. Its ok, if you go into 3D and come back out, itll clear it up. What Ive learned is, since Vista uses its aero, which requires 3D, its ben causing a new approach in power savings/clocking in the new ATI cards, which nVidia may start doing as well. It takes awhile for them to get this working right, but look to the 8.10s to correct it. The new PP coming out, and drivers for them sometime early next year will also lower the power usage on the new cards, not sure which cards, and or when tho, and this is all for idle speeds. But anyways, wait for the 8.10s, they should resolve this

They change the readouts with every driver change, so Im thinking GPU-Z isnt reading correctly. If you adopt a new driver from ATI, youll have to make sure GPU-Z supports it

What are those two pictures of GPU-Z then?

you can try this drivers, they are WQFL certified and most probably will be released officialy by ATI in next few days.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/s [...] t=17929850

Plain and simple this is a bug which ATI has not fixed. It is not because of aero, I've tried disabling aero and it didn't make the card go to to 2d mode on both gpu's. It is not GPU-Z reporting incorrectly, I've verified the extra power draw with a watt meter.

It's not really a big deal but it is a bug. To confirm this Maziar just go into and exit a game and you will see the card properly run both cores in 2d mode as they should on startup.

@JD don't be offended but on this point I don't think you are giving accurate info. Every time this is brought up you elude to a fix or driver fix that is coming but I've seen no confirmation of this. You normally spin ATI's direction but are usually factually correct.

This problem wouldn't keep me from owning the single best card you can buy right now but it is a bug. I do look forward to when a future driver will allow my system to start up in 2d mode with the reduced power consumption and temperatures as intended.

Here is the thread where I originally explored this in August. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] rtup-temps

thanks
Yeah as i said even if i play a game and exit the second core still is downclocked.

I played COD4 first mission and here is the screenshot:

The problem is nonexistent on XP or Vista safemode. It definitely is a Vista thing with or without Aero. I don't notice this much since I have to have one of the cards in 3d mode since I use dreamscape which seems to require full 3d mode with this card, odd, but oh well. I would not even call it a bug since it does absolutely no harm, I would call it... a personality quirk of the 4870 X2.

Yes but my wife tells me my personality quirks bug her; therefore I have bugs.

Call it what you will but using the WHQL Vista driver it uses 30 more watts and runs hotter on start-up than it does in 2d mode. This is also a contributing factor to the uncomfortable idle temps people report with this card. I'd prefer to not let them off the hook and have them fix it so it runs at start up as it does after exiting a 3d app.

My own experience was the first core idling at 80c rather than 58c at default fan setting.

Also I never said it was a huge problem, to quote myself I said, "It's not really a big deal but it is a bug."

I don't use ATI beta drivers so has anyone confirmed that the "personality quirk" is fixed with 8.10?

Again, I'm not trying to be confrontational or come across as unhappy with the card. I'd still make the same purchase today without telling myself the cards flaws are simply more personality. Speaking of which does anyone know if the windowed mode problem has been fixed?

I'm not sure what I'm looking for in that link. If you mean a link from an unknown download source for what may be the final driver....um no thanks.

I missed it reading through the thread the first time. One line under a tagged image in three pages of comments. I look forward to trying it out when it's released.