ATI Rad 5870M Overclocking help

Right, so I know there is a Vbios made by a person named Chasity that unlocks overdrive feature for this card, I just don't know where to get it. Would someone be kind enough to provide a link, or to tell me another way to OC my GPU?

 

Just use MSI Afterburner, but go slow and watch your temps.

 

Doesn't work, says that I'm already at the max limits when they are actually just the normal limits.

 

Have you done this yet?
HOW TO: Enable UNOFFICIAL overclocking mode in MSI AfterBurner - Guru3D.com Forums

The 5870M overclocks very well, I managed to beat 10k in 3dMark Vantage with my old GX740 (now R.I.P) loaded with oc'ed i7 840QM.

 

Nice man! Anyway, it worked like a charm, OC'd it and now I'm running my games with a much smoother frame-rate! With an OC'd GFX card and an OC'd i7 840QM, I can play Skyrim on ultra with one notch down on the resolution (1280 x 720 instead of 1600 x 900) and get a decent frame rate. The hard limit for my OC seems to be at 835 MHz though, anything higher and my comp will lock up. My temps are good as well, idle it's at 62 C.

Anyway, I've only had one issue: I can't even touch the memory clock. When I try to change it to a different value, I get horrible screen tearing issues, which forces me to lower it back down. Not sure if the memory clock is that important, but whatever, just thought I'd mention it.

 

Which laptop are you using? Alienware, ASUS, etc? I was able to run Skyrim at ultra settings 1440x900 with AA and AF at 2, all at constant 40fps+ on my M17X with a single 5870M.

 

I was less than impressed with the Mobility 5870 back when I had an ASUS G73JH, which was my first-ever foray into gaming notebooks. It was already struggling to play games that came out a year later, e.g. BF3. The card wasn't a great overclocker, but mine was probably a dud. The ASUS cards were voltage-locked and I could barely manage +100 MHz core/+100 MHz memory at stock volts on mine. It also ran pretty hot (mid-80's while gaming) despite repaste and the G73's beastly cooling system. It didn't help matters either that I had a proper 5870 in my desktop at the time, which absolutely blew it away in terms of performance. Imagine my shock when I discovered that the mobile version of the 5870 was less than half as powerful as its desktop brethren. If I recall correctly, the 5870M was even weaker than the desktop 5770. Oh well. You live and learn and that was my first gaming notebook.

 

I have an Asus g73jh, and yeah, the 5870 is I remember correct is very weak, compared to the newer models. I wish I could get a new comp, but this'll have to do for now.

 

The Mobility 5870 came out January 2010. BF3 came out November 2011 which is a little under 2 years from the GPUs release date. The 5870 beat its green flagship competitor at the time, the 285m (which was released a month later) in almost all games across the board. I think it is a bit unfair to call it weak. Heck, it went head to head with the 480m (which was released over a year later) and came out the victor on a few occasions.

You have to remember that BF3 on ultra could not run even on a 580m.

 

Right, but you have to remember that the ASUS G73JH didn't come out until a few months after the Mobility 5870 was initially released, and my specific SKU, the BST7 model, was released in November '10. I wasn't expecting miracles, but having to bump BF3 down to 720p Low in order to maintain 60 FPS in multiplayer on my overclocked 5870M wasn't a pleasant experience when I could get the same or better performance at 1080p High/Ultra on a real desktop 5870. At least it taught me some valuable lessons about the relative merits of gaming notebooks and about managing expectations for the future.

 

If you consider only 60 fps playable, how do you game on your Lenovo? What games do you get 60 fps at 1080p?

 

Nearly all of them. It's more than twice as fast as the G73JH.

Of course, in some titles I have to adjust settings accordingly (lower settings from Ultra to High, lower/disable AA or use FXAA) but every single game I have averages 60 FPS or more at 1080p with the exception of PlanetSide 2, which runs like crap no matter what because of how poorly optimized it is.

 

For 5870m the best way to ov/oc:
Radeon Bios Editor

 

I had a G73JH and the best combination of clocks for me when I oced was 800/1100.... 850/1150 works but too hot IMO... i used to be able to play BF4 on high except for Gulien Peaks... I eventually just got an M17x R4 instead and I'm destroying it on ultra ... I used Chasity's vBIOS and AMD Overdrive btw with the 5870M..

 

On my old MSI E7405/GX740 I had 915/1085 with a 1.125V at full clocks... That card was a dream to OC and it's been going strong for 3 years with that kind of OC daily usage. I have this Sager now but someone else is using my MSI and it's still working very well.