Quick 4870 Question

You could use ATI tray tools, which is really all you need. It has fan stuff, plus profiles for OCing and 3d settings. Not very hard to set up fan settings, there is no XML or anything like that.

I don't know about the bug, as I flashed with a new bios and modded the fan speeds immediately. I suggest you do the same(at least with the fans), it will lower the temps of the card from 70-80 C idle to 45-55 under load.

Well I guess I'm not as technically inclined as some but I have no idea how to go about flashing the BIOS.

What are the risks involved?

The risk is you could mess up the card and you won't have video until you can figure out how to flash it (some have said get onboard video or a pci (old kind) video card.

Really, if you take the time to read the tutorials found around the internets, you shouldn't have any problems.

Thinking about it, you shouldn't even need to flash the card unless you don't want a utility program running and want the card to act a certain way "by default". Programs like rivatuner and ATT can do the same thing with software, at the launch of the 4800 cards, it was the easiest way to fan mod these cards.

Well I was just asking because before I actually bought my rig, the card was idling from 70-80 like you said, and you had to find a fix on google yourself.

But I heard that the new 8.10 drivers, its included in ATI's utility.

is that true?

CCC 8.10 gives you fan controll

improves performance in games


there is hotfix for far cry 2 also. google that

Download the new 8.10 Catalyst. It has a manual fan control. Works fine. Don't bother with Riva now that 8.10 is out.

To answer your question, this is straight from the release notes for the 8.10 drivers: "This release of the ATI software driver version 8.54 introduces the ability for users to control the speed of the GPU fan when running in accelerated graphics."

Short answer, yes now you can control the fan speed from within CCC.

All I saw on the driver (CCC) was a manual fan speed setting, which is OK, but I like the whole temp driven fan speed setup, which I believe you still have to use XML for if you don't use a separate utility. When the fan goes over 70% it gets pretty annoying.

My 4870 idles at 72C at factory fan speeds which I hear is ok because these cards were designed for that.

The new 8.10 Catalyst Control Center does have a nice fan speed controller in the overdrive section where you can manually adjust the speed by the click of a mouse. I keep my the fan on 30% and that drops it down to the 50's at idle and it is quiet. When I game I crank the speed up to 50% and it keeps the card cool playing crysis for hours....like in the 40's-50's.

The noise level at 50% is definitely noticeable but I cant hear it when I'm gaming.

Great card for the money!

I'll add to Blakhart...

I set mine to 28% and it's barely louder than the stock setting. My temp is 46 degrees celcius.

Is it advisable to keep it at one setting?

As in, could I leave the fan setting on at 45%-50%?

I usually have my sound up pretty loud when gaming, and music when not. I'm not huge on having my system uber quiet.

That I don't know. All I can tell you is that at 28% I can play Crysis, Spore, Hellgate London and LOTRO all at 1680x1050 at max settings with no stutter.

At defualt, my temps are 67 to 72 degrees and honestly I haven't noticed any difference with the fan turned up to 28% other than a cooler GPU.

If you are not too concerned with noise, 45% to 50% may work for you. My case fans actually produce more noise than the GPU.

I'm not sure either but I don't see why not. I've left it at that speed accidentely at idle for a day once and it didn't seem to hurt anything. It is kind of loud though.

I've read that if you use a fixed fan speed, the card is still capable of ramping the speed to 100% in the event it gets too hot. This was in a guide for controlling the fan speed with Rivatuner. It appears the cards can protect themselves from thermal damage, so I don't think there is any concern.

Personally, I think it starts to get loud once you reach 40%. For me the sweet spot is 36% in terms of noise and cooling, but I haven't played any games at that speed yet. That's got to be a lot better than the default behavior where it keeps the fan as low as it can and then ramps up to 80% every so often to remove excess heat.

I live where it is warm all year, and I need to have my fan set at 40% or higher to keep the card 55* or less. I have profiles with ATT that automatically reduce the card's clocks to 200/300 and set the fan to 10% when I am only in 2d mode (desktop). It will auto clock/fan to my choice of profiles whenever I start a game (it does it without me touching anything).

You are so lucky - It's so cold here at the moment that I can turn my case fans down!!