Sapphire HD 4850 cards.

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by RickJ5

Sandog,

I suspect the 4870 1 GB card you mentioned is the same one Bampson mentioned a few posts back.

I found an article at Big Bruin about a new BIOS for the 4870 Toxic. It sounds like it pretty much slows the fan down to make the card quieter, which will also make it run hotter. I'm not sure if you want that or not. In fact it's sort of making me wonder if I should go ahead and order the card now so I get one with the old BIOS. Here is a link to the article. Reduce Sapphire Toxic Radeon HD4870 Fan Noise - Page 1 of 2 - Big Bruin

I read Anand's review of the first 1GB cards weeks ago and it was Bampson's post which led me to buy the card. It has the same fan and cooler layout as the Toxic version. I read a NE review which said it idled at 42C so I figured it was a cool runner and it did idle at 42C when I got it.

I have no problems with my Toxic card. I got the card the same morning it was posted up on NE so it has to be one of the originals. I have no issues with the fan noise at all and what was cool was I ordered the card and recieved it on Friday, the same day the new CATS with fan control came out. I do not need fan control though. My fan runs at %13 speed at 40C and it never gets above 52C so the fan probably doesn't go above %30-40. I never hear the Toxic fan in Windows. I highly recommend this card.

Also I would be very hesitant to do a BIOS update on this card. I use Vista64 and do not have DOS capability. It would have to be an important BIOS update for me to mess with this wonderfully working card.

Edit: Used GPU-Z to download my current BIOS and found this inside.
ATOMBIOSBK-ATI VER011.010.000.002.029896 85VCTOXI.006

Bruin's new BIOS is 85VCTOXI.008 but looking at his graphs the temps are way up. My card is quiet now, like I said the fan is running at %13 at 40C. You can not hear it. Also I have better temps than he shows in both his graphs. 42C-idle, 52C-load. I will not change my BIOS at all. Also I see there is a Windows utility to flash now. It has been years since I flashed a video card BIOS.

It is amazing, I wanted a cool running system which I have but I figured I would lose on the video card. Turns out this is the coolest running video card I can remember owning. All my system temps are very low, check these system temps out (max. idle temps from HWM.)

Hard drive (Velociraptor) - 23C
Hard drive (500AAKS) - 27C
North Bridge - 29C
South Bridge - 23C
Thermal diode next to RAM modules - 21C
Hottest CPU core (Core#0) - 33C
Toxic 4870 - 42C

[Drufuss]

Installed the waterblock on the 4870X2 and i have to say "silence is golden". Without the fans (that tend to sound like an old vacuum cleaner) i can now really enjoy playing games and watching dvd's.
Downside is, that now my cpu reaches 90°C after some rounds of racedriver grid. But i suspect that either the cpu-waterblock doesn't fit correctly or the artic silver5 i applied got messed up somehow during installation of the cpu-block.

So tomorrow i have to re-apply thermal paste and try to fit the block correctly on the cpu, if this doesn't help i may put another radiator to my case.

Temps when idle are
35°C GPU
45°C CPU

under load (running rthdribl right now) i get
41°C GPU
70°C CPU

After i installed the 4870X2 waterblock i did 2 complete runs of memtest86+ and then played some round of DIRT. That brought the GPU wup to 65°C and the hottest CPU-core reached 92°C.

Greetings

Dru

P.S.: Everything set to high in grid, smooth gameplay, no stutter.

[Sandog]

Hey Dru what cooler did you get? Koolance just came out with a 4870x2 water block.

[Drufuss]

Hi Sanddog!

The koolance one looks good, i finally got this one from aqua-computer.
Initially i wanted one from Heatkiller (sorry no link) but i found a good review about the aqua-computer and it was immediately available.

Greetings

Dru