My 9500Pro is now a 9700Pro

LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, Alaska Icrontian
edited October 2004 in Hardware
Well, almost a 9700 Pro. It still doesn't have 256MB of memory. After reading this thread , I summoned up the gumption to flash the Radeon 9500 Pro in System 1. Successful? HOLY COW!

I installed the latest Rage3D Tweak and overclocked the card from 275/275 to 300/300. I then ran 3DMark03...(drum roll please).... and gained...

:eek2::eek:

956 points! If that's not an instant hardware upgrade for free, I don't know what is.

Let's bump up the GPU and RAMDAC some more and see what happens!

:eek2::eek:

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2003
    at 310/310, all ran perfectly. Picked up an additional 121 3DMarks, for a total improvement of 1077.

    I tried 315/315. 3DMark03 ran fast and smoothly, but started picking up artifacts.

    What would be causing that - too high OC on the RAMDAC or GPU?
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited August 2003
    Voltmod!!! :D
  • SimGuySimGuy Ottawa, Canada
    edited August 2003
    Try backing off the memory 5 MHz and see if you can get some added cooling support to the card (either a fan or home-made ramsinks, etc).

    You should be able to get 9700 Pro speeds out of your card with extra cooling measures (325/620). :)

    Glad to know the article helped ya :)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2003
    SimGuy, Blackhawk. Thanks for the suggestions, but no more fans and no vid card hardware alterations. Been there, done that. My objective in booth System 1 and System 2 was to have high performance machines with minimal noise. So far, I've succeeded. Don't misunderstand though; I did appreciate your comments.

    As for the artificats - they don't appear until 315/315. What would most likely have caused that? I can find out by overclocking the RAMDAC and GPU one at a time, but was just wondering if someone could tell me without the testing.

    Thanks, guys.

    Leo
  • SimGuySimGuy Ottawa, Canada
    edited August 2003
    I suppose only one brush with the BIOS flashing software a day is good enough for ya eh Leo? :D

    I'd be willing to bet it's the memory that's overheating which is causing the artifacts. On my old Ti4400, the card would kick out of 3DMark when the core was clocked too high, and the artifacts would appear when the RAM was nearing its maximum overclock.
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited August 2003
    RAMSinks would not add any more noise.

    Chunk of aluminum + drill + Artic Silver Adhesive = RAMSinks :)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2003
    SimGuy,

    I'll give it a try - keeping memory at 310 and boosting GPU.

    mmonnin,

    Yes, why didn't I think of that! I've got all the stuff in the parts bin. I've used that method many times before. Huh, didn't even think of it til you mentioned it.
    I suppose only one brush with the BIOS flashing software a day is good enough for ya eh Leo?

    Not at all, the reason it took me so long to respond was that I was flashing my Liteon 32X10X40, upgrading it to a 40X! It worked! Took me forever. The bin file that I downloaded had it's properties set as Hidden and Archive. In DOS, the CDRW started to take the upgrade, but then errored out. After I cleared all the .bin's files attributes, the flash went by the book.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2003
    The artifacts were due to GPU overclocking. After testing GPU and memory separately, I'm holding the GPU 310 now with memory at 342. 3DMark03 performance is perfect, with no artifacts at all.
  • SimGuySimGuy Ottawa, Canada
    edited August 2003
    Leonardo said
    The artifacts were due to GPU overclocking. After testing GPU and memory separately, I'm holding the GPU 310 now with memory at 342. 3DMark03 performance is perfect, with no artifacts at all.

    Leo, do you have the "Built By ATI" 9500 Pro, or is it an OEM card?

    Nice O/C on the card by the way :)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2003
    Hmm.....I don't remember, and I'm too lazy to open my case right now. It is an ATI card; but I don't remember if it was retail or OEM. I bought it through a private deal. The default RAM/GPU is 270/270.
  • Al_CapownAl_Capown Indiana
    edited October 2003
    What speed is the memory? 3.3? 3.6?
  • jl3compjl3comp
    edited October 2004
    I have a "Built By ATI" 9500 Pro...........I thought the SOFT MOD was for NON pro cards??? :confused:
  • Jolyon33Jolyon33 Kalamazoo, MI
    edited October 2004
    Ummmm... Hate to burst your bubble Leo, but that bios is for modding nonpro 9500's in order to activate the four pipelines that were disabled in the original 9500 non pro's that were built from the same pcb specs that the 9700 pro's were.

    The only difference between a 9500 pro and a 9700 pro is the 9500 pro is 128 bit and the 9700 pro is 256 bit. Both cards have 8 pipelines.

    The original non pro was 256 bit but only 4 pipelines. Windows recognizes my 9500pro as a 9700 pro.
  • jl3compjl3comp
    edited October 2004
    Wasn't there a mod for the 9500 Pro -> 9700 Pro? Maybe a hardware modification???

    :scratch:
  • JimboraeJimborae Newbury, Berks, UK New
    edited October 2004
    No
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