A warning about HD3870s

dx 10 is special.. its kinda been forced upon us because of vista.. the latest dx has always been about the "future".. its about developers useing the new tools in future games..

generally its takes a long time before the current or latest dx features get really used.. in the past this was hidden.. folks used to think all the new features were being used but mostly they were not.. so called dx 9 games were mostly dx 8 and so on..

now because of vista its different.. the change cannot be gradual like it used to be..

dx 10 has been forced forward so to speak which is why todays hardware aint up to the job.. its always been this way just not so obvious..

trog

Little bit of a breakthrough guys. I haven't yet gotten the Diamond, but my Visiontek has the same friggin problem!

Pics coming once I upload em!



Edit 1:

After looking at your pics and at my card, I'd say they're the exact same cooler. The cooler was not designed to cool that last memory chip.

I'll check out the Diamond I buy as well. I have a feeling a lot of the 3870s might have these coolers...

Damn p.o.s. HP printer is the only card reader I've got here so it's gonna take forever to transfer my pics to this pc. I'm gonna go buy my Diamond 3870 while I'm at it hehe.

Be back with another 3870, and maybe a vga cooler, northbridge cooler, and/or a new case!!!

Lazzer408 said:

Or was it Vista was forced on us by DX-10? hmmm

Click to expand...

ahhh.. well the new 3dmark should help that along.. but yes i think u are right.. all part of the Microsoft plan to foist vista upon us.. he he he

trog

my hd 3870 looks like this



is mine like first rev. or something?

freaksavior said:

my hd 3870 looks like this

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-103-050-04.jpg

is mine like first rev. or something?

Click to expand...

That's a different cooler than I've got and what Lazzer's got. Notice the chrome piece in the middle of the cooler and the diagonal slits in the plastic. Your slits go with the flow of air. Does your card's cooler make contact with that diagonal memory chip with a thermal pad?



I just got back from the store. They sold their last 3870 ten minutes before I got there

Sorry guys, no crossfire stuff from me. I can't confirm on the Diamond card, but I can show you all pictures of my Visiontek with the same problem.

Visiontek HD 3870 Cooler does not cool diagonal memory chip.

Sorry for the extra reply, but I needed the image uploader.

Here's a picture of the box of my Visiontek HD 3870:



A picture of my card:



Here is the memory chip in question. This was hard to get a pic of, but you can compare your card and its cooler with this pic pretty easily:



Here's the best picture I could get of the problem:



This is my theory. These companies wanted to put a better cooler on than other companies, so they used this cooler. The copper part of the cooler that does not contact the GPU is a rectangular-shaped copper plate about 3mm thick. There is a component on the board that is a few mm's away from the copper plate. The diagonally-placed memory chip is closer to the back (where the connectors are) end of the card, and if they had placed a thermal pad there, it would make contact with about 35% of the chip and be on the edge of the copper plate. In order to cut down manufacturing costs, they simply ignored the memory chip and used their cooler.



Check your cards against the third image to find the chip and see if yours are cooled. I'd like to know if this is in fact not a reference cooler for the 3870.

And keep in mind, if you're buying an aftermarket cooler (I'm going to grab a Thermaltake DuOrb), this doesn't really matter

DanishDevil said:

Lmao. Hey don't always go for the higher-clocked cards, unless they're offered as an overclocked edition. If a card's only clocked 20-50 higher, it's just because they decided to do that to trick (sorry to say this) people like you who buy it because it's faster. I've found that unless you go for those "guaranteed overclockers" that come pre-OCed, you've got just about equal luck at a higher OC with any brand.

Go with a reliable brand that uses the reference PCB (unless there are plenty of reviews stating that the change from the reference PCB is benificial). And get the cheapest one doggonnit! That way you can spend more on aftermarket cooling the sucker

I'm actually going for the Diamond because it is the cheapest I've seen at a store locally near me as they're having a little BYOPC sale I'll let you know how mine works.

Click to expand...

agreed and also agree about ram sinks, my old 6800GT AGP from 2005 ran with a VF-700 i got from ebay that did not include any ram sinks, my 7950GT ran without them under a VF-700 Also. Ram gets warm to the touch, thats about it even the fast stuff. With GDDR4 becomming a little more common and GDDR5 comming out this year we will se super highspeed 3000mhz + ram speeds that run cooler than current 2200mhz GDDR3

Seems to be a problem with that specific cooler....hmm....maybe you should try a Powercolor one. I'm pretty sure mine doesn't have that problem but you've made me want to check.

I'll get back to you on that one.

freaksavior said:

my hd 3870 looks like this

is mine like first rev. or something?

Click to expand...

yours is the stock ati one freak.. same as mine.. the problem ones seem to be useing a none ati reference cooler..

trog

Darknova said:

Seems to be a problem with that specific cooler....hmm....maybe you should try a Powercolor one. I'm pretty sure mine doesn't have that problem but you've made me want to check.

I'll get back to you on that one.

Click to expand...

Please do. I'm pretty sure it's just down to which cooler the manufacturer decided to use. The one that I have isn't the reference cooler. It has dual heatpipes coming out the bottom of the GPU that loop toward the back of the card and back into the heatsink.

Damn, I knew I should have been taking pictures when I dismantled it. I'd love to see a side-by-side comparison of the two coolers, and if the cards themselves are different in any way.

trog100 said:

yours is the stock ati one freak.. same as mine.. the problem ones seem to be useing a none ati reference cooler..

trog

Click to expand...

Trog. Be nice.

be nice.. i am nice.. he he he

the reference cooler is a good cooler.. the other one looks like a shoddy piece of design work or more likely it was made not to fit the card its sat on..

trog

so if i buy another, i won't get that cooler?

trog100 said:

yours is the stock ati one freak.. same as mine.. the problem ones seem to be useing a none ati reference cooler..

trog

Click to expand...

exactly. i also have an ati reference deisgn (w/o the heatpipes, GeCube), and there seems to be no problem. to anyone buying an hd3870, just look to see if it has the heatpipes or not. i persoanlly kinda like the looks of the sapphire atomic with it's single slot design... too bad i already have my vanilla 3870 :-/

looks as if this is a problem unique to the models with the "fancier" hsf. though easily repremanded with an aftermarket cooler and maybe ramsinks also, i'd be pretty pissed off to to discover that. reminds me of the geforce ti-4xxx days when there were ramsinks on the front of the card (probably just for looks) but none for the ram on the back of the card

Aw sheeyit. I got it too. Looks like 1/3 of the mem chip wouldn't even make contact with the HS if it had a chance. Erh.. what to doooo... I wonder if a chunk of thermal pad just between it and the HS would help more than all over it... come to think of it.. I bet I could grind a penny down pretty flat.. it'd be about the right size..

is everyone sure the 1200mhz rating isn't just the single edge clock, not the 2400mhz it actually is for double edge (DDR)?

I got a Visiontek 3850 bud. I don't think its any of the vid card companies, but the supplier that gives em the HSF for it. Granted, it's irritating to overlook something like that, but I've gotta imagine they test their shet a little bit before selling it. I've never had to RMA anything defective o.o... Lemme see how this penny thing works out. Eyeing it up.. looks like once it's ground down, it'd be a perfect fit.

Mine has thermal pads and that had a reference cooler. So it's definitely a fault with that specific cooler design.

trog100 said:

dx 10 is special.. its kinda been forced upon us because of vista.. the latest dx has always been about the "future".. its about developers useing the new tools in future games..

generally its takes a long time before the current or latest dx features get really used.. in the past this was hidden.. folks used to think all the new features were being used but mostly they were not.. so called dx 9 games were mostly dx 8 and so on..

now because of vista its different.. the change cannot be gradual like it used to be..

dx 10 has been forced forward so to speak which is why todays hardware aint up to the job.. its always been this way just not so obvious..

trog

Click to expand...

i gotta agree with whoever said its not dx10 but vista thats being forced on everybody.

vista support dx9 and dx10 as SEPRATE entitys, thats why you have to update them sepratly, dx9L is the vista version of dx9, your forced to update it to get some games to work(most come with the update and just install it as u install the game)

as to the most games where dx8 with some dx9 fetures, at first that was true, but you also had game that had true dx9 code paths seprate from dx8 and even 7 paths to support older cards.
half life2 for example, when it came out it had TRUE dx9, mode, Pure dx8 mode, Pure dx7 mode, the reasion they did this was to support all the people who still insist on trying to game with shitty old cards like the gf4mx they got at wallyworld for 130bucks(same prices getting a REAL videocard,a decent one that would support dx9 at newegg)

im just hoping valve and other company stop that cater to the lowist common denomonater crap, I personaly wouldnt have included the dx7 path, would have put a sticker on the box explaining that the fools needed to buy a radeon 9550 or better to play the game if they didnt already have one.

oh and i loved how they forced fx cards to run in dx8 mode, then some users went and hacked up a "patch" or "mod" to let the fx line run dx9 mode in a way that the cards could acctualy do, but it still performed like crap dispite looking a bit better

blah to much talking about this.


Please next time you post a topic like this make the name more descriptive of the thred contence, it really had me going O.O till i saw what you posted about and it wasnt a big deal....at least not to me......

im sure the cards within specs, if you dont overclock the ram its not gonna get that hot, at least if u dont overclock it massivly, i have delt with alot of ddr3 and some ddr4 and till u really push them they dont get that warm even without sinks.

and 1140 is within a % tollrance, most likely the way they edit the bios eather gives them 1140 or over 1200, i have edited alot of ati bios, and sometimes u stare at what u get and think "how the hell" i have set the ram on one of my cards for *** mhz and when u save it shows *** but when u flash and restart u get **mhz lower or higher then you set it for.....its because they use odd numbered clock chips like 14.5672mhz and what your really editing is a multiplyer setting.


i see what your saying but i just know how it goes with editing bios, it can be a chore.

as to the published specs, many times the guys who edit the webpages dont know what the hell they are talking about, they just copy stuff off a notepad that somebody from marketing sends down.......i have worked jobs like that, you start to think maby you need a way to check this stuff first hand insted of having to fix it later and getting yelled at for the problems ever happening in the first place.....