Graphic Cards HD4890 Xfire = Finished : Need New Ideas

asingh

asingh

Moderator
Juggernaut
So....the deal is:

After an year, I opened my system for spring cleaning. (Yea, a year). All went fine, and the core was re-TIMMED. As usual, I always open my GPUs, clean them out and put them back. Dandy. Sweet. I opened, the secondary, and it all went fine. Reached the primary adapter, and removed the core HSF 4x back plate. Now for some reason 3x screws on the back plate refused to open. Spent like 2 hours to open them, but they would not budge. Was damn pissed off. So I tightened all the screws back to maximum (and pointed a blower at the fins to remove the dust -a- lot of sh$$ flew out), and refitted the external HSF back plate (spring mounted). When I re-booted, the primary is running at: memory 92C and core 74. And the fans are humming like choppers in 'nam before the AO strike. I swapped the accelerators, but that GPU is still behaving like a wild horse. So, today I fired up S.Elite - 2, and temperatures hit the roof. Like 102, and 110 for core / memory respectively. So, basically, I killed one card. Which is sad, I was doing perfectly fine with this set up.

Please, suggest a (1) card which will give me performance, at par with 2x HD4890. I am really sad to sunset these accelerators, since they were one of a kind. I do not game too much, but like 1080pi minimal, and decent graphics. I will keep both GPUs as back up, since they cannot be resold. Being too archaic, and one is damaged. :(

Or....if someone can tell me how to open "nuts"; which refuse to open. A free beer(s) from me. Anywhere. :)
 
A single 670 custom OC is about as fast as a 680 reference / 7970 950-1000 core, slightly box oc.

It can be overclocked further for a 5-10% performance improvement to beat 680 reference slightly or at least become equal to 680 stock.

Cost is like 27k or so for a OC version with core at 1058Mhz or so.

If you have more money to spend then go for 680 reference/custom for 32-34k, which will be like 10-15% faster than 670 custom once both are overclocked, sometimes even 15-20% in terms of experience.

Even a single 7870 can match or beat your 4890 setup, talking at stock, that is, or at least compare to the performance, in terms of real world experience.

I would anyday take a 7850 supreme OC or 7870 high oc or 580 high oc OVER 4890 CF.

So if you want a side grade, even a 7850 at 1150-1200 core with high mem should overall provide comparable/similar real world smoothness in most games, and is a better bet overall. It is in fact still an upgrade with Dx11 and other features, experience etc.

However a 670 custom is like a really big upgrade for you, or at least a pretty substantial upgrade imo.
 
@asingh that is sad news indeed and acts like a word of caution to me, I was thinking of doing the same to my HD 5770. But sadly no time on hand currently.

Anyway if you want a new card that is as powerful as HD 4890 CrossFire and don't mind sticking it out with AMD, go for the HIS IceQ Turbo HD 7870 2GB ~23700/- [completely drool-maal from HIS and silent to boot]. Otherwise good old Sapphire is always there.

Here are a few reviews of the HIS IceQ edition card -- http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=888&Itemid=72 / http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/4614/his_radeon_hd_7870_iceq_turbo_overclocked_video_card_review/index.html.

If you can wait for the Green team's GTX 670 which shall come in mid-June then that is a good card too, but priced at ~30000/- [thanks to $ rates going :Jumpy:] it it is just pushing the envelope too much.

AMD HD 7870 2GB head-to-head against the GTX 670.

Hope this helps, Cheerio!!
 
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+1 for WD40. You can find that easily at any Car/bike repairing shop. If its not available, then ask the mechanic over there which spray lubricant they use to open rusted bolts/ nuts.
I found this one on rediff shopping. Dont know if its reliable source or not.

Wd40 Spray Lubricant - price in India : Rediff Shopping

btw, i dont drink alcohol either :bleh: but equivalent amount of free petrol for the car would be really nice !!
 
WD 40, leave for 30 seconds and try. Remember: It is electrically insulating, but catches flames very fast, so if you do not clean your card after finishing your work, and you reach high temps, voila, really toasty.
 
Hey asingh.... Now, you wont believe what happened to my 4870 tonight.... Same sh!7.... My dispIO/memIO temps reached 60/92 resp. at idle. I pop it out, clean it, re tim it (which I do once a year anyways except the retim... This was the first time)... Till day before the temps were like 55/73... I dunno what happened suddenly.. Anyways, my efforts went fruitless... The temps are now 53/92 after cleaning and applying AS5... So, my memIO is gone for some reason... My computer keeps crashing every few hours and when I tried, BFBC2 crashed my PC in 15 mins and my memio were 120...lol..... So, I am in the market for a new card now... And, if I remember correctly, 3 years ago around June 2009, when I bought 4870, you also bought 4890 and later xfired it.... I think you did comment on my thread too, but I am not sure. You were not a mod back then..... And, today, we are in the same situation at the same time..... Talk about deja vu......So, would you mind if I hijack your thread and ask a few questions?

kidding.. Also, for your questions, I would suggest you to go for a single 7870 right now for 21-22K and then add another when the price drops to 17-18K in 3 4 months..
 
^^
That is fine, you putting in your views and incident. I think yea, the cards have reached the threshold and died. Mine are PoweColor cards, which OEM were yours. Yea, this time will just get a single card. Enough of Xfire. :)

Will try that WD40 trick first.
 
asingh atiamd I'm starting to think that its the latest driver 12.4 . I tried to install it a couple days ago, after finishing and rebooting, it failed to load and ATI Vision Engine didn't list my GPU. I rolled back and installed 12.1 but still the same. And everytime I start my system, the ATI Vision shows me a message that there is no graphics card in my machine ! Moreover, the GPU acceleration for HD movies, even for flash embedded videos on websites got disabled. Now from today, I'm noticing green artifacts on my screen. I took a look at the temp thru' GPUZ and they are about 60 degree (63 deg for memIO) at idle :O My Card is a Saphire 4770 which was the 1st 40nm card and used to idle at mid 30s. And I didn't game for about 2 months.

I remember AMD announcing that after some point ( 12.4/12.5 may be ) , they will remove support any GPU below 5xxx series and release separate driver. Could you guys verify your driver versions ? Since all our GPUs are 4xxx, may be we can report it to AMD ?
 
I had installed 12.4 3 or 4 days back which started giving me issues. My GPU was not listed in AMD overdrive and in ati catalyst, it was not available to overclock.. So, I rolled back to 12.3 yesterday, when I noticed this. You are probably right as the webis full of 12.4 related issues. I'm going to reinstall windows today and will install 12.3 drivers. Lets see what happens.
 
@asingh, makes sense.. We retimmed the cards too... AND reinstalled the drivers (old one).... It did not make any difference to the memIO temps whatsoever (although, dispIO and shadercore were reduced by 5 degrees celcius)... So, that certainly rules out the driver issue...

And, to answer @sabbby, drivers have always been different for 4 series, 5 series and so on...
 
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Okay. I did a clean uninstall of the drivers and everything that comes with it. Then installed the 12.1 again. Now the artifact seems to have gone as of now. Temps are down by 5-6 degrees as well. But still they are high considering I live at Bangalore. Don't want my card die on me since I don't plan an upgrade ( a long pending one ) for the next few months due to other commitments :(
 
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