{"id":23014,"date":"2011-01-05T08:56:42","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T08:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=23014"},"modified":"2011-01-07T00:42:25","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T00:42:25","slug":"amd-6850-bottleneck-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/amd-6850-bottleneck-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"AMD Radeon 6850 Bottleneck Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--pagetitle:Introduction &#038; Setup--><span style=\"color: #99ccff;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Introduction<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Welcome to the latest installment of my ongoing investigation on bottlenecking with video cards. For those not familiar with the series, I underclock one part of the video card while leaving the other part(s) at stock to see which affects performance the most.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the past articles in the series:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=20153\" target=\"_blank\">nVidia GTX470<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=12474\" target=\"_blank\">ATi 5770<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=9368\" target=\"_blank\">nVidia GTX285<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=4116\" target=\"_blank\">nVidia GTX260+<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=969\" target=\"_blank\">nVidia 8800 Ultra<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For this article I will be testing a <span style=\"color: #99ccff;\">Radeon 6850<\/span> with a <span style=\"color: #99ccff;\">20%<\/span> underclock to the core and memory (when one is underlocked, the other stays at stock). Since stock speeds for a 6850 are 775\/1000 (core\/memory), a 20% underclock is 620 core and 800 memory.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #99ccff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Hardware<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Intel Core i7 870 (3.2 GHz, turbo on, HT off).<\/li>\n<li>4 GB DDR3-1333 RAM (2\u00d72 GB, dual-channel).<\/li>\n<li>Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 (Intel P55 chipset, F6 BIOS).<\/li>\n<li>AMD Radeon 6850 (1 GB), reference clocks.<\/li>\n<li>Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic.<\/li>\n<li>30\u201d HP LP3065.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #99ccff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Software<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Windows 7 (64 bit).<\/li>\n<li>AMD Catalyst 10.12, high quality filtering, surface optimization disabled.<\/li>\n<li>DirectX June 2010.<\/li>\n<li>All games patched to their latest versions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #99ccff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Settings<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>16xAF forced in the driver, vsync forced off in the driver.<\/li>\n<li>AA forced either through the driver or enabled in-game, whichever works better.<\/li>\n<li>Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.<\/li>\n<li>All results show an average framerate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-7021221536180758\";\n\/* 468x60, created 11\/11\/09 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"1949837292\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle:Results &#038; Conclusion--><span style=\"color: #99ccff;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Results &amp; Conclusion<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-23037\" title=\"Text\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Text3.png?resize=396%2C219\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Text3.png?resize=396%2C219 396w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Text3-300x165.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-23036\" title=\"Graph\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Graph3.png?resize=450%2C339\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Graph3.png?resize=450%2C339 450w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Graph3-300x226.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Aliens vs Predator<\/em> shows the core and memory being almost equally important. Meanwhile, <em>Call of Duty 7<\/em> basically doesn\u2019t budge from changes to either clock, which is rather strange given faster graphics cards in the same system show performance improvements.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from those two outliers, the rest of the games show dramatically more impact from the core compared to the memory. So if you\u2019re overclocking your 6850, get the core up as high as possible as it\u2019ll have the greatest performance impact overall.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Please join us in our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/abt\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Forums<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow us on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech', 'Twitter']);\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the latest updates from ABT, please <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?feed=rss2\" target=\"_blank\">join our RSS News Feed<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Join our Distributed Computing teams<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Folding@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 164304<\/li>\n<li>SETI@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 138705<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1', 'World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech']);\" target=\"_blank\">World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-7021221536180758\";\n\/* 468x60, created 11\/11\/09 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"1949837292\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=23014\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=top title=\"Author: BFG10K\" src=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Article-Image.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2533,7814,7],"tags":[4349,72,73,293,238],"class_list":["post-23014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abt-news","category-articles","category-technology","tag-4349","tag-amd","tag-ati","tag-bottleneck","tag-radeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}