Guide: How to Underclock your ATi 5870 Automatically

Depending on the ambient temp....

Idle:
700/1000: 52C-55C
200/300: 42C-46C

 

10.5 is out and, as expected, the issue is not fixed. I begin to wonder if we will ever get a working VBIOS.

I run 100/150 for 2D btw. Even with two monitors, I have no problems. I can also switch between these clock rates and the stock ones without issue.
The only thing I can do to provoke a VPU recovery is to start something that tries to use more processing power than available and does not use the normal OpenGL/DirectX->Driver->Kernel->GPU way like a renderer, i.e. something using DXVA or DirectCompute, or accelerated flash.

 

A driver update will never fix this issue only a vbios update from clevo will.

 

It appears that Alienware has no problem implementing Power Play on the 5870's included in the M17x-R2. Time for Clevo/Sager to get on board.

 

I have Catalyst 10.6 and it works nicely
I also installed June 2010 DirectX - if that matters

Room temperature: 23C
Notebook cooler: none but my laptop is at least vertically two inches away from my desk (held up by - shamed to say - four emptied condiment bottles ...)
Thermal paste: Artic Silver 5
First used: May 6, 2010

My temps are as follows:
idle 200/300: 42C Min
idle 700/1000: 51C Min

Wawaweewa!

 

Wow, even at 250/300 mine idles at 50-52C. That's at an ambient of 22.

 

Guys is this method of underclocking viable with the current 10.8 drivers?

 

Yeah, it works great for me with 10.8, I will update if I ever find an incompatibility.

It's not dependant on the video drivers, you just have to have sager's or later installed so that the device is enabled.

 

I hope this isn't too contrary to the topic...
I really appreciate this guide, idle dropped from 50~ to 40~ with an ambient of 24-25... Hot climate =(
Anyway, I was thinking of OCing aswell, would 800/1100 be OK and stable on 10.8 drivers? I'll post temps if I get some feedback =)

 

That should work fine. Cards aren't all created equal so you may have better or worse results than others. The software drivers shouldn't really affect your overclocking ability.

My memory doesn't like to go above 1100mhz, but I've seen others get it closer to 1150. A marginal difference. I can get the "core" up to 900MHz stably. You just have to make sure you keep an eye on your temps. MSI's afterburner software does a nice in-game display and I usually keep HWmonitor going in the background just to keep an eye on my max temps reached.

 

Thanks for the advice, and for the great thread! =D

 

900/1100 rock solid. =D
Temps in crysis ultra up 1 degree under load, but up a couple FPS!!!

 

thanks, very useful