ASUS Radeon HD 5870 Overclocks to 1525 MHz
The ASUS EAH5870 MATRIX Radeon HD 5870 card saw an 70-percent increase in core clock speed.
This forum post over on Xtreme Systems claims that community members Elmor and Kinc managed to overclock an ASUS EAH5870 MATRIX Radeon HD 5870 card (2GB) to a crazy-fast core speed of 1525 MHz (core), making a 70-percent speed jump over the default core speed of 894 MHz (850 MHz for the reference card).
The memory overclock wasn't quite as spectacular, cranked up to 1300 MHz, showing a rather pleasant 8.3-percent increase. The overall process remained quite stable at the 1500 MHz point, proven with the use of 3DMark Vantage and scoring P29342 points at the performance reset.
The duo kept the overclocked card cool by using liquid-nitrogen evaporators. The bench also featured an Intel Core i7 980X Extreme Edition six-core processor clocked at 4492.9 MHz, an ASUS Rampage III Extreme motherboard, 6GB of Corsair Dominator GTX DDR3 memory, and an Antec 1200W power supply.
The forum post displays all the validating credentials such as the bench, 3DMark Vantage screens, and CPU-Z screens. "Around 1525-1550/1325-1350 should be possible with more time on this one," the post claimed.
I thought I smelled something......
The problem is that there is much more material between the heat and 'gone'. Think of this passive heatsink as a broad river with almost no slope, the active as a narrower one with more slope and a shorter distance. The second will get rid of its water (heat) faster than the first.
If a large passive block wouldn't work (sorry stupid idea), could you have a ducted series of thin fins extend from the processor and have a dedicated 120 mm or so fan blow over them to the outside? with the greater surface area and a powerful fan I would think more heat could be removed.
Questioned about the possible cause, one nVidia employer stated that "It all happened very fast. One moment we were trying to push our cards to the limit, then suddenly everything was filled with flames."
The nVidia president said that such an accident was expected.
Maybe in an antec skeleton or Xclio Wind-tunnel with all the fans cranked.... or if you put your case outside in the winter- that might work too.
For normal users they r not gonna use LN2, so overclocking wise it will not go much higher than others due to heat constraints.