Re: Mining with 5850, boost performance?

Quote from: djex on April 19, 2011, 03:57:30 PM

Quote from: grndzero on April 19, 2011, 09:43:32 AM

The 5850 BIOS would lock up on mine at 875.
I actually flashed the BIOS to 5870 to get 900 Mhz from http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/61848/ATI.HD5870.1024.091112.html
(My cards are Reference, not DirectCU. Not sure if it matters for the the BIOS)

This is my script for setting the clocks:

export DISPLAY=:0.0
aticonfig --od-enable
aticonfig --odsc 900,1000 --adapter=all

And for fans:

export DISPLAY=:0.0
aticonfig --pplib-cmd "set fanspeed 0 70" (second number is fan speed percentage)
(if using a second card then do)
export DISPLAY=:0.1
aticonfig --pplib-cmd "set fanspeed 0 70"

I have a XFX 5850 and it will only go to 775MHz core. Looks like I would have to reflash BIOS. Was hoping I wouldn't have to. If I flash the 5870 BIOS to my card are there any benefits other than giving me a higher clock setting? Like say if I wanted to use the card for gaming or something a few months from now. Would it effect it's performance at all?

As far as I can tell the only thing the 5870 BIOS does is up the voltage to get higher clock speeds, but creates some extra heat. The only real difference between the 50 and the 70 is the number of stream processors, most of the time it's the same logic board. I read quite a few articles before doing this and the reviews were positive, except for the people who bricked their card. I don't think you should notice any major differences in Windows, but I haven't tried it personally.

If you are going to flash the BIOS then make sure you have another video card accessible that you can use as a primary in case the flash goes bad. I had a few BIOS's from techpowerup that either didn't get along with the card or didn't get along with Linux and I had to save them with an extra card once or twice.