Asus 4870x2 Pal & Ntsc

[the$#!Za.]

Hi all.

I've been trying to hunt down my ASUS 4870X2 here in Australia, but either there's no stock or the price is ridiculously high.

I've found some good prices in the U.S and want to buy from there but the U.S is NTSC and Australia is PAL. Does this matter ?? (besides the fact that I have to remember I have an NTSC if I was to BIOS update).
Thought I should ask just in-case as it's not cheap.


Thanks,
Ash.

[Drufuss]

Do you want to connect it ot your tv-set ash?

Otherwise ntsc or pal should be irrelevant.

Greetings

Dru

[the$#!Za.]

Thanks Drufuss. OK confirmed NTSC or PAL is irrelevant for Graphics cards. Well I have a 50" Fuji Plasma as my PC's permanent monitor but that accepts NTSC, PAL and few others so I'm ok with the TV side of things.

After much ringing and running around I FINALLLY found an ASUS 4870X2 card here in Sydney, Australia and it was their very last one.

My friend though hasn't been so lucky and will most probably order 1 from the U.S. I'll let him know it doesn't matter as you've told me, thanks Drufuss.

Cheers,
Ash.

[FragTamer]

Please excuse me me ressurecting and old thread. As this thread is not big, it's title befitting, so I though I'd post here. This is interesting though. I've upgraded most hardware and purchased an Asus EAH4870X2 2GB Tri-fan graphics card. This thing flies, but I'm not overly happy with the ATI driver v9.4. However my real problem is running at non-OC stock settings, I get black screens (BSOD) sometimes briefly and a couple of times loss of screen completely. When I do a mild OC it becomes stable, but core #0 hit 73 degrees with an ambient temp of about 22 degrees. I believe the card is starving for responsive attention but is by no means throttled by the system. Starting from scratch again, I'm looking at OC settings, possibly a different HSF to cool the CPU but either way, i'm forced to OC to keep up with this monster card and it's frustrating as to why it won't stay stable at stock settings until I OC? OC = too hot, even a mild OC @ 3.15Ghz 1400mhz FSB? I know these CPUs clock better than that but running air at those low speeds...??? Any thoughts?

- Intel DX48BT2 - 207
- Intel Q9650
- Zalman CNPS9900 Cooler (shroud off)
- G-Skill DDR3 12800 4 x 2GB in matched pairs 7-7-7-18 1.9v @ 1600mhz
- 2 x 400GB Western Digital Caviar 16MB Cache in raid0 + 1 x 1TB WD Greenpower.
- Thermaltake Toughpower (modular) 850w
- 2 x Sony DVD burners.
- Thermaltake Kandalf aluminum case

[zapionics<alt>]

Originally Posted by FragTamer

... When I do a mild OC it becomes stable, but core #0 hit 73 degrees with an ambient temp of about 22 degrees. I believe the card is starving for responsive attention ...

That seems pretty weird , at first it seems the OC should have nothing to do with it... unless its heat related... Maybe the fan is not spinning up early enough at stock. I think in the CCC you can set the fan manually ... say 10%... and it will run continuously at that speed unless/until temp exceeds the predefined set points and then the fan will ramp up... thats my understanding... not familiar with the ASUS part unfortunately, but you could test it out to prove if its temps or not.

Try setting it at 10 or 20 %...

actually this feels like deja vu, I think I read something like this before about the ASUS cards... but cant remember where, sry...

[edit]: the computer display uses VGA as the analogue protocol so PAL and NTSC dont apply to computer displays. Thats in relation to analogue displays, digital use different protocols again... eg: DVI.

[Drufuss]

Hi FragTamer!

Do you have to overclock the card or the pc?

Greetings

Dru

[FragTamer]

Thanks for greetings and your responses. I see a watercooled one here... nice! I've read elsewhere these cards are flawed and wait for ATI to perfect them before buying one in future 5000 series, but hey, who can wait lol.

Appologies for not being clear. If someone wanted to overclock one of these cards i'd be asking why and can the rest of the system handle it. Maybe the 1GB cards are not so demanding, but this thing, my poor build... sheesh. Before I meant a mild OC on the CPU, FSB and forsaken MCH even, because this card screams gimme, gimme, gimme! Without a tweak on any one of these settings, it's the same thing. Crashes and black screening (not system crash), just the card. I'll post a pic of the setting I'm running just to keep this card fed and stable. Keep in mind the specs as posted above. I feel really weired about having to do any of this because it seems too strage to have to OC the rest of the system for a card that seems to run fine on standard system settings until it black screens. At the moment the CPU hits 65deg, but it's the middle of the night and getting cold here. I may buy a better HSF. The As5 paste also needed time to settle though still quite warm with the card being as demanding as my g/f is...

I can't post pictures or links because I'm still fairly new sort of (not a regular poster) Settings are as follows:-

CPU Multiplier 9, Clock 350 @ 1.3125v, MCH 1.275, FSB 1.275, Ram at 1600 mhz 400mhz refference 7,7,7,18, PCI-e bus @ 104mhz.

CPU temps are Core 0 = 50min 65max
Core 1 = 42min 52max
Core 2 = 41min 54max
Core 3 = 41min 55max
GPU temps are 50min 56max but it's cold in the room at the moment, about 16deg c ambient.

Are these setting screwed up or what? If I drop any of them, the card spits the dummy.

Btw Zap, It happends after 10mins or so of gaming when fans are already going for it. I have a bit of a rear card fan making a racket @ about 55% speed. Asus fans on these are known for it. It happens randomly, even when not under great load, system standard or unless I system OC to prevent it.

[FragTamer]

Well, running for a while on those settings, but failed to write to memory crashed an application after a couple of hours. I'm considering ditching the Intel board for a nice Asus one. Elsewhere I've seen questions raised about the compatability of the card with intel boards. Strangely, Intel supports Crossfire on their boards, but not this dual GPU card it would seem. I've posted elsewhere on this forum about Intel's P-D 960 CPU and a known incompatablitly with D975XBX Rev 304 and that board had low mic signal. I think I'm done with Intel boards. Asus is a better make anyway now.

I may not be this card after all. Others say that the 4800 series is bad, but it's more so the dual GPU designs pushing limits of boards not tested with them and manufactured to the consumer.

Suggestions welcome before the board goes bye bye.

[zapionics<alt>]

It may be co-incidence that the system is black screening more often when you are running at stock. I'd suggest you review whatever else has changed recently, both hardware and software.

Also try each OC tweak one at a time and run for a while until you can determine which tweak is helping (if any) ie: vcore by itself, vdimm, MCH.

Also, those temps seem fine...

[FragTamer]

Hey again. I was compelled to come in here and write up in response to my own post and for information on anyone that has one of these cards in their PC. Not always does a PC component give you grief. In this case in was another component that made the graphics card look bad. Just so you all know, my system components were mostly new (IE: everything on the motherboard) I installed 2 matched pairs of G-Skill 8GB total and after a month, one of these sticks was found to be faulty under testing, where I was getting BSOD and then blue screening started to become the norm. The RAM was replaced and my PC has not had issues since. So at the end of the day, just because you have a new system dose not mean it will be reliable. New parts can be boarder lining faulty from factory or you'll get them as DoA.

My EAH4870X2 works ok now. Running the PC at stock speeds except the RAM is running at OC'd settings. It may have been coincidence that playing with other settings appeared to have overcome the problems a little.

(c)Intel DX48BT2 (Latest BIOS, added: NB fan) - Intel Q9650 3.0GHz - Zalman CNPS9900 heatsink - G-Skill 7,7,7,18 DDR3 8GB - 2 x 400Gb Western Digital in Raid 0 and 1 x 1TB WD Greenpower - Thermaltake Toughpower 850W PSU - 2 x Sony DVD Burners (flashed latest firmware) - Thermaltake Kandalf aluminum ATX case - 2 x LG L1980Q digital monitors - Razor keyboard and mouse - Logitech Z5500 Speakers - Vista 64bit SP1 OS - Other peripherals and computers in 1000Mb/s ethernet network - Situated in a air conditioned room.

[the$#!Za.]

Ahhh, bloody RAM, the hidden culprit. Glad everything is fine with your beast, but serioualy, never buy an Intel motherboard again you tight-***

If you're going to spend that cash on a video card like our ASUS 4870X2, you have to compliment it with a nice ASUS motherboard.

Ash.