Reply 120 of 642, by RacoonRider
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wrote:RacoonRider: 4870X2 is a very neat card. While I don't miss the fan noise, I'm still kind of bummed that mine developed issues. It did a great job with anything I threw at it, even fairly new games like Hitman Absolution or Mass Effect 3, and handled higher-level AA (16x and above) in even semi-recent games like Oblivion without much trouble. Something I noted on both of my 4800s, and I'm not sure if this will be true of your card or not, is that the built-in clock management (which will drop the GPUs down to around 500MHz at idle) would not engage at default settings, but manually over- or under-clocking them by 1MHz would somehow get this working. It doesn't make any difference in 3D performance or temperatures, but it can lower idle temperatures a good bit. I vaguely remember Tom's Hardware showing that engaging a 3D application (Aero not working) would also force the clock management to work, and that the X2 played along with that, but that's kind of annoying to do every time the machine is started (unless you leave the machine on all the time so that this wouldn't be a common thing).
I'd also probably move that WiFi card away from the X2 if you can - the X2 will get very warm when running in 3D, and it will heat up things around it (and we aren't talking insubstantially - it sheds enough heat that it could warm my idle 4890 enough to force that one's fan to spin up, and it's certainly nothing you want to touch right after it's been cranking in 3D for hours).
Still a very cool build that brings back some memories, and should be very solid even with newer games.
Thanks for the advice! I tested the 4870X2 with AIDA, the clock management is working well with latest drivers. However, during windows install (I did it on an open bench), there is no clock management at all, as no driver is loaded. Man, that thing is hot at default clock 😁 I could not keep my hand on it 😁
Considering the network card, it's in a very nice spot not obstructiong any airflow to the GPU, next to the plastic shroud so I see no reason for it heating up... Besides, there's a cooler blowing right next to it (on the side panel).