I'm happy to say that I am yet another success story of the now famous 9500>9700 softmod. I ran it stock as a 9500 w/ stock 276 core and 270 mem and
scored 12001. I then installed the softmod, ran it again, and scored 15433. Look at the texture scores. Sweet!! I then bumped the core to 325 and mem to 300 (no bios flash required, the Sapphire 9500's are unlocked) and scored 16687!!
Those are some incredible results if you ask me. I pretty much have a 9700 Pro in my rig for $150 shipped. And no artifacts at all during the testing (checkerboard, dots, or anything else strange), and so far, NFS:HP2 and RTCW have run flawlessly. It really feels like I did not take a huge step back at all returning my recently purchased 9800 Pro and I saved myself $275 in the process. The best thing about this is that there is no bios flashing to do. No hardware modification at all. So you can still keep a proper warranty.
Wizzard, you are the man!! I couldn't be happier!!
P.S. For any one that wants to try this, the card can be purchased here w/ free shipping Link and the softmod file(s) can be found here Link One thing I can mention is that while the card resembles the picture at NewEgg in that it has the L-shaped memory layout, it doesn't have the ATI factory looking heatsink, but rather a round Sapphire looking HS with the words "Powered by ATI" on it.
Good luck!!
scored 12001. I then installed the softmod, ran it again, and scored 15433. Look at the texture scores. Sweet!! I then bumped the core to 325 and mem to 300 (no bios flash required, the Sapphire 9500's are unlocked) and scored 16687!!
Those are some incredible results if you ask me. I pretty much have a 9700 Pro in my rig for $150 shipped. And no artifacts at all during the testing (checkerboard, dots, or anything else strange), and so far, NFS:HP2 and RTCW have run flawlessly. It really feels like I did not take a huge step back at all returning my recently purchased 9800 Pro and I saved myself $275 in the process. The best thing about this is that there is no bios flashing to do. No hardware modification at all. So you can still keep a proper warranty.
Wizzard, you are the man!! I couldn't be happier!!
P.S. For any one that wants to try this, the card can be purchased here w/ free shipping Link and the softmod file(s) can be found here Link One thing I can mention is that while the card resembles the picture at NewEgg in that it has the L-shaped memory layout, it doesn't have the ATI factory looking heatsink, but rather a round Sapphire looking HS with the words "Powered by ATI" on it.
Good luck!!
