HD 5870 worth running...

Stef
Stef
Joined: 8 Mar 05
Posts: 206
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It's already 5 years ago,

It's already 5 years ago, when AMD bought ATI. Guess there aren't many ATI cards around anymore.

tullio
tullio
Joined: 22 Jan 05
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I have a HP Pavilion

I have a HP Pavilion 500-152ea with both onboard Radeon graphics 8670D Devastator and a AMD graphic board Radeon HD 8470. Incidentally, the graphic arm of AMD, formerly ATI, has just been named Radeon. The funny thing is that while SETI@home sees both devices, as I see in stderr.txt, Einstein@home sees only the onboard graphics and tasks are very slow.
Tullio

Chris S
Chris S
Joined: 27 Aug 05
Posts: 2469
Credit: 19550265
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RE: I'm afraid I'm an ATI

Quote:
I'm afraid I'm an ATI man, I have no knowledge of AMD stuff,


My profuse apologies, of course I meant Nvidia cards!!!

Ooops :-)

Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)

Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now

Aedazan
Aedazan
Joined: 10 Jul 11
Posts: 4
Credit: 23859424
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I have my 5870s running at

I have my 5870s running at 360MHz core and 800MHz vram. Thats 50% of stock core and 80% of stock vram clock speeds. Somehow it still manages to get the work units done with only a small increase in total WU time. It makes the machine MUCH cooler too (I run the fans at 40%), evidently something else other than the core speed is the reason, I always figured it was the memory controller or the rate at which it could execute the SIMD instructions.

Chris S
Chris S
Joined: 27 Aug 05
Posts: 2469
Credit: 19550265
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But you are running 4 cards

But you are running 4 cards in one m/c, I'm only running 1 card per m/c and 5850's :-))

But it is interesting that you drop the core and up the memory .....

Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)

Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now

Aedazan
Aedazan
Joined: 10 Jul 11
Posts: 4
Credit: 23859424
RAC: 0

The 5850 and 5870 are almost

The 5850 and 5870 are almost identical chips. They are exactly the same until the final step of the process in which a laser is used to cut parts of the 5870 core to make it into a 5850 core :)

Chris S
Chris S
Joined: 27 Aug 05
Posts: 2469
Credit: 19550265
RAC: 0

Good Lord above! That is

Good Lord above! That is going back to the days when there used to be 80486SX and 80486DX chips. They all went down the same production line until a link was cut to disable the co-processor. It was the same as 3-1/2" floppy disks, those that formatted reliably to 1.44Mb were marked HD, those that didn't were marked as 720Kb.

So they still do that shenanigans then?

HD5850 $207 (1440 shaders)
HD5870 $235 (1600 shaders)

Would make more commercial sense to flog the 5870 at $220 ??

Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)

Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now

Aedazan
Aedazan
Joined: 10 Jul 11
Posts: 4
Credit: 23859424
RAC: 0

Yeah binning is still quite

Yeah binning is still quite common for CPUs and GPUs. Some early release 5850s apparently did not get cut and only got the modified firmware. It is possible to flash those ones to 5870s. That said it was generally done for a good reason like excessive heat production or a high error rate.

Chris S
Chris S
Joined: 27 Aug 05
Posts: 2469
Credit: 19550265
RAC: 0

Interesting info, thanks very

Interesting info, thanks very much. The best cards to get are the special factory overclocked ones that are pre-tested at high throughput, but of course they are at a premium price as you would expect.

I think it is all relative really. Desktop/tower pc's and medium range cards are not designed for a 24/7 lifecycle, whereas Servers and top of the range cards are. If you are a typical cruncher and use day to day kit 24/7 then the designed in MTBF figure plummets drastically, necessitating regular replacements. Plus of course that upgrading the CPU and the card in a machine will also require an upgraded PSU, and good ones aren't cheap.

I've gone the cheaper route and got basic desktops, added a midrange card and PSU, and replaced as required. In 7 years I've only lost 1 PSU and 2 cards running 24/7. It's costed in for me as an affordable hobby, to go to the next stage would be a new ball game. The 5850's are old hat by todays standards but can get you a respectable RAC nevertheless.

Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)

Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now

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