Can I decrease my 4850's IDLE clock speed?

[Vageetasjn]

I'm impressed with the 5870's idle power consumption and part of its ability seems due to lowering the idle clocks. Is there a safe way of doing something similar with my 4850? Load clock is 625 and idle is 500 -- can I knock that 500 down some more?

 

[bimmerboy]

you would have to use another program besides catalyst control center as far as i know. like ati tray tools and i believe rivatuner but i have never used rivatuner. but i have been using ati tray tools since i used to have and overclocked 4850.

edit: forgot links
this is where the download is

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=275077

this is where you can ask questions about the program as well in the same thread

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: bimmerboy
you would have to use another program besides catalyst control center as far as i know. like ati tray tools and i believe rivatuner but i have never used rivatuner. but i have been using ati tray tools since i used to have and overclocked 4850.

edit: forgot links
this is where the download is

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=275077

this is where you can ask questions about the program as well in the same thread

what he said but I'm pretty sure it doesn't make much difference on the hd 48000 series of cards

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache

Originally posted by: bimmerboy
you would have to use another program besides catalyst control center as far as i know. like ati tray tools and i believe rivatuner but i have never used rivatuner. but i have been using ati tray tools since i used to have and overclocked 4850.

edit: forgot links
this is where the download is

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=275077

this is where you can ask questions about the program as well in the same thread

what he said but I'm pretty sure it doesn't make much difference on the hd 48000 series of cards

It actually makes a huge difference, at least with 4870s. I recall a thread about it a couple months back. This one guy was underclocking his card and measuring the power usage and the results were amazing. The problem is that a lot of 4870s have difficulty with clocking the memory down due to some problem related to GDDR5 so not everyone is able to clock it down as low as this one guy did.

 

[Bull Dog]

the RV770 had issues with becoming unstable at lower clock speeds.

 

[thilanliyan]

For the 4870s it's underclocking the memory that makes a large difference. I have my 4870 underclocked to 300/300 core/mem AND the voltage decreased using ATI Tray Tools (I don't know if that's possible on 4850s).

You can underclock your 4850...something like ATI Tray Tools or even Rivatuner should be able to do it.

 

[Nafets]

Underclocking the RV770 core even more on your HD4850 is not going to make much of a difference at IDLE. Going lower than 500MHz might shave off 1W or so, but that's it.

You might get some savings underclocking the GDDR3 memory down a bit more from the IDLE clocks, but there also isn't much benefit there either.

You can try using the latest Ati Tray Tools beta to set lower IDLE voltages. It will only allow you to go within the range set in your card's BIOS.

Underclocking/volting isn't as huge a factor for the HD4850, as it is with the HD4870/90 cards. Since ATI didn't properly utilize GDDR5's power saving features, the user is left hanging to figure out how to lower power consumption and temperatures on their own, via manual underclocking of the memory speeds during IDLE.