bba 9800 np oc'ing results with pro mod bios and np bios

[tweakmaster420]

ok, i have been experimenting with this card for 3 days now, i flashed with the modified pro bios with stock speeds of 378/315 and i have to say this made the card perform slightly worse when i oc'd it. also when i oc'd the ram at 326 i had more of a major atifact situation, it actually corupted my whole desktop,, had to do a reboot.. i guess the infineon ram cant take the timings and voltages in the bios and degrades performace worse. if you have a bba 9800 np card stick with the stock bios and overclock it from there. i ran many test with 3dmark2001 and at maximum oc using both bios , i had a 17235 with the modded pro bios and now i have a score of 17590. thats 300 points difference. the stock bios is more tweaked for that infineon mem. you cant change a hardware limitation with a flash. my max oc with crystal orb is 409/324.
being that i never tried the stock cooler first for oc'ing, i dont know if 409.25 is a limitation of the crystal orb or not. i also took the shim off sucessfully, trying to get more airflow from the orbs fan to the core and also to make sure it was making good flat contact. at this point im contiplating puting the stock back on to see. problem is im runnin out of arctic silver 3. im thinkin maybe the stock cooling with a fan moded on the top might be better. in the future i think im going to invest in a smaller thermalright copper cpu sink to get very good active cooling on this baby. i hope i was a help to those of you who have a bba 9800np and are trying to achieve pro like scores,remember keep it stock,(DO NOT FLASH BIOS!) put better cooling solution on it and clock it as high as you can being safe. at least till a custom taylored bios becomes avail. for this card that proves it can help TWEAK it a lil more.

thx for all the info i got from people on here. just tryin to give some back. later

 

[Robor]

Great post tweakmaster420. Great info for those with a 9800NP that's got Infineon memory.

Too bad you can't overclock higher but you've still got a great card that should perform near the top of the charts.

 

[Jagercola]

I got one from circuit city last night and it's a retail boxed 9800np with 3.0 inf ram. I'm having trouble flashing the card because I don't have a floppy drive. Any attempt to create a bootable cd that I could flash with has failed. Any ideas? Bios for 9800np with 3.0 Inf Ram This bios is the 9800 Pro bios with slightly relaxed memory timings that will work with the 9800np with 3.0 inf ram. The processor clock is the same, but the memory timing is 325 rather than 340. Be sure to let me know if you have any ideas about making a boot cd to flash with. Thanks

 

[tweakmaster420]

stay away from that flash,, thats the bios i used to test my card, like i said, i got 350+ point gain on 3dmark2001 and more on other test at the same oc with stock bios. best bet is to get better cooling and oc the hell out of it at a SAFE level. i have thoroghly tested this card and i did it for me and everyone else out there so no one screws up there cards w/ that bios flash..if you got samsung 2.8 , more power to ya, be happy u lucked out.as for the bba infineon the stock np bios is tweaked for that certain memory there for giving the better results not in how high the oc can get but the actual optimizations of that cards memory. i got the same limitations in oc'ing # wise, just when its flashed with that bios if you go over the threshold of the ram's limit results are more severe (corupted distorted display on desktop causing you to reboot). and my opinion is it not worth posibly damaging a great card just to KNOW you have a pro bios. especialy when you get better more stable results with the stock bios @ same oc level and still reach just 30mhz under a pro, mem wise. i hope that everyone with the infineon mem ver. sees this post, as i hope to be very informitive and time saving for you guys. hey you got a great card...enjoy it. (excuse my spelling,,, i just woke up..)

 

[sdaccord01]

Originally I got the BBA Radeon 9800np from Best Buy, open boxed @220. After reading how other people got it at BB with samsung ram I went on a massive hunt around my area searching for 9800s with the right serial numbers but nope, no luck. The memory seems to max out at 325 while the core seems overclockable by a lot with my zalman zm80c-hp heatsink and fan. I went up to 420 and it seems like it'll go further. Pretty good considering the stock clock on the np is about 100mhz less.