PowerColor HD3870 'PCS'

KuniD · Post by **KuniD** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:29 am

I've got a new Plasma on the way, so I thought I'd take the dive and order a new graphics card to off load all HD processing.

Went for the cheapest 3870 I could find in the UK which turned out to be a PowerColor HD3870 'PCS', which means it comes with a replacement cooler, looking very similar to a Zalman VF900

Thought it was a nice bonus getting that cooler over the stock until I found out the fan is set to 100% all the time

I'd like to get an Accelero S1, although I'm currently using an Antec Fusion so thats out the question until I upgrade (to hopefully the Fusion Max).

Anyone else have the PowerColor? Have you figured out how to turn the fan down ? Am I better off just getting a FanMate and manually turning it down?

discdude · Post by **discdude** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:14 am

If the fan is attached to the built-in header, you can use the ATI Tray Tools to adjust the fan speed. Check out the "Overclocking Settings".

http://www.guru3d.com/article/atitraytools/189/

Ironically, I use it to turn the fan on all the time since my fan clicks at lower voltages.

A Fanmate would work also.

Kaleid · Post by **Kaleid** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:01 pm

I think that cooler may be good enough for a fan replacement. Unscrew the attached fan and use a low rpm 120mm fan instead.

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 10:12 am

KuniD wrote:I've got a new Plasma on the way, so I thought I'd take the dive and order a new graphics card to off load all HD processing. Went for the cheapest 3870 I could find in the UK which turned out to be a PowerColor HD3870 'PCS', which means it comes with a replacement cooler, looking very similar to a Zalman VF900

A 2600 Pro or XT would have been fine for HD decoding duties. They also have the advantage of being readily available with passive cooling.

KuniD wrote:Thought it was a nice bonus getting that cooler over the stock until I found out the fan is set to 100% all the time

PowerColor have become my least favourite VGA board maker as they are too lazy to implement basic features such as under-clocking the GPU and RAM at idle and in this case lowering the fan speed. This is one company I will not even consider at the moment unless I read that they have rectified their slackness.

discdude wrote:A Fanmate would work also.

Iâ€™m used to VGA fan headers as being too small to work with a Fan Mate; have they changed to a larger format these days?

KuniD · Post by **KuniD** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 4:42 am

smilingcrow wrote:A 2600 Pro or XT would have been fine for HD decoding duties. They also have the advantage of being readily available with passive cooling.

I also want to play games at 1920x1080 so I'll need the extra power. I'm actually planning on getting another to run them in Crossfire.

As far as passive cooling goes, I'm planning a dual Accelero S1 setup, but they won't fit in my Antec Fusion, so I'm waiting for the Fusion Max before I decide how to proceed.

PowerColor have become my least favourite VGA board maker as they are too lazy to implement basic features such as under-clocking the GPU and RAM at idle and in this case lowering the fan speed. This is one company I will not even consider at the moment unless I read that they have rectified their slackness.

As this is essentially an overclocked reference ATI design surely it'll have these features as the reference does?

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 5:16 am

KuniD wrote:As this is essentially an overclocked reference ATI design surely it'll have these features as the reference does?

The other two features that they didnâ€™t implement are also part of the reference design AFAIK so I wouldnâ€™t assume anything with PowerColor.

quikkie · Post by **quikkie** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 7:59 am

I too have this card.

I installed atitray, I've configured it to vary the speed with temperature. I can see that atitray is wanting to change the speed of the fan (the number in the "duty cycle" box is going up and down) but no variation in fan speed actually happens - fan speed is permanently on "too fkn loud", from power on the fan noise is constant.
I haven't checked the power usage at idle but would be very disappointed if this wasn't implemented - is that a video BIOS thing or driver thing?

The fan header is smaller than the standard size found on mainboards.

I'm in the process of fanmating my gfx card.

KuniD · Post by **KuniD** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 8:53 am

Hi quikkie, let us know how you get on with fanmating your card!

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:31 am

quikkie wrote:I haven't checked the power usage at idle but would be very disappointed if this wasn't implemented - is that a video BIOS thing or driver thing?

I assume itâ€™s a BIOS feature as they all use the same ATI drivers.

KuniD · Post by **KuniD** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:54 am

Installed the card. Great performance but boy is it loud! Rather stupid of them not to make it temp related. Fanmate mod coming up me thinks.

quikkie · Post by **quikkie** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:17 am

fanmating was easy enough, the hard parts were (i) finding where I stashed my solder and (ii) deciding which other fan to cannabalize for the connector - I recently had a clear out

snipped off the existing connector and soldered the wires from the new connector on to the fan, connected fanmate to fan as per usual.
Now I'm playing with speeds to see what I can get away with which is quite difficult when I get sucked into playing Crysis and forget about gfx temps

I don't yet want to play with 3rd party cooling just yet, but may end up doing that.

LaaG · Post by **LaaG** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:56 am

I was also unhappy with the cooling and the noise it made

So I decided to take some action. Heres what I did:

Disconnected the ZeroTherm fan from the card.
Got some Zip Ties and mounted a silent 120mm fan.
Vola! Silent and effective cooling. I've found this actually cools better then the Zerotherm fan as it blows air to the VRAM and not just sideways.
Idles at 39*c and 53*c at load.

A totaly reversible mod incase you need to send it back for RMA.

LaaG · Post by **LaaG** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:57 am

Here are some pictures, sorry for quality, phone cam

Calleh · Post by **Calleh** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:00 am

Anyone know whats the diemension is on the fan? I'm wondering because I am about to order this graphiccard then exchanging the fan

Can't strap on a 120mm fan because it's using too many PCI spots.

LaaG · Post by **LaaG** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:45 am

70mm diameter.
http://www.zerotherm.net/eng/product/GX810.asp

Calleh · Post by **Calleh** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 12:36 pm

Sure that it is a Zerotherm cooler, so it's not just a cooler that looks like one?

LaaG · Post by **LaaG** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 4:09 pm

It's the exact one, minus the LEDs and minus the Temp. Sensor (which is why its spinning 100% all the time)
http://www.powercolor.com/Global/produc ... uctID=1632
Look at the banner on the left of the PowerColor site, you can just about catch the word "Optimized by ZeroTherm"

Just to make sure, I measured it myself and the fan was 68mm.

Calleh · Post by **Calleh** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:20 pm

Okey

Good to know, gotta buy a controller then

Like I said before, can't afford offering like 3 PCI-slots.

Can you read the temp anyway without the sensor? Like using the inbuilt in the GPU or something like that?
And also, is there any heatsinks on the memory?

LaaG · Post by **LaaG** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:52 am

the heatsink on the memory is crude, just a slab of flat alluminium.
temperature can still be read using ATI CCC.

you're probably better off buying a 512mb 8800GT since price differences are very small now.

Calleh · Post by **Calleh** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:24 am

Okey, nice.

Nah, I'm hoping this card will function well with a new one, Crossfire

PowerColor HD3870 'PCS'

PowerColor HD3870 'PCS'

No need to buy another cooler :)