dual X1950pro 512's

System Specs:
Athlon X2 3800+ @ 2.10ghz
Asus A8R32 MVP Deluxe Xfire mobo
2gb Dual Channel RAM (4x512mb with heatsinks)
600w SLi power supply
2 HIS X1950pro 512mb PCIe IceQ3 Turbo video cards
400gb HD space(2x 200gb@ 7200rpm)
Antec 900 gaming case

Ok so It's my birthday today and earlier this week I recieved 2 X1950pro 512mb PCIe GFX cards. I upgraded from a 256mb X1800XT from saphire. Before the upgrade I could run games on medium to high graphics. My best 3dmark06 score for the system then was a 4606 with stock CPU speed but overclocked GFX card. I installed my new cards the same day the 7.5 drivers were released so I immediately downloaded them and installed them. I use ATItools also but the voltage and fan speed options were gone from it after new driver installation. I upgraded to ATItools .27b and it brought back the fan controls at the least. I, like many other people, immediately upped the fans to 100%. SInce I couldn't adjust the voltage to overclock I proceeded to my first 3dmark test with Xfire enabled .

Test #1
Stock CPU and GPU speeds of 2.0ghz cpu, 587.25/769.50 gpu/mem clocks.

Score: 6244
SM2: 2570
SM3: 3067
CPU: 1518

This is a pretty crappy score for having 2 512mb X1950pro's I thought. I decided to overclock the cards to see what would happen and it wasn't an improvement. This time with the cards overclocked to 620/800 and I got a 6145 score. This was irritating me.
I then thought to just use the drivers that came with the cards. I also wanted to see if one of the cards just wasn't working right so I disabled Xfire and used 1 card.

Test #3 Single card
Stock CPU, Stock GPU/mem clocks with catalyst 6.12 drivers(yes thats what came with the CD)

Score: 4826
SM2: 1923
SM3: 2139
CPU: 1507

Ok well thats not too much better than my 256mb X1800XT. I swapped cards and got a similar score so I ruled out that it was a faulty card. Lets enable Xfire and see what I get.

Test #4 Xfire enabled
Stock CPU and GPU/mem clocks, catalyst 6.12 drivers.

Score: 7086
SM2: 3089
SM3: 3597
CPU: 1522

Thats a little better with older drivers, but I don't think that score is high enough with the kind of specs I have. I tried overclocking the cards again to 620/800 clocks with the 6.12 drivers and got a lower score of 6784. This was baffling me to no end. Are these cards just not overclockable at all? Since my CPU wasn't overclocked I decided to give it a try. I'm not a very good overclocker but I managed to get the CPU up to 2.101ghz(each core). I couldn't get it any higher as i'm a newb so I ran 1 last test.

Semi-Final Test:
Overclocked CPU from 2.0 to 2.10ghz, stock GPU/Mem clocks, catalyst 6.12 drivers

Score: 7348
SM2: 3222
SM3: 3685
CPU: 1595

Now thats more like it. If I try to overclock the video cards I always get lower scores. ATItools still doesn't have voltage for the cards and I don't know of any bios flashes for the PCIe 512mb X1950pro's. I was wondering if anyone had any similar results with these cards or if people are getting way better scores. FPS games all run at max settings with only the slightest bit of hesitation during some of the quicksave moments. EQ2 was still sluggish on high quality and I just expect much more from these cards. Heres the screenshot:

If it went up that much by OCing your cpu the cards must be being bottlenecked by the cpu.

Try getting the cpu speed up more and you should see them start to open up more. I remember an article on [H] where they found that with I think it was high end 79xx series cards you needed an A64 running at 2.4GHz to properly feed one card. So I'd imagine it's a pretty big bottleneck with two cards and a 2.1GHz.


With my current system I could run EQ2 at the setting above balanced in the EoF expansion. They did something differently there that made it run my computer harder and used a ton more ram than the rest of the game. In the rest of the game I could have turned it up more (Not sure about KoS as I didn't go there with this system) as I was getting well over 60fps. This was at 1280x875 or whatever that odd resolution above 1024x768 is. So depending on your resolution you may be able to get some usable info out of that.

A 1950 pro is only a bit faster than a 1800XT. But your CPU is a major bottleneck. Overclock that sucker to 2.5 or more. Then you will see a nice increase.
Get a good Heatsink for the X2 and let her rip.
i can help with settings as i just switched out my A8R32 for a conroe setup.

I enherited the CPU from a friend who upgraded to an fx60. He has exact same mobo as I do and he had it running at 2.4ghz but I can't get it to do anything past 2.1. I can post what my settings are at but for the most part I use the auto ai overclocking option in the bios, the settings that let you do 3%, 5%, etc. I got it to do 5% but anything above that will make the PC not even post. Only after several reboots does it get back to "overclocking failed" screen where i can get back into bios. This may be a topic for cpu/mobo forums though.

Just2stoned said:

I enherited the CPU from a friend who upgraded to an fx60. He has exact same mobo as I do and he had it running at 2.4ghz but I can't get it to do anything past 2.1. I can post what my settings are at but for the most part I use the auto ai overclocking option in the bios, the settings that let you do 3%, 5%, etc. I got it to do 5% but anything above that will make the PC not even post. Only after several reboots does it get back to "overclocking failed" screen where i can get back into bios. This may be a topic for cpu/mobo forums though.

Click to expand...

I doubt the auto OC drops the memory divider speed so you are most likely maxing out your memory performance with the current timings / volts. You should have much better results manually OCing. Though the 4x dimms may give you some issues in the long run, especially if you try and OC the memory.

never use teh auto overclocking sttings they are rubbish.
What are you cooling with?

Set memory to limit at 166, set hyper transport to 800. Then set FSB to 225.
This should work.
anyway PM me if you want some help.
My old board is sitting here with sempron in it at 290FSB (2.7Ghz) from 1.8Ghz.

ok i've been playing around with the overclocking. Set the ram to 166 mark and have all other settings set to a guide I found with a user who has same mobo and cpu. stuff such as setting voltages to +100v, 1.4v etc. I can go into details a bit later as i'm still tweaking around with it. Right now I've got the FSB set to 227mhz with a 11x multiplier according to the bios, but when windows boots up and CPUz starts, it says it's at a 10x multiplier but at the same FSB speed I set it to, 227. This gives 2.27ghz. My goal is the 2.4+ that was mentioned about the video cards needing to run optimally.

*UPDATE*
I couldn't get past 227 FSB with the memory at 166. Seeing how I have 4 512mb sticks I remembered reading somewhere that the more sticks you had the lower # you would need because of having to share something. I'm not sure exactly but in any case I lowered the memory to 133 and cranked the FSB up to 243mhz and it booted up clean. Cpu is idling at 37c @ 2.430ghz. i'm loading up 3dmark06 now to see if it can handle some stress. I've got enough cooling I think with air as my friend who had this chip before gave me his zalman fan as well. He had it up a little higher but i'm happy it's what it's at now. Will edit with 06 score when it finishes..if it finishes.

*update*
Well it finished. It scared the bageezus out of me during cpu test 1 when asus cpu tools cpu temp warning went off. When it cycled to to cpu test 2 I saw the temp had hit 60c. After cpu test 2 the temp read 63c. I was to understand that this chip was capable of handling 70c, with 60c being recommended max. I will bump the FSB back to 240mhz to be safe. So after the near heart attack I got some results which i'm pretty happy about.


The video cards are at stock clocks but as this thread started out, overclocking them didn't help before, but if I am at the 2.4ghz mark that these cards really need to work good then maybe i should try to up the power to the cards and see if I can break 8k.

Nice OC and nice score increase. maybe with 7.5's and a little bump in the vid card clocks you can break 8K

I run my proc at 2.4 ghz at 1.2 volts and I have the exact same proc and mobo you do.
there is no need to run your volts higher than stock in my opinion. Not for something so mild.
will drop the temps hell right now, load on my proc doesn't hit your numbers and its 90 degrees in my house literally.
and 11 multi won't work you can go lower with multi's only.

Your vcore of 1.5v may be a bit high. I'd ask your friend what he was using for vcore at various speeds as you may be able to lower it a fair bit. That's mainly what's causing temps to go up more than the clock speed itself. (Unless your room temps are rather high / you have too much thermal compound on the cpu in which case it'll be high no matter what really). I do think the temps you mentioned seem a bit high even for that vcore, but I've never owned a x2 chip so can't say for sure.

But those scores are much better than before. I think that some more cpu speed should help get them higher seeing how your running crossfire and will let them open up better when OCing them.

I'd say to get your friend to help you OC the cpu a bit more. He must have a fair idea of what he's doing and would be a good person to get some help from seeing as he most likely knows your cpu fairly well since it was his.

Good luck with the rest of the OCing. Seeing the score you got makes me kinda wish I has gotten the x1950 Pro over my 7900GS as I'd be able to crossfire them on this board.


With my setup I got a 5527 total with 2257 SM3, 2199 SM2, and 2118 CPU. I got a 5372 when I had a similar CPU score as you. Hence why I say that you may still have a bit of a slowdown from the cpu.

Ok I bumped the voltages down to 1.3 and temps haven't exceded 56c under load but if you say it'll run fine at 1.2v than I'll swap it back. At idle it's reading 36-38c. My friend Roadkill tells me to try the catalyst 7.5 drivers yesterday so I did. I also used CCC to overclock the GFX cards to 621/803 on each. CCC will NOT let you go any higher than this. I used ATItools .27b to try to get them higher. Memory wouldn't go much higher than 820 and as soon as I bumped the GPU up to 630 the PC froze. I left it at the 621/803 that CCC would allow and ran another 3dmark06 test. Only a slight increase of 30ish points. That score was a 7965. So dang close to 8k!! I want to break that 8k mark with my current setup and I think I can I'm just not sure how.

I'm wondering if since I can drop my 1.4v settings back down to 1.2v that i may be able to raise the FSB up a little more from 240mhz to maybe 250. The cards still didn't gain that much benefit from overclocking them though it seems, which Is back on topic for the reason why I started the thread. Is anyone having better or worse success with these cards?

got any pics of them in action?

I believe you need to use driver level overclocking instead of the ATItool. Thats why as soon as you oc the gpu it freezes.

Master_Pain said:

I believe you need to use driver level overclocking instead of the ATItool. Thats why as soon as you oc the gpu it freezes.

Click to expand...

after owning 2 x1950pro's, and running them in crossfire for 6 months...I can confirm this. AtiTool does not support x1950pro overclocking, as of yet. Actually, it doesn't support any of the newer 80nm parts (so the sapphire 1950gt is included in this, as well).

way to but in there sabre but ya, I looked, on ATItool's webpage it specifically states that it does not support the 1950 series.

I'll just post 3 so I don't get in trouble with all the pics...

and in action..even though you can't see anyting...

and all closed up...

lol, your setup is very look alike to mine

I decided to go for broke and overclock the snot out of my CPU. I upped the FSB to 250mhz(2.502ghz) and overclocked the cards to their max: 620/793. I am very pleased with the outcome!
CPU temps after each CPU test were at 52c for test 1 and 48c after test 2. I may be able to squeeze some more out of the CPU, maybe 260mhz or so. It isn't anything to brag about but I am very pleased with the score I got with the setup i have

very nice! i like

Very nice score increase. And grats on hitting 2.5ghz on that CPU.

Using ATItool .27b I managed to clock my cards in at 621/816. I've raised my FSB on CPU to 260mhz giving me 2.602ghz. Temps on CPU after the CPU test 1 and 2 are never higher than 54c. Temps on GFX cards never go past 47c. With that said I got a little more out of my rig. There was mention of these cards required lots of CPU power to function properly, and if thats the case, this thread has proved it.