Graphics card bios overclocking ( 3870x2 )

[dragoonk]

Hi!

I am having trouble overclocking my Sapphire HD3870x2. I know it's an old card but I can't afford a new one right now... or the recent future. I have heard people overclocking their 3870x2 alot better than I can (at all).
For now I can still play the latest games with it, not on the highest of details I admit, but untill I can afford a better one, it's all I have.
I tried overclocking with MSI afterburner, but it seems that it just doesn't like clocks higher than 850 MHz on the GPU. I tried Bios overclocking it and increasing the voltages with a utility called RBE, but after doing that the card becomes unstable even at sock frequencies. Once my whole rig would just shut down out of the blue, which let me to belive it might be a PSU issue. Sometimes the screen just goes black and the card's fan goes to 100% and just stays like that. And sometimes, but this happens only with 3dmark Vantage, I get a Video TDR FAILURE blue screen error. If you gues have some advice or knowledge about this issue, please let me know.

 

[FTLN]

What PSU are you using ?

 

[dragoonk]

I am using an Inter-Tech SL700 700W... I know, you probably never heard of it. It has 2 rails, 12 Volts, 25 Amps each, 500W on the 12 volts side. I got this one after I returned an Inter-Tech Energon, quad rail, 18 amps each... 550W that one was getting loud,,hot and was making funny noises, my computer was crashing under load... this one barely twitches, so I would exclude it on the "not enough power delivery" .

Full system:

Mobo: MSI 769GM-E51 (FX)
CPU: AMD Athlon II x3 450 Rana @ 3,93GHz, 1,56 V
HDD: 1xExcelstor 160 Gb
GFX: 3870x2
RAM: 2x2Gb Kingston HyperX Blu 1600 MHZ 1,65 V

 

[dragoonk]

This is the manufacturer's website page for this PSU
http://www.inter-tech.de/index.php?...700&catid=49:atx-netzteile&Itemid=166&lang=de

 

[dragoonk]

Update.

The VIDEO TDR FAILURE was happening only in windows 8. Switching back to windows 7 it never happend since. So I am guessing that it was either 3dmark vantage's compatibility with windows 8 , or the stupid legacy drivers for windows 8. As you might know, AMD stopped supporting legacy graphic cards ( HD2000, HD3000, HD4000 series cards ).

On the other side, it crashes in furmark, especially in the older furmark version mode and i have a feeling that it's not a hardware related issue. The card seems stable in 3dmark vantage and games like crysis 2, far cry 3, battlefield 3. I played for hours without issues. Will try to push it more.
Clock speeds: 918/981 @1.33V

 

[Ov3erclock3R]

Update.

The VIDEO TDR FAILURE was happening only in windows 8. Switching back to windows 7 it never happend since. So I am guessing that it was either 3dmark vantage's compatibility with windows 8 , or the stupid legacy drivers for windows 8. As you might know, AMD stopped supporting legacy graphic cards ( HD2000, HD3000, HD4000 series cards ).

On the other side, it crashes in furmark, especially in the older furmark version mode and i have a feeling that it's not a hardware related issue. The card seems stable in 3dmark vantage and games like crysis 2, far cry 3, battlefield 3. I played for hours without issues. Will try to push it more.
Clock speeds: 918/981 @1.33V

If that was me personally i wouldn't worry about the furmark result! if your not getting any problems in games i would say your good, you could always try burn-in test aswell.

 

[dragoonk]

I stopped caring and also stopped using Furmark. The real benchmarks are the games, playing as many as I can as we all know an OC may work beautifully with a game but not with all of them. I even had numerous passes with 3dmark vantage which is a very very intense stability test and it passed ( I mean I ran it over and over till I got bored of doing so ) and the second I start Battlefield 3 it crashes. So now I belive benchmarks are useless. You need applications... that use all the components of the graphics card not programs that tests the maximum power draw ( Furmark - Some call it a virus ). Maybe I approached this OC differently. Shoulda went with finding the most stable GPU clock and then starting with the memory. But, we all learn...