New Afterburner with AMD 6800 series voltage support

ares1214

Splendid


Any word on how far they can OC now with Afterburner support? That was one of the things i was waiting for. The other being Custom PCB and custom coolers, as they are re-using the 5xxx PCB and coolers, so customs ones could really help overclocking.
 

Guru3d.com also has a review of the MSI HD6850, which they claim is the first with custom cooling. It looks like the stock numbers are identical to reference, but the cooler is very effective with reducing heat (-10c) but not noise (+1dB).

For overclocking, they mention that:
"We needed to bypass certain limitations though. The Radeon HD 6800 BIOSes are locked. This very 6850 will not go higher then 850 MHz. First up we need to bypass that, in the AfterBurner configuration file set EnableUnofficialOverclocking = 1".

They were able to reach 973mhz with extra voltage, which they called the highest stable OC. That brought the card to +1 fps over the stock 6870 @ only 70c. Just judging by the Afterburner screen capture, it looks like speeds over 1Ghz are supported.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-radeon-6850-review/1
 

ares1214

Splendid


Well thats promising, considering the MSI model isnt even one of the better MSI models. Better MSI models might really be able to push things even more. Kinda disappointed with stock cooling though. Not bad, just leaves a lot of room for improvement.
 

I'm wondering how much role temperature is playing at limiting the maximum OC. At their top OC, Guru3d was measuring just 70c, and couldn't get the speeds any higher. At 70c, it seems like temperature-wise, they should have more room to OC. So I wonder how much a better cooler will help. There must be some other factor besides temperature limiting that OC.
 

ares1214

Splendid


On the 6850, id say limited by just 1 6 pin power connector. On both, but more importantly on the 6870, id say lesser PCB. If MSI or someone release a 6850 with 2 6 pins, a custom PCB, and a custom cooler, im fairly confident you could go another 100 MHz perhaps.