5870 overclocking problem

[Joeses]

Hello,
Today I overclocked my Powercolor 5870 pcs+ to 960/1235, the normal clocks for the card are 875/1225, which is a factory oc.

After my overclock I decided to run a benchmark to see if there was any difference, I went for the dirt 2 benchmark and ran it. TO my surprise the average and minimum fps were almost exactly the same, they didn't even differ by 1 fps.

With a core overclock at nearly 100Mhz, shouldn't I be seeing at least a 3-5fps gain? I'm new to overclocking though, so I'm not sure. Any suggestions to what could be causing this, bottleneck maybe? Or does the memory oc need to be higher in order to see gains?

 

[Joeses]

At 1920x1080 16:9

 

[Joeses]

Catalyst version 10.4

Amd Phenom II 945 x4 @ Stock 3.0GHz
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 Socket
Crucial DDR3 1333MHz 4GB
Corsair Powersupply 650W
Powercolor 5870 pcs+
Western Digital Caviar 1TB

 

[Joeses]

What is FSB and what does it do?

 

[Joeses]

Ok, but my processor has a locked processor multiplier, does that make a difference? Can I raise it anyways?

 

[Joeses]

Alright I'll check it out, hope I can locate it..

 

[Joeses]

Hmm, I didn't manage to find where you set the FSB.. I went in to the tweaking thingy where all the cpu clocks and stuff are, but I didn't find anything there saying FSB, I did see something saying 200MHz though, but it wasn't possible to change the value, is that the FSB?

 

[Joeses]

Okay, I ran the benchmark again, 2 times to be sure, and it seems that my fps has increased by about 4 frames per second. I'd also like to mention that I lowered the memory back to 1225 again because of a freeze in another game, but I've heard that memory doesn't really matter much if you want more fps in games, it's core that matters the most, correct?

Is a 4 fps gain normal for my overclock or should I still be getting more?
Thanks for the help

 

[Joeses]

Great! I'm quite tired at the moment, so I'll have to continue tomorrow. It's after midnight here in Sweden.

Thanks alot for the help!
Joe

 

[avatar_raq]

@op:
Are you sure you disabled vertical synchronization? Check it out in the in-game graphics options and make sure it isn't forced on by CCC or D3D overrider (the latter comes with Rivatuner)..If V sync is on, your FPS will be locked @ your screen's refresh rate (60hz in most cases).
Another point: DiRT2 already runs fine @ stock clocks, may I suggest using another game (e.g Metro2033 or even the good ol' Crysis) or a synthetic like3D mark Vantage or Furmark to measure the performance you gain from OCing?

 

[Joeses]

Yes, vertical sync was off and I guess it isn't forced on by any program, since I got 60+ fps in the bench. I know dirt 2 runs well, but I chose it because it starts up so quick and I dont have Metro 2033. I will try other benchmarks soon though!

 

[Joeses]

When I updated drivers and restarted my clocks were back at the default factory oc, is that normal? And I did not find HT Link width in the bios, but HT Link frequency was there and I could set it at everything from 0,2GHz to 2GHz. What should I set it at?

 

[Joeses]

I ran the benchmark again just to check with clocks at 960/1235, even though another game froze with those clocks yesterday and to my surprise the fps had gone up by almost 20, 18 to be exact. I still haven't touched the ht link width or frequency though.
I would like to mention aswell that the card is idling at clocks 400/1235, that's not too good right? It should be much lower I belive.

 

[avatar_raq]

The idle clocks will remain high and won't revert to 157/300mhz as long as you overclock, I believe it's a known issue in CCC 10.5 and 10.6. CatalystMaker -@ twitter-says it's intentional, to aid multi GFX OCing, don't ask me how and why though, nobody knows !!
Having crashes in games means your OC isn't stable, you may want to raise the GPU voltage a little if your card allows it. You can use MSI afterburner to get the job done. Otherwie step your OC down a little.

 

[Joeses]

Nevermind that last post, it seems that the big fps gain was because of the drivers or something else, because I ran the bench with default clocks and there was a 15~ fps gain, so I'm still stuck on the same overclock gain as before. Now I need help changing that ht link frequency...

 

[Joeses]

Alright, I'm going away for a day now though.

 

[avatar_raq]

Similar problem faced this guy when he crossfired the 5870 :
http://www.overclockers.com/gigabyte-radeon-hd-5870-soc-super-overclock-review/
So make sure your clocks arn't reverting to default in benchmarks. Use MSI afterburner fo OCing and Monitoring the clocks and GPU usage..If the GPU usage doesn't hit 99% in benchmarks, then you do have a CPU/System bottleneck.

 

[Joeses]

I do not belive they are reverting to default since then I wouldn't see any difference in fps at all, but could there be a bottleneck just because I'm running at stock voltages, and I might need more to give the card extra power to handle the oc well?

 

[avatar_raq]

No, extra voltage gives stability and not performance, higher clocks gives performance! I believe you might have a CPU bottleneck..As I told you before use MSI Afterburner (built upon the famous Rivatuner), it's an excellent utility!