Locked voltages on Sapphire 5850 Xtreme refurbished

khrystiano

Member
Jan 9, 2012
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Hi, I got this card and I've tried to raise the core/mems but it only reachs 885/1050 so I tried to unlock the voltages with MSI Afterburner but seems like the voltage managements is locked, I tried editing the .cfg with the unofficial overclocking mode = 1 and with the Overclocking EULA and that stuff but it didn't work, also, I enabled the voltage options on the program and nothing seems to work. Trixx works perfectly but I don't like it since raising the voltage automatic disables powerplay...

Any suggestions?

greetings!
 

Hitman928

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2012
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Trixx is the only way I know to unlock voltages on those Sapphire cards (I have a 6870 from them), sorry. Maybe someone else has another idea.
 

khrystiano

Member
Jan 9, 2012
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Uhmm thank you.. so I heard about flashing the card with the 5870's bios but Im not sure if this would unlock the voltages or brick my card... can someone help me?
 

psolord

Platinum Member
Sep 16, 2009
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I have a Sapphire and an XFX 5850, both reference models and I had flashed an Asus BIOS on both, which was tooted unlocked back in the day.

Indeed I have had a great deal of overclocking and benchmarking fun all these years. I happen to love vintage hardware as much as the new one.

I can upload it somewhere for you, but I can accept no responsibility if all hell breaks loose for you.

Here are some of my recent vids with these cards, if you are interested (spicy wallpaper alert).

Witcher 3 1920X1080 high(-) noAA 5850 crossfire @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Witcher 3 1920X1080 medium noAA 5850 crossfire @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Dirt Rally 1920X1080 Ultra noAA 5850 crossfire @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Witcher II 1920X1080 high 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Starcraft II 1920X1080 maxed 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Witcher 3 1920X1080 medium 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Skyrim 1920X1080 maxed+modded 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

[new] Wolfenstein Old Blood 1920X1080 high++ noAA 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4G

Diablo III 1920X1080 maxed 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz


Trine 3 1920X1080 v.high 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Dirt Rally 1920X1080 high 2xMSAA 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Killing Floor 2 1920X1080 ultra 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

GTA V 1920X1080 v.high(-) 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Assassin's Creed Rogue 1920X1080 Maxed 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Evolve 1920X1080 Medium 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Dying Light 1920X1080 Medium 5850 @950Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

Watch Dogs 1920X1080 High 5850 @900Mhz Q9550 @4GHz

+more

They can do 950/1200 with 1.2 V and a mildly aggressive custom fan profile in MSI Afterburner.
 
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khrystiano

Member
Jan 9, 2012
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Okay, really thank you for the answer, do you think am I able to flash my Sapphire 5850 Xtrme refurbished with the Asus bios u mentioned? Will the temps increase on idleº? I don't really care about the loud, my fan is stuck on 65% so the temps on idle stay behind 40º...
 

khrystiano

Member
Jan 9, 2012
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I just find out my gpu codename is "Cypress Pro", it's a Sapphire Xtreme and the bios date is from 2011... flashing the bios can brick the card?
 

khrystiano

Member
Jan 9, 2012
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So I have another question. Isn't better to edit my actual BIOS with RBE and change the voltage (if it's possible which I don't know) so my card won't brick it?
 

psolord

Platinum Member
Sep 16, 2009
2,133
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If you change values in your own BIOS, it would be a better course of action maybe.

RBE will warn you if what you are changing will result in a BIOS that will not be recognized by the drivers, because that is a possibility too.

I mentioned that my cards are reference, so different compared to the xtreme. Maybe the xtreme has a different voltage controller or something.

All 5850s have the cypress pro chip, but that does not mean they are the same.

Yes a wrong BIOS will brick the card.

If you have a second card however, you can use that to boot and reflash your older BIOS which you must have extracted with GPUz beforehand.

You must be very fluent with all that however.

If you are not better leave it as it is.

Also if Trix works perfectly, why don't you use that for overclocking and just reset it after you are done gaming?
 

khrystiano

Member
Jan 9, 2012
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I would Trixx but the thing is when I set a voltage (1.18 to get 900/1200) and use the 2d mode (desktop, navigation, etc...) the voltage doesn't get low, it stucks on 1,18 and if I reset the voltage it stucks on 1,08 (on itle it works at 0.950 and 1,08 when it goes to 725/1000) so I need to restarts the system and that sucks...
 

psolord

Platinum Member
Sep 16, 2009
2,133
1,261
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Try doing the reset with MSI Afterburner instead.

Also instead of restarting, try logging off and on again.