Dont understand...hd4850 10w idle @ 68c

They make noise, too.

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Tzupy
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Post by Tzupy » Sun Oct 12, 2008 7:18 am

I believe that I have an explanation for the lower power draw of the HIS HD4850 ICEQ4 card.
Besides the use of the full 4 phases voltage regulation for the GPU (some 4850s may use only 3 phases, resulting in increased power draw at load),
the cooling of the inductors and the MOSFETs is better than on other 4850s, which IMO results in better conversion efficiency.
The rather large heatsink covering the GPU VRMs gets airflow from the BACK of the blower fan, picture from the techpowerup review:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/ ... ooler2.jpg (notice the radial intake vents).
The memory inductor and two MOSFETs are still not covered with any heatsink (maybe they don't need it, but I doubt that).
Another image where you can see the back vents and the VRM heatsink: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/ ... /power.jpg

K.Bec
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Post by K.Bec » Fri Nov 28, 2008 4:17 am

So we know, that PowerPlay in HD4850 and 4870 is not working at all, and this has nothing or close to nothing with GPU voltages. I personally believe that AMD has problem with clock gating. Look: a ~500 mln transistor count RV730 (HD4670) can idle with 3W, I am sure that a ~1000 mln transistors in RV770 core can slide to a 6-10W range easily

We know also that in HD4830 PowerPlay works, but not as expected (or rather as AMD wanted us to believe - sub 10W idle range).

Since HD4850 and HD4830 are nearly identical (only diffrence lies in BIOSes) can anyone try to flash a reference HD4850 with a HD4830 BIOS? This probably could tell us once for all is PowerPlay malfunctioning due BIOS error (less likely) or hardware issues (most likely - e.g. newer revision of the RV770 core).

I have a non-reference HD4850 (gigabyte oc 1GB version), so I can't do it with myself.

It drives me crazy thinking why the heck AMD did something wrong with this generation of their cards :(

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Fri Nov 28, 2008 11:54 am

Have you tried that BIOS I posted the link to earlier? On my 4870 it goes to sub 10W levels at idle.

K.Bec
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Post by K.Bec » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:01 am

I can't use the BIOS from HD4870, but I can juggle with clocks or voltages.


I am using Thermalright HR-03GT cooler with a 120x120x25 mm fan (constant 1000 rpm), and I'm stuck with 37-38 celsius on my GPU no matter what clock\voltage I set.

I don't have a kill-a-watt like device, but since my card is cooled by a decent cooler with a constant rpm fan, I guess temps indicates power consumption quite well.

I can go as low as 100/100 with my clocks without any artifacts on the screen, and I can use any voltage in my BIOS voltage table (by using Ati Tray Tools or Radeon Bios Editor and BIOS flash), yet the GPU responds only with MEMIO temp. It varies from 45 celsius when I set a voltage of 1,158V (max in table) to 42 celsius when I choose 1,006V. Any lower and the MEMIO temp immediately returns to a 45-46 celsius range.

As I said the temperature of GPU ('DISPIO', 'SHADERCORE' and 'GPU temperature') stays on the same level ragardless of the GPU clock or the voltage.

Have you any thoughts about this?

Dr Prozac
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Post by Dr Prozac » Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:30 am

Hi,

I've been working with my PowerColor HD4850 PCS+ idle clocks & voltages today. It was well worth the time (probably no more than an hour :) ).

Original settings:
2D: 500/750 @ 1046 mV (core/memory)
LP3D: 500/750 @ 1046 mV
3D: 665/993 @ 1123 mV

Current settings:
2D: 250/500 @ 1006 mV (I'll try to decrease the voltage further)
LP3D: 500/750 @ 1046 mV
3D: 665/993 @ 1123 mV

I'm using CCC profiles. I was unable to set core frequency lower than 250 - it resets itself to 500. But I doubt that it would make a big difference. ATT hangs up with high (20-50%) CPU usage - I'll try to deal with this tomorrow.

Idle temps dropped by almost 10 * centigrade. Unfortunately I'm unable to measure power draw but it is noticeable lower - I can see 20-50 rpm decrease in fan speed reported by my Enermax ;) Zerotherm cooler dumps all the heat inside the case, so this improvement can also be caused by lower case temperatures, not only lower power drain. Also, my passively cooled CPU's temperature is about one degree lower.

The only thing that bothers me is the way how my card handles power states. When there's some action (like minimizing windows with non-static graphics) it switches to performance 3D setting. It does this from time to time, event when GPU load is constantly 0%.
Even better, when I watch something (like The Simpsons, Family guy :) ) it works in performance 3D all the time, regardless of the movie being watched in full screen mode or not.
Low power 3D almost never works. If it does appear, it only last for a fraction of second.
So if my computer isn't in full idle the card switches form lowest to the highest (for a second or two) setting quite frequently. It should use the low performance 3D setting when I watch movies or do some other tasks with mild need for GPU power.

I'm using GPU-Z - it's possible that it causes some of that annoying switching to performance 3D but it's just a guess.

About the card : it's quiet in idle as reported on TechPowerUp!, but unfortunately it suffers form coil whine when stressed.


@K.Bec : your temperature sensors may be broken or stuck .

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:03 pm

Dr Prozac wrote:I've been working with my PowerColor HD4850 PCS+ idle clocks & voltages today. It was well worth the time (probably no more than an hour :) ).
When your card changes modes, does the screen flicker at all?

On the 4870s any change of the memory clock causes the screen to flicker, and I thought the 4850 was the same. Yours might have a newer BIOS though, so maybe they fixed that.

My card never changes the memory frequency because the flicker is too annoying and constant.

Dr Prozac
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Post by Dr Prozac » Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:29 pm

No, it does not. AFAIK HD4870 has that flickering problem because it has GDDR5. But that's just speculation.

I have an update. Low power 3D does work. At least now ;) Before applying my new CCC profile when playing LFS my card was using its 2D/ LP3D settings (they were identical), jumping constantly to performance 3D. GPU wasn't really stressed, but there was an noticeable pulsating buzz (probably caused by frequency fluctuation).
Now I can tell that the GPU is using its low power 3D setting which remained unchanged. No jumping to performance 3D (nor 2D), more important no buzzing!
FPS remained the same.

Also, there was some other less annoying noise during scrolling pages with graphics. Now it's gone.

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:16 pm

Dr Prozac wrote:No, it does not. AFAIK HD4870 has that flickering problem because it has GDDR5. But that's just speculation.
Ah yes, that does seem to ring a bell. There was talk of a GDDR3/4 version, in the end I think every manufacturer just stuck with GDDR5.
Also, there was some other less annoying noise during scrolling pages with graphics. Now it's gone.
My 4870 buzzes a little bit when I scroll web pages. It's very subtle but it's there. I have to listen hard to notice it.

The 4870 isn't the only card that does that though. I remember similar things way back when I had a Picasso IV in my Amiga. It had a massive 4MB RAM and a Cirrus Logic chip.

Dr Prozac
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Post by Dr Prozac » Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:49 pm

MoJo wrote:
Also, there was some other less annoying noise during scrolling pages with graphics. Now it's gone.
My 4870 buzzes a little bit when I scroll web pages. It's very subtle but it's there. I have to listen hard to notice it.

The 4870 isn't the only card that does that though. I remember similar things way back when I had a Picasso IV in my Amiga. It had a massive 4MB RAM and a Cirrus Logic chip.
Yes, that scrolling thing wasn't really annoying.
My old GeForce 3 also had this problem, but it was louder.
Had a 4 MB VRAM card in my PC powered by Pentium MMX in mid 90s but I think it was silent :D I didn't care back then to be honest ;)

Coil whine is still present (as expected because I didn't change performance 3D settings). Tomorrow I'll check if factory overclocking has impact on that matter.

Edit:
250 MHz is the minimum core frequency setting for my card. 375 MHz for memory, but I'll stick with 500 MHz minimum for now. Voltages Min 0,892v - Max 1,158v according to ATT.
No bigger difference after lowering 2D core voltage from 1.006 to 0.968

Edit2:
About LFS: it's there's no difference in FPS between overclocked 3d setting (665/993 @ 1.123V) and underclocked 2D (250/500 @ 0.968 V). So I have no idea why my card should stay in LP3D mode while playing this game nor why did it constantly switch to performance 3D mode before any changes were made.
Maybe I'll try using ATT and its 2D/3D profile switching. Is it good?

Edit3:
Now that's just stupid. Watching any movie forces the GPU to its default performance 3D setting - regardless of the software used. Even setting all three states to the same low frequency doesn't help. I can play OpenGL based LFS with these low frequencies, but watch a movie? No.
Any ideas?

SpeedEuphoria
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Post by SpeedEuphoria » Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:13 pm

Hey same here. I have an ASUS TOP 4850, just got it yesterday and have been flashing/adjusting things all day.

I also have this issue where my GPU clocks and mem speeds ramp up to 3D speeds even when I have all the tables set to lower settings. Only stays at the low settings if I'm idle or basic stuff. Very strange!!

For me 600Mhz is the lowest I can go on the memory as just below that I have issues even just sitting at the desktop. But I can and have flashed down to 160Mhz on the GPU w/o issue. I also have done this on lower voltage in RBE.

I'm very confused as to how and why this card reacts the way it does.

EDIT:
SOLVED!!

I flashed back to stock and using ATI tray as it locks idle in and can adjust the voltage. I just switch to max when I game or bench anyway so this works best. It stayed put at 250/600 playing a movie instead of jumping all around to diff speeds.

Also tested this on my rig w/ a Kill A Watt meter. All used fixed 40% fan speed.

3D clocks ...........680/1050 @1.082v= 129w at idle.. ......Temps=48/57/55
Stock Low power.500/1050 @1.046v=125.5w at idle Temps= 46.5/54/53.5
New Low Power....250/600 @.892v =111w at idle ........ Temps= 42/47/49

So savings of 14-15w at idle!!! and 6deg C 10deg C on mem

So hooray for ATT!!(ATI tray tool). Forget bios flashing as this can do everything that RBE and bios flashing can do and with more control.

This is an old 939 rig since my Gigabyte UD3P is coming back from RMA, hope to see some power savings when I get it back with the E8400 and low power settings([email protected])

BTW this is a nice clocking card as so far 750/1100 was easy on stock volts but it gets HOT!!

I believe the Accelero S1 rev2 is in my future and hopefully it can get by with an indirect fan that I want to add on my harddrives

Dr Prozac
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Post by Dr Prozac » Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:31 am

Hi,

ATT is a good thing, despite the fact is's a little buggy.

My current 2D setting is 200/500 @ 0.930 V It's stable under ATT built in stability test and LFS. No bigger difference in temperatures compared to 250 / 500 @ 0.968 V.
At 0.892 V as well as after lowering memory clock to 475 MHz my card gets unstable. Is your stable at such low voltage when running ATT's stability tester?

Have you tried running Furmark (with its exe file renamed)?

BTW I've lowered 3D voltage from 1.123 to 1.086. Stable.

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Sun Jan 18, 2009 8:18 am

I found that if you lower both the memory and core voltage a 4870 card becomes unstable when playing 720p or 1080p WMVs. MP4 is fine, just WMVs.

With the current modified BIOS which only lowers core speed and voltage, it's fine.

SpeedEuphoria
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Post by SpeedEuphoria » Sun Jan 18, 2009 6:18 pm

Dr Prozac wrote:Is your stable at such low voltage when running ATT's stability tester?

Have you tried running Furmark (with its exe file renamed)?
Yes mine is stable at 250/600 with the lowest voltage in ATT(.892v), I just ran furmark on it at those settings as well as the ATT stability tester.

I just tried lowering the clocks and can go to 216Mhz with .892V then I get artifacts with any lower in ATT. If I raise the voltage to .968v then I can go lower to 175Mhz before getting Artifacts in ATT.

Just sucks that 593.75Mhz is the lowest I can set my memory w/o issues, I tried different voltages at this setting and didnt help(core voltage shouldnt matter anyway). I get artifacts at 590.63 on the mem


So far raising to 365Mhz with the same .892v I get the same 111w idle power consumption and temps remain the same. It is also stable in Furmark, any higher and I get articfacts w/o adding more voltage. So this is my current low power state(365/600)

Dr Prozac
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Post by Dr Prozac » Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:51 pm

Could you measure the difference in power draw between 0.930 and 0.892 V? ;)
Ok, my card is stable at 0.910 V. I'll try to tweak it more tomorrow.

Edit:
Now that's just odd. It became stable at 0.892 V after increasing core clock to 250 MHz...

SpeedEuphoria
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Post by SpeedEuphoria » Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:40 am

Dr Prozac wrote:Edit:
Now that's just odd. It became stable at 0.892 V after increasing core clock to 250 MHz...
Thats how mine is also, I cannot go below 216, but if I raise the voltage I can go all the way down to 150(lowest I tested).

As far as the power consumption, there is no measurable difference going from .892v to 1.0006v.

Basically just like the person w/ the 4870.

So for me idle:
216/600 @.892v= 111W
500/600 @1.006v= 111W

On mine the fan is quiet even on 100%(yes it does change), so I turned all my case fans off and leave the card at 100%fan(the fan on the card has no measurable power draw), my CPu is very cool also and I cannot turn the fan off, so thats spinning at 10%

I have chosen to stay with the .892v and clock up as high as its stable which is 360Mhz, as under load like watching a movie or basic thing the higher clock/voltage setting used more power while still barely doing anything.

I tried my 3D set to 1.086 as well, but had issues in games(ATT has 0 artifacts) but i get VPU recovery in games. I'm pretty sure this is because my card is OC'd to 680/1050 already. But I can run 660/1050 at 1.086v w/o issues

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