Asus EAH6850: does yours meet up to the review?

[grijzegeest]

Could you please vote in the poll and post a message with your EAH6850 idle fan speed (%PWM and RPM) and your exact AMD/ATI driver version? (both can be found using http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/)

Thanks!

More info:

This is a follow up on: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Asus_AH68 ... _VGA_Card/

As can be read in these topics:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=60915&start=30 and viewtopic.php?f=19&t=60954

Several people (I counted at least 3 including myself and some other reviews) found that the Asus EAH6850 is not as silent as expected from the tests performed by SPCR on the sample they reviewed http://www.silentpcreview.com/Asus_AH68 ... _VGA_Card/ (to be clear: I do not doubt SPCRs findings, just maybe they got a lucky sample)

Mine runs constantly at ~2000 rpm (idle, 44 C, 22 %PWM) and can be clearly heard above the rest of my system noise (more info on what I tried can be found in the threads mentioned before).

I would like to know from all the Asus EAH6850 owners in the forums what their experiences are, and to check if these 3 were exceptions or if the SPCR sample was a super sample.

[Shadout]

~1800RPM at 20%PWM (also at 25 %PWM)

Its hard for me to judge if it is as quiet (as I can't measure it), but it isn't running as low RPM at least.

Maybe people should mention if they got V1 or V2 also as it could be a change in the V2.
It's mentioned on the packaging (product number or something) - Also I believe the difference on the board is that V2 has two power cable connections instead of one

Also talked with Asus support, who said something might be wrong with the card (and I should contact reseller yadayada). Considering other peoples reports I doubt its just a random error though.

I guess I should feel lucky compared to 2000RPM in any case. It is quite a shame there can be so much difference.
Does aftermarket coolers fit on this board?

[merlin]

Testing on mine shows about 1590rpm at 22%, I can't get it to drop below this. It is definitely quiet enough to be lower noise than my current hard drives, not sure how it'll be when I build my next system later this year. Max speed is 4000rpm, 50% is 2875 rpm, which is definitely hearable. 35% is 1890rpm, which is close to silent. It seems the fan ramps pretty quickly from 35% on up. So I guess it is pretty close to the review in my case. Looks like this may be kind of a lottery, which is bad. I wish it would be able to drop to more like 1000rpm though.

[jhhoffma]

You have to edit the BIOS with RBE to get it to go below 20%. Mine stays there @ 1580rpm. I've only seen it go up to ~1800rpm when I maxed out Crysis Warhead. Couldn't get it to do it again...

One of these days I'll do the RBE mod, but I'm just not that itching to do it right now...I'm still adjusting to my Velociraptor.

[grijzegeest]

You have to edit the BIOS with RBE to get it to go below 20%. Mine stays there @ 1580rpm. I've only seen it go up to ~1800rpm when I maxed out Crysis Warhead. Couldn't get it to do it again...

One of these days I'll do the RBE mod, but I'm just not that itching to do it right now...I'm still adjusting to my Velociraptor.

Unfortunately editing the fan profile using RBE does not work for 6xxx series, at least that's what I found in the techpowerup RBE forums, only voltage modification in the "voltage registers" works till now.

If you know a way to get it to work, please tell us!

See below for what i tried:

Code: Select all

(of course: TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK)

I tried changing the lower PMW fan setting (in "use transfer function") from 22% to 15% (Duty cycle min %) using RBE version 1.27 (this was the only change)

Then flashed the card by booting to dos and using atiflash version 3.84:

- First:

atiflash -unlockrom 0

(0 = the number of my card, this is followed by the reply "ok")

- Second

atiflash -f -p 0 6850m15.bin

(followed by a successful flash)

Then reboot, according to RBE the value was changed, but the lower fan limit is still 22% (also using MSI afterburner and a custom fan profile)

Now back on the original BIOS, left rom unlocked.

[jhhoffma]

I thought they had fixed that with the last release...

Guess not...

Now there's really no reason for me to rush to do it.

[Gagorian]

Mine idles at 22% 1776 RPM. Catalyst version 11.1.

My card is louder than I expected, it actually has an annoying high pitched sound. I pinpointed the sound down to the plastic cover on top of the fan resonating, when supporting the casing from two different spots the resonating dissipates and the sound becomes a lot more pleasant. I RMA'd my first card for this problem, but the one I got back from RMA also has exactly the same problem. I attempted to listen to the same card at my friends house and it didn't seem to resonate, but his setup is much louder so I might just not have heard it.

[nop]

My card is louder than I expected, it actually has a very annoying high pitched sound. I pinpointed the sound down to the plastic cover on top of the fan resonating, when supporting the casing from two different spots the resonating dissipates and the sound becomes a lot more pleasant. I RMA'd my first card for this problem, but the one I got back from RMA also has exactly the same problem. I attempted to listen to the same card at my friends house and it didn't seem to resonate, but his setup is much louder so I might just not have heard it.

I'm actually relatively annoyed at this card since it was supposed to be quiet.

Me too. Mine is the V2, the one with two PCIe power connectors. 22% fan speed, ~1700rpm is my best memory. I took off the fan/shroud and zip-tied some 120mms on.

My fan/shroud buzzes objectionably at any run speed, even when detached and connected to a voltage controller (don't have an easy way to test PWM control yet). Noise becomes less objectionable when reduced to ~1000rpm. Around 3000rpm, broadband noise overtakes buzz, but at that point both are too loud.

After reading your post I took the fan out of the shroud and tested both in open air and resting on its mounts, unscrewed. The fan itself has a buzz, but it's not *too* bad until RPMs increase ~2000rpm. On re-hard-mounting with the stock screws my big problem is obvious: the fan's vibrations are amplified by the shroud; the buzz is much louder.

I think it's the combination. I have a crappy fan by SPCR standards, but the hard mount to the shroud as sounding board made it intolerable.

If you have long enough small screws around it might be worth trying grommets/washers. (The mounting holes are way too small for conventional fan mounts.)

BIOS 003.019.000.003, Catalyst 11.1. Frequency counting of tach signal used for rpms on bench, not an optical tachometer.

[Gagorian]

My card is louder than I expected, it actually has a very annoying high pitched sound. I pinpointed the sound down to the plastic cover on top of the fan resonating, when supporting the casing from two different spots the resonating dissipates and the sound becomes a lot more pleasant. I RMA'd my first card for this problem, but the one I got back from RMA also has exactly the same problem. I attempted to listen to the same card at my friends house and it didn't seem to resonate, but his setup is much louder so I might just not have heard it.

I'm actually relatively annoyed at this card since it was supposed to be quiet.

Me too. Mine is the V2, the one with two PCIe power connectors. 22% fan speed, ~1700rpm is my best memory. I took off the fan/shroud and zip-tied some 120mms on.

My fan/shroud buzzes objectionably at any run speed, even when detached and connected to a voltage controller (don't have an easy way to test PWM control yet). Noise becomes less objectionable when reduced to ~1000rpm. Around 3000rpm, broadband noise overtakes buzz, but at that point both are too loud.

After reading your post I took the fan out of the shroud and tested both in open air and resting on its mounts, unscrewed. The fan itself has a buzz, but it's not *too* bad until RPMs increase ~2000rpm. On re-hard-mounting with the stock screws my big problem is obvious: the fan's vibrations are amplified by the shroud; the buzz is much louder.

I think it's the combination. I have a crappy fan by SPCR standards, but the hard mount to the shroud as sounding board made it intolerable.

If you have long enough small screws around it might be worth trying grommets/washers. (The mounting holes are way too small for conventional fan mounts.)

BIOS 003.019.000.003, Catalyst 11.1. Frequency counting of tach signal used for rpms on bench, not an optical tachometer.

I have the V1 card. It's comforting to know I'm not the only one with the problem, as that shroud buzzing is very annoying. At least I know not to RMA the card again, as I'd most likely just get the a new card with the same problem again. I guess one solution would be removing the fan and shroud, like you did, and mounting another fan. Did your 120mm fans work well cooling the card without the shroud itself? I'd buy an aftermarket heatsink instantly if I didn't have to worry about keeping the warranty.

[nop]

At least I know not to RMA the card again, as I'd most likely just get the a new card with the same problem again.

I think this is not certain; SPCR got one that didn't buzz, and I believe some of the other reviewers did too. Perhaps if your primary reason for RMA is "card buzzes noisily" they'd think to look what was being sent to you. I'm so optimistic.

Did your 120mm fans work well cooling the card without the shroud itself? I'd buy an aftermarket heatsink instantly if I didn't have to worry about keeping the warranty.

I was overclocking to 840/1100; furmark was at 80C, with sensor 2, the memory section of the die, bouncing around 91. In Rift on Ultra+ settings I was seeing 70C with memio at like 75C. These are OK temps, I guess.

I bought an Accelero L2 just to salvage the heatsinks and fan (amazon wanted $20 for 8 crappy ramsinks). The Accelero S1 and L2 have thermal tape as an adhesive for their included ram/vrm heatsinks. The heatsinks are pretty easy to remove. (Welll, some would say they're way too easy to remove, and I'm probably going to use thermal epoxy this time.) But I don't know if it would be detectable that you were using a third-party heatsink if you reattached the stock heatsink/fan/shroud, after having cleaned off any residue from the chip surfaces.

[afa3]

Just got an EAH6850 V2. It idles at 22%, 1680 RPM. No buzzing that I've noticed.

Catalyst 11.2 Vista 32
BIOS 013.009.000.003.000000

I'm satisfied with the sound level. I can't hear it over the stock CPU fan and PS. I have to push it way over 2000 RPM to clearly notice it. My system is pretty quiet, although it's audible from under the desk.

One puzzling thing: I can't undervolt it in SmartDoctor. I'm using 5.74, which appears to be the latest version.

The voltage slider is enabled, and appears to allow higher-than-stock settings. The lower limit is 1.157, however.

I was running a 4830 with the same version of Catalyst. I uninstalled that driver and reinstalled the 11.2 driver after putting in the 6850.

Anyone else seen this? Am I missing something?

I'm happy with the card the way it is, but I don't need an extreme overclock and I'd like to drop the power use a little if possible.

[Gagorian]

I bought an Accelero L2 just to salvage the heatsinks and fan (amazon wanted $20 for 8 crappy ramsinks). The Accelero S1 and L2 have thermal tape as an adhesive for their included ram/vrm heatsinks. The heatsinks are pretty easy to remove. (Welll, some would say they're way too easy to remove, and I'm probably going to use thermal epoxy this time.) But I don't know if it would be detectable that you were using a third-party heatsink if you reattached the stock heatsink/fan/shroud, after having cleaned off any residue from the chip surfaces.

Actually I used an Accelero S1 on my old card with the heatsink adhesive they included. I also thought that the adhesive wouldn't be that good but after about two years when removing the heatsinks I noticed they were glued on pretty damn tight, I had to warm them with an soldering iron and twist hard to get them off. It took me about two or three hours to clean up all the adhesive stains on the chips even though I used rubbing alcohol. The end result still wasn't perfect, the markings on some of the chips even faded somewhat.

[nop]

Actually I used an Accelero S1 on my old card with the heatsink adhesive they included. I also thought that the adhesive wouldn't be that good but after about two years when removing the heatsinks I noticed they were glued on pretty damn tight, I had to warm them with an soldering iron and twist hard to get them off. It took me about two or three hours to clean up all the adhesive stains on the chips even though I used rubbing alcohol. The end result still wasn't perfect, the markings on some of the chips even faded somewhat.

Huh. I guess today is going to take longer than I thought. :-/ I just guessed they'd be really easy to clean up because I've had three fall off. I've got the ArctiClean stuff; the second bottle is just alcohol, but the first is some kind of magic on thermal compound; might work.

The VRMs have mounting holes above and below they're intended to use a spring mount sink, but I don't have a narrow heatsink with the right holes lying around. Maybe it wouldn't be hard to fabricate one.

My uneducated guess is that I could run forever with two low/mid RPM fans zip-tied on the stock heatsink. I'm not optimistic about long-term overclocking. If the heatsink isn't getting enough air to keep the GPU below stock, I'm skeptical the (unmeasured) VRMs are either. Maybe I should hack together a temperature probe. In any case I don't think passive operation is plausible with the stock heatsink; from what I hear the RAM may start to have problems without airflow or heatsinks.

One puzzling thing: I can't undervolt it in SmartDoctor. I'm using 5.74, which appears to be the latest version.

The voltage slider is enabled, and appears to allow higher-than-stock settings. The lower limit is 1.157, however.

Yes, I see that too. Not happy.

I haven't installed ASUS's "custom" video driver, and I'm still on 11.1. As of today's, MSI Afterburner doesn't see the voltage controller. Sapphire TRIXX shows a voltage control but it doesn't go lower (and also doesn't seem to do anything for me either.) I managed to get even ASUS SmartDoctor refusing to change voltages too but I think that's just a glitch. ASUS SmartDoctor's UI looks awful compared to the others. MSI Afterburner is much more functional, but doesn't have the (ill-documented) ASUS "scale frequency by temperature" option.

I guess I'm OK with 880/1100 the 1.157 seems to be designed for, but I'm starting to wish I had bought the MSI 6850, especially if I knew I was taking off the shroud. A shame there isn't an MSI Twin Frozr 6850 (I think it would be too close in performance to the existing MSI TF 6870.)

[Blista]

22%, 1726rpm, 44degC (summer room temp of 25degC), Catalyst 11.2, V2 card.

Just got one yesterday. I had my previous card nearly silent and I was surprised with how quiet the fan on the 6850 is. Disappointed to see they didn't include a VRM heatsink but I still have the AC Accelero S1 rev2 from my last card so I might end up replacing the DirectCu cooler setup anyway.

[madmath]

My fan made a high pitched clicking noise, even at the lowest speed I could get. I replaced it with a Scythe Musashi (with some problems), and it is now inaudible.

[nop]

I'd buy an aftermarket heatsink instantly if I didn't have to worry about keeping the warranty.

I bought a second ASUS EAH6850 V2. It made an identical buzzing noise; I figured that might happen. What I didn't expect was just how annoyed it made me so quickly.

The fastest solution for me was to unscrew and remove the fan from the shroud. (I was impatient and cut its wiring to get it out but I don't think that's necessary.) I used zip ties to put an Accelero L2 fan/shroud over the fanless hole in the ASUS shroud. The Accelero L2 fan has the correct connector for PWM and aside from some RPM monitoring glitches seems a fine replacement. The L2 shroud even seems to be a good shape to direct air into the ASUS shroud.

I may have seen on SPCR the suggestion to use zip ties to put a 120mm fan on an Accelero S1. I had been too innocent to think that construction technique; I'm not sure I'm really a better person for learning it. But it's been so useful even if not always sturdy. Especially when I figured out more complicated techniques, which made me feel clever too. There's no reason a tie needs to connect to itself; you can hook any number of the same kind together in a circle. Because of stiffness and friction, tension is not the only possibility; with care, they can be used as springs sometimes. Some problems finding passthroughs can be solved by a secondary loop around a feature perpendicular to the needed direction of tension. I don't think I've ever gone beyond one level of "zip-tie loop tied to a different zip-tie loop" but I'm sure the day is coming.

[SpringHalo]

I specifically got this graphics card for the silent fan, and mine isn't so silent. I bought it on april 5th and it's got the wierd buzzing noise that everyone is talking about. Think I should try RMAing it to newegg and getting a replacement to see if that works? I heard ASUS customer support isn't the best, and I doubt I'll be able to get anything from them. Sorry to revive this thread, but it's REALLY bugging me. It's the loudest component in my system.

Idle clocks 300 300
Temp 37C
Fan speed 21% 1650RPM
VDDC .95V

[ickarumba1]

My one has the buzzing sound as well.
I couldn't hear it before I suspended my hard drives.
Now it's rather annoying. I'm planning to put a twin turbo pro on it.

[norazi]

i have the gtx460 version of this card (same directcu cooler) and wanted to chime in that i hear the same annoying buzzing. i actually exchanged me card because it was so annoying and got the same issue. this leads me to believe that all asus directcu cards have the same crappy fan design. its weird because when i post about this issue on the guru3d boards, people tell me that their directcu gtx460 is silent and i beg to differ... obviously people have different standards of what "silent" means.

my next card will probably have to be from the msi cyclone line as ive heard good things about that cooler

[ickarumba1]

its weird because when i post about this issue on the guru3d boards, people tell me that their directcu gtx460 is silent and i beg to differ... obviously people have different standards of what "silent" means.

I agree about different standards. I was explaining to my friend why I suspended my hard drives: to make them quiet of course. Then my friend says that his computer is quiet, so I went over to his house and the computer was definitely loud. MUCH louder than mine, yet I still think my computer is loud.

I switched the Asus cooler with a TTP, which means my GPU is no longer the loudest part of my system, which is now my PSU I think