Nowdays ATI (we just couldn’t say AMD) has the leadership crown in desktop graphics, but there aren’t many people to tell you they also have some of the best mainstream notebook graphics too. Mobility Radeon HD4570 is to be considered the best entry-level laptop video card ever, as no matter how low is its price tag of the notebook, it still manages to give good performance.Mobility Radeon HD4650 and HD4670 are to be found in some of the mid-range notebooks from major manufacturers, and it is more expensive, but faster than NVIDIA GeForce GT240M. HD4670 is as good as the desktop Radeon HD4670 and you can play pretty much every game on it.
If we look at the HD4570 card, we have to make a note – it’s a good performer as long as it is equipped with DDR3 video memory. That is – the 64-bit memory bus is real bottleneck that can be compensated only with faster memory speed, and the difference in memory speed of DDR2 and DDR3 models of HD4570 is 600 MHz. But even if you get the DDR3 version you still can do so much better… if there was a way to overclock the card. Neither AMD own tools (AMD GPU Clock Tool) or 3rd party overclocking utilities such as GPU Tool, ATI Tray Tools or RivaTuner work with Mobility Radeon HD4570. It doesn’t support ATI Overdrive too. Some HD4570 also have a BIOS bug that makes their memory work at slower speeds while ATI PowerPlay is active (read more here how to fix this).
Now lets go back on the HD4650and HD4670 models. They are stronger performers and they lack the bottleneck of HD4570, as their memory bus is 128-bit, and you can find only DDR3 versions, so there is no real problem with those card. But given their memory speed is critical to their performance, you can put a good use of memory overclocking. If there was a way to do it.
Thanks to a smart user in MSI official forums now we can overclock all those cards with RivaTuner. Sure, someone would call it risky, but as long as you know what you are doing, the risk is same as if not overclocking at all. But those chipsets aren’t even hot to begin with, so you can probably squeeze some performance out of them even without going to the extremes.
How to overclock ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570, HD4650 and HD4670?
First you should head of to Guru3D (that is www.guru3d.com) and download the lastest RivaTuner version. Riva Tuner is an essential overclocking and tweaking tool for NVIDIA users, but it can also be used with AMD videocards for some tweaks. Namely the overclocking part which we are after now. Once you install RT, don’t run it – it won’t work “out of the box”. Download GPU-Z too (www.cpuid.com) and run it. Look for the Device ID number as shown below:
Once you locate the number, copy it and ad an “h” to the end (in our case this makes 9488h), then head to Riva Tuner installation folder (if you don’t know where is it, you really shouldn’t overclock!) and open RivaTuner.cfg with Notepad or other simple text editor.
Under the “[GPU_1002]” section you will see ATI chipset numbers and IDs – add the HD4570 ID (with “h” at the end) next to RV710 row and HD4650 and HD4670 ID (again – as “XXXXh“) next to RV730 row. It should look like this:
Save the file and run Riva Tuner – now you will see something like that:
You should probably open the monitoring section which is the last button and then open the Low-level system setting to see that screen:
You probably know this screen well already, but before you start overclocking we highly reccomend to you to download latest FurMark and leave it to work in Stability test mode with 4xMSAA enabled in the background, so you can notice any problem that may rise up once you change the frequencies. Once you get a stable resul you should download some CPU stress test and a hard disk drive benchmark and run FurMark, the CPU stress test (on all CPU cores) and HDD benchmark simultaneously. That way you will test all the important and energy consuming parts of the notebook, and see if its cooler will fail to deliver enough heat dissipation. The last step is critical, as in most notebooks GPU, CPU and chipset cores hare the same cooler.
Other than that you can fail if your AC adapter is rated too close your notebook consumes. Many mass consumer notebooks have 95W AC adapters which won’t work well after overclock, but you can either buy a more powerful spare or some universal adapter such as Cooler Master ones rated for more power consumption (at least 125W). Of course you might not have a adapter problems at all, so you should investigate any failures yourself – we are not responsible for any damage that overclocking your laptop video card may lead to.
To prove that there is much more in overclocking than you will see at dirst glance we ran a test on HD4670 equipped MSI GX623. We also overclocked the CPU (MSI have built-in OC tool with push of a button) at some point to see if it matters much.
Those are relative numbers and the notebook also ran a torrent client and other programs as well to ensure stability, but you can see the 25 MHz core and 300 MHz memory overclock of Mobility Radeon HD4670 led to over 25% better (700 poins above the non-overclocked result) GPU Score. Compared to that, the 400 MHz above the default speed of our Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 only added around 300 points of GPU Score on top of that, but again, it’s after we overclocked the HD4670, so at the end we had much higher result in both GPU and CPU Scores and the 3DMark06 Score.
Cool, isn’t it? In our words – 00/10, because we finally fount a reason to stick to ATI mobile graphic cards and not to throw eyes on GeForce GT240M…
Higher Twisted Rating is worse!
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Thanks for the RivaTuner guide.
I use this instead:
TechPowerUp’s GPUTool Community Technology Preview 1
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1383/GPUTool_Community_Technology_Preview_1.html
No editing required, works with ASUS N81Vp-D1′s ATI Mobility Radeon HD4650 except for the fan control and there is no option to apply overclock settings on Windows startup.
Problem is that GPU Tool doesn’t work well with every card. For example all it does on our HD4670 is to eat one of our CPU core’s resources and then it doesn’t change anything on the card itself. We had given up before we found the the Riva Tuner solution :)
Thanks again for that info. I guess I was lucky GPUTool CTP1 worked on mine but will try RivaTuner soon. Hopefully, an official RivaTuner version with full support for HD4650 et al will be released. By the way, overclocking the GPU (and CPU) raised the N81Vp-D1′s Windows Experience Index Base Score from 5.6 to 5.7 (Processor and Gaming Graphics component). Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfhE_vg831g
For the info of interested folks, here is a 3DMark06 Score of ASUS N81Vp-D1 notebook with overclocked CPU and overclocked ATI Mobility Radeon HD4650 graphics card: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT6ccSwyxnw&fmt=22
[...] it remained near the HD4670 results, although here we overclocked the HD4670 (you can check this manual to how to do it with RT). But this is a 320SP graphics card with almost the same memory and it [...]
I have the 4570 but the DDR2 version. Will I see any beneficial gains from overclocking or is it just the DDR3 thats good for it?
Not really, as the memory will be huge bottleneck for the core, but if you can overclock the memory even a bit, it will help a lot.
thanks a lot this is a great article. i got my Hd 4650 to run 650/800 pretty stably.
One last question. If I were to find a 4570 that had DDR3 or GDDR3 do you think I would be able to swap them out without having to do a BIOS update since they are still the same model?
You will probably be able to swap them, but that is only if you can reach the miniPCIe slot. And of course if all fits, etc. Problems is it is hard to find anything newer than 3650 on ebay and such.
Riva turner is not working on windows 7 64 bit
what do I do??? I have a sony vaio sr…
Works just fine for us.
Hi! I really enjoy read your articles.
hi there!!
is there any option in rivatuner like the gpu tool, when on non 3d app, to apply the default underclock values?
it’s kinda stressfull for the vga chip to be always in OC..
my laptop ia a Vaio VGN-FW51MFH 450/600; OC 560/750 stable.
best regards
fluxus, u oc only the 3d clocks so they get applied only when ur running a 3d app/game..
as a side note, my mobility 4650 runs stable (and not any hotter [even lower than stock] after adjusting fan a bit higher) on reference 4670 clocks.. :D
so been happy with 675/800 till now, might be able to get some extra kick, but not sure if much more.
anyway, i have to use gputool. rivatuner works for me too and applies the clocks, but just freezes the pc randomly even on lower clocks. gputool allows me to run these clocks 100% stable. weird.
wishing for an update for it tho so i could apply them on startup. altho usually i only apply them when plugged in. still. at least the quick clock would be nice if the saving worked, same for fan control.
Hello everyone, thanks for this post, very useful
I have a ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570. it is not bad. with overclocking reaching very high levels. frames are multiplied by two or 3 times, even the video converter is faster, reaching 10,052 of benkmarck but after 10 minutes and 35 seconds of using the GPU more than 45% off the pc. I have a Dell Studio 1557. you think is a fault or the system can not support overclocking? Thanks for an answer
Hey,
I’m using the HD 4570 in a Sony Vaio vgn-FW56E. When I overclock, to the same as shown here, my screen goes black. I reduced the amount, and it just took a little longer before doing the same thing. Anybody got any success with overclocking the 4570, and if so, could I have some figures?
Apart from that, excellent guide
Hey thanx a lot for this guide! I have a dell studio 1558 with ati M radeon 4570 ddr3! I was getting frame rates of 13 on 1280 x 720 resolution! overclocking by just 30hz in each n boosted it to a solid 20-35 fps! Thanx a lot!
Hello everyone, thanks for the answers
even if my card overclocked slightly from these problems. you think is a problem of operating system?
I have Vista 64 bit. Sridhar probably have Windows 7 instead Tommo Vista suppose is not right it?
could be that the overclock is more stable with Windows 7. so if anyone has problems with Vista and not with operating system Windows 7 will be grateful if you reply at me thanks
Hello everyone,
I tried the RC version of Windows 7 and the same problems.
you think the system is faulty or the card can not support overclocking?
Hello. thanks for an answer
Tommo – it means your cooling is not sufficient.
Gabrielle – it could be your card working at its lowest possible voltages, which ATI love to do, meaning it is not good overclocker, or the system is getting too hot. It is also possible that your power supply doesn’t provide enough power, but you will have to nail some of these problems down.
Umbelievable!!
- I got ASUS K50AB (Turion 2.2Ghz – HD 4570 DDR2)
- I got Memory Clock (Stock) at 500Mhz (instead of AMD’s 800Mhz)
- this been a great help
(I also just got the VBIOS using RBE – edited it (all 800Mhz basically) but can’t flash at all.
Good Luck!!
P.S. I also switched Blue and Wires (fan wires) – fan is always on
Sorry about this one – Blue and Yellow wires (which is the standard from the fan manufacturer’s point )
Hello everyone,
Tommo thanks for the reply and sorry for the delay but I had a rush job
not a problem raffreddamnto Card is stable from 40 to 50 degrees celsius while the use between 0 and 40%, over 40% for games, graphics acceleration, editig video, video conversion, 3D CAD models, it is at most to 60 degrees Celsius maximum after 2 hours at 70 degrees Celsius
there isn’t a problem of supply, the system is sufficiently powered
I checked the voltage is correct
I think it is a problem with the video card bios
Tommo thank you by the availability
hello
Hi,
I have a problem with OC my MSI EX625 HD4670. I’ve done everything like you wrote, but benchmarks (FurMark, 3DMark) show always the same scores regardless of clocks arrangements e.g.: I set in RT clocks to 800/900. I run Furmark (Benchmark mode), which displays my news clocks, but score is still the same as without OC. It looks like this OC doesn’t works. Can you help me with my card ?
Thx
Be sure to disable powerplay in ati ccc .
And als so this is a better tool fot the job ,much easy`r.
amd gpu clock tool
http://downloads.guru3d.com/AMD-GPU-Clock-Tool-v0.9.8-download-1985.html
MSI Afterburner will be able to get your clocks right! ;)
Mobility 5850 ddr3 625//800 @ 750//960
Vantage; 5700 @ 6800
3dmarks 06; 8500 @ 10000
Temps less then 73C at these tests
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