Just spend huge $ on 4870X2, and it sucks :(

[rayleemw]

Just got my new 4870X2 - the bag wrapping the card was actually opened and tempered with. I assumed its no problem.

I ran it and I immediately discovered it is slower than my 4850 chip..

A little investigation through GPU-Z I discovered something VERY WRONG.

The core and memory clock always stays the same - 750 Core, and 500 Mem. Even under full load. So I tried the 'default' button on ATi's control center. It turns it to 507 core and 500 mem, WTF?

Further investigatio with RBE - opened a copy of the BIOS and it scares me..

Only the Clock info 00 shows 750 core & 900 mem with 1.25V, the rest of them are 507 core and 500 mem with 1.05volts.

Should the core and mem that low??? that doesn't sound right!

My question is, did I just given a tempered card? Should it be like this? Please help.

 

[NewLCD123]

Can you set the clocks back to normal stock clocks? Use an overclocking prog for that. Also how fast is your cpu? If it's too slow, you won't see a difference over your hd4850 due to cpu bottleneck.

 

[rayleemw]

my CPU is 9450 overclocked to 3.8Ghz

 

[rayleemw]

I just got it today and I don't want to clock it back to normal and all the trouble.

I just want to know if its been tempered with.

 

[emp]

That's most likely just the ATI powerplay working, it downclocks your GPU and memory to save power, it should kick into full gear when you start a 3D app.

 

[rayleemw]

its not the ati powerplay, i understand fully how it works. I've been using my 4850 and twisting it before.

the core and mem stays @ 500mhz, even at 100% load. benchmarks run slower than my 4850.

 

[festerovic]

I agree with emp, its usually PP that limits the clocks down. Try running furmark or some other windowed 3d app, it will raise the GPU load, and the true clocks will show. If those are still wrong, then you have a problem.

If the clocks are still wrong after that, then try and flash with a new BIOS. You can find them, sorry I would post a link but I don't have it here (work)

 

[emp]

Are you using the latest Catalyst or the ones that came with the card?

 

[alvine]

what psu do you have?
maybe the psu is to weak and the card itself clocks itself down.

 

[Kari]

In windowed mode the card will use only 1 core, do your tests in full screen

 

[dagger]

It's defective, rma it. There is no good reason for the seal to be opened.

 

[aevm]

Where did you buy the card, is it a good store?

 

[NewLCD123]

If you are going to RMA it, don't flash the bios or overclock it. Hows it perform in games, is the fps the same as your hd4850? If so, perhaps you should just return or RMA the hd4870x2 and just stick with the hd4850. I wouldn't be surprised if even 3.8GHz of core duo power just isn't enough for hd4870x2.

I can tell you the story how I had a radeon 9800pro OCed past 9800xt clocks and there was little difference from a stock 9700pro in games and that's on a 2GHz a64 cpu. Needless to say, I sold the 9800pro for what I paid for it and continued gaming on a stock 9700pro.

Ive read that GPU technology has been advancing faster than CPU technology. A 3.8GHz core duo would be 3-4x faster than my old 2GHz a64(which I no longer use) Now a hd4870x2 would probably be around 15x faster than a single 9700pro. This makes todays high end cpus a bottleneck and also explains why reviewers are only seeing 20-30% improved performance going from a single hd4870 to two in crossfire and that's only at 1920x1200 with all the eyecandy turned on. In 1024x768 medium details, there is absolutely no performance increase!

It used to be that a gpu upgrade would give a significent boost in 1024x768, but nowdays you need 1920x1200 and even at that, the boost isn't that impressive if you already have something like hd3850 or better. We all agree that CPU technology needs to step up and that programmers need to start coding games to take 100% advantage of 2, 3, 4+ core cpus.

 

[Shadow703793]

It's defective, rma it. There is no good reason for the seal to be opened.

Where did you buy the card, is it a good store?

If you are going to RMA it, don't flash the bios or overclock it. Hows it perform in games, is the fps the same as your hd4850? If so, perhaps you should just return or RMA the hd4870x2 and just stick with the hd4850. I wouldn't be surprised if even 3.8GHz of core duo power just isn't enough for hd4870x2.

+1 for above posters.

 

[bobbknight]

Take it back.

 

[rocky1234]

In windowed mode it will run at lower speed unless you force it to the higher speeds by making & properly setting up a profile for that. The seal should not have been opened or ripped but because I know how retail works if it was from a computer store or big box store a lot of times a sales person will open it to show the customer what the card looks like because a lot of people want to see it before they buy it also a lot of times customers them selves will rip open a product to see it. Your clock speeds are right on the money for for windowed mode. Use GPU-Z & go to the monitoring windows & let it monitor your card while in a game play for awhile then quit the game & look at the graph's in GPU-Z you should see that while you were playing the graph's went up to 750 core & 900 memory but as soon as you quit the game they went back down to the lower settings.

 

[major53]

Shadow703793
dagger wrote :

It's defective, rma it. There is no good reason for the seal to be opened.



aevm wrote :

Where did you buy the card, is it a good store?



NewLCD123 wrote :

If you are going to RMA it, don't flash the bios or overclock it. Hows it perform in games, is the fps the same as your hd4850? If so, perhaps you should just return or RMA the hd4870x2 and just stick with the hd4850. I wouldn't be surprised if even 3.8GHz of core duo power just isn't enough for hd4870x2.

you paid $500.00 even if they took it out to show someone.that board should blow the 4850 away.do yourself a favor and send it back.for that amount of money it shouldn't have been open even for (katherine zeta jones)hehehe. do the right thing.

 

[Crashman]

Just got my new 4870X2 - the bag wrapping the card was actually opened and tempered with. I assumed its no problem.

I ran it and I immediately discovered it is slower than my 4850 chip..

A little investigation through GPU-Z I discovered something VERY WRONG.

The core and memory clock always stays the same - 750 Core, and 500 Mem. Even under full load. So I tried the 'default' button on ATi's control center. It turns it to 507 core and 500 mem, WTF?

Further investigatio with RBE - opened a copy of the BIOS and it scares me..

Only the Clock info 00 shows 750 core & 900 mem with 1.25V, the rest of them are 507 core and 500 mem with 1.05volts.

Should the core and mem that low??? that doesn't sound right!

My question is, did I just given a tempered card? Should it be like this? Please help.

2D Mode is 507/500. 3D Mode is 750/900. When you stop everything to look at it, it's in 2D mode. End of problem.

 

[dagger]

2D Mode is 507/500. 3D Mode is 750/900. When you stop everything to look at it, it's in 2D mode. End of problem.

Even if that's the case, it still doesn't explain how it's slower than 4850.

 

[Crashman]

Even if that's the case, it still doesn't explain how it's slower than 4850.

It does if he's comparing the 3D speed of his 4850 to the 2D speed of his 4870X2

 

[Crashman]

Even if that's the case, it still doesn't explain how it's slower than 4850.

It does if he's comparing the 3D speed of his 4850 to the 2D speed of his 4870X2

 

[Guest]

how can a 3.8 ghz quad core not be enough for a 4870 x2... like whats he supposed to do... buy phase change setup... 400 $ mobo and a qx9770... i mean really... whats he supposed to do....


Run 3dmark06 trial version

you should be scoring around 19 - 20 thousand

I get just over 18000 with a 3.85 ghz quad and a 4870

so you should do better than me by a little bit

 

[daskrabbe]

Even with a 1.8ghz dual core you should see significant gains.

Run a real game benchmark and post the results. If there are issues, return it. Trying to fix it when you can just return it is a bad idea imo.

 

[jasobnd]

lol crashman just pointed out the fix your old card only just beats the X2 in 2d mode because your atl tabbing out of the game rather than recording.

if you tested it properly then youd see a gain! if you dont then you need to frisbee it at the guy who sold it you!

 

[aevm]

I hope you guys are right and the card is all right.

Still, I don't like the idea that they opened the box. The OP should ask the retailer about that. They should give him some of the cash back if it's an open box item.