X1800 XT owners

[rbV5]

According to driverheaven's X1800 XT crossfire article Link There is a "new" PCB revision used for X1800 XT"PE" (700/1600) and Crossfire Edition X1800 cards.

What is different is that the master card features ATI?s new "twenty" PCB (you can tell the difference as the initial cards were XX-XXX-10 and the new ones are xx-xxx-20) and therefore has six power coils for power filtering. Many of the initial cards released feature a give power coil design however these work perfectly with the 6 coil master cards.

(assume its supposed to read "Five" rather than "give")

Here is a look at both PCB with the HS/F removed from xbitlabs. You can see the revision number on the upper left and the power coils on the right side of the card. Link

Its interesting to note that there is a popular ATI bios which allows for a standard X1800 XT to run at the higher 700/1600 clockspeed of the "OC" or "PE" versions. TechPowerUP recently warned X1800XT owners:Link

ATI released a X1800XT bios which set the core to 700 from 625Mhz and the memory to 800Mhz from 750Mhz. It was said that the raise should generally work on all X1800XT cards. Now it seems that the higher clock speed need a change at the hardware level. The cards would need more MOSFETs to ensure a clean and stable power feed. The BIOS should still work, but users are advised that the upgrade could drastically reduce the lifespan of the card.

So I've not overclocked my card yet, and am hesitant to flash the bios of my new card, but I took a look and sure enough, my BBA X1800 XT has the "twenty" PCB and 6 power coils as described by Driverheaven. Now I am thinking about flashing my card when I put it into the new overclocked gamer I'm putting together since it looks like I've got the right card.

If you have an X1800XT, take a look at the PCB and list your revision and # of power coils. Also state the particular vendor for the card and overclock and bios info as well.

Mine: BBA X1800 XT retail. PCB= "Twenty" (ends in "-20") 6 power coils. Shipped 12-23-05. Not overclocked, stock bios (113-A52001-102).

edit: added link to techpowerup warning. added link to Xbit labs pics.

 

[rbV5]

Checking my X1800 XL, I see it uses a "-01" ending PCB # and 5 power coils.

 

[Elfear]

Seems like most of the X1800XL's I've seen have 5 power coils and most of the X1800XT's have 6. Hopefully more people will chime in since I don't have that card and might be talking out my butt. My brother's X1800XL only has 5 coils.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Elfear
Seems like most of the X1800XL's I've seen have 5 power coils and most of the X1800XT's have 6. Hopefully more people will chime in since I don't have that card and might be talking out my butt. My brother's X1800XL only has 5 coils.

It appears that way from the board shots at Newegg as well, although it looks as if the same shots are used for several of the cards. It will be interesting to see if any of the early X1800 XT's use the older PCB's, or if they were all snapped up for the OEM market (even the OEM cards at Newegg appear to use the newer PCB from the board shots)

 

[chinkgai]

interesting post rbv5

a ton of people over at xtreme have flashed to this bios and i think its a near 99 percent success rate over there (i think there may be one person who had artifacts...i dont remember)

as for my pcb, its 20! yay!

but i didnt flash to the bios cuz i'd rather not deal with the extra voltage

i just use the overclocker tool and after testing, found that my max stable without adjusting fan speeds manually is 715/837 with stock bios and stock voltage

this was tested by changing the speed and then looping 3dmark05

increasing the core or mem speed locks up during looping..but i can bench stable at 729/846...just not loop stable

 

[rbV5]

but i didnt flash to the bios cuz i'd rather not deal with the extra voltage

How do you monitor your voltages when overclocking? I thought I read where the GPU voltage is dynamic, so is it higher/lower at the same speeds with the bios flash?

 

[chinkgai]

use rivatuner and log it

yes the gpu voltage is dynamic...it goes up when entering 3d mode

with the "pe" bios it goes up to 1.48v when in 3d mode

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: chinkgai
use rivatuner and log it

yes the gpu voltage is dynamic...it goes up when entering 3d mode

with the "pe" bios it goes up to 1.48v when in 3d mode

Maybe I'll download the latest Rivatuner and check it out for logging some testing. Geez, it takes a handful of utilities just to monitor your vcard, LOL.

 

[Brian48]

My retail X1800XT comes with the newer -20 PCB.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: chinkgai
use rivatuner and log it

yes the gpu voltage is dynamic...it goes up when entering 3d mode

with the "pe" bios it goes up to 1.48v when in 3d mode

Rivatuner hardware monitoring is awesome! Thanks!

In 3D mode, GPU core voltage goes to 1.40v with the stock bios at stock clockseeds (actually 621MHz for my core)

 

[chinkgai]

yeah, it increases with stock bios too like u've confirmed

and yea ur right about the 3d clock being a bit higher than 2d clock of 600/700

 

[chinkgai]

whats ur max oc rbV5 (loop stable)?

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: chinkgai
whats ur max oc rbV5 (loop stable)?

I've just got my card installed temp in my HTPC, so I won't be pushing the overclocks untill I install it into the new rig. This PC would require some better cooling and I can't overclock my CPU at all with this motherboard.

I did just overclock to 700/800 (PE speeds) just to check if the GPU voltage was truely dynamic, or if it just sets it to different settings for 2D/3D.

It appears that it simply sets the voltage to 1.40 for 3D, as it stayed the same even overclocked.

I ran Lost Coast at 2048x1536 with max AA/AF and all other settings with it overclocked and I saw no artifacts or glitches and it ran without issues at 700/800. I saw no difference in temps either at idle (~50C with this rig) or at full load (peaks at just under 72C at 60% fan speed)

I will give it serious overclock testing when I drop it into the A8R-MVP I have sitting here waiting.