Flashing and overclocking 9800Pro

[CasTroLTraN]

Has anybody flashed their 9800Pro to a 9800XT and overclocking it? I am thinking about flashing mine to a 9800xt but still thinking that there could be risks. Currently my card is running at a little above the 9800xt clock speed and it's very stable with no artifacts. Should I experiment with it?

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: CasTroLTraN
Has anybody flashed their 9800Pro to a 9800XT and overclocking it? I am thinking about flashing mine to a 9800xt but still thinking that there could be risks. Currently my card is running at a little above the 9800xt clock speed and it's very stable with no artifacts. Should I experiment with it?

if it's stable, go for it.. it'll raise the voltage on your card also i believe... or else you can mod that thing with vmods

 

[batmang]

there used to be a huge thread over at the 3dmaxx forums about flashing your np/pro to an xt, but apparently, their site is not longer up. i actually tried it, but it doesnt work to well with hynix memory, which is what my ati brand 9800 pro has.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Well, if the card is 100% stable at 9800XT speeds, then why would you need to flash it? Granted, you might be able to OC it a little more with the flash, because of the extra voltage.

But why take the risk when the reward is little or nothing?

 

[FPSguy]

Run ATITool. It will tell you how high you can safely overclock your card.

 

[kyparrish]

cool...a thread i can speak directly to

The only way to tell if you can flash your card to a 9800xt is if you remove the cooling and look at your core. If it says "R350," DO NOT FLASH IT TO XT!!!!! You will artifact all over the place and according to rage3d.com forums, you will lose the ability to run AA. However, if you remove your cooling and see "R360" (the XT core), then go for the flash. Supposedly, newer 9800pro's being sold as OEM's are being shipped with R360 cores.

As far as modding your card, there are 2 schools of thought. The first school says, why would you even bother when the card runs past XT speeds as it is? The other school (which I belong to ) says, "heck, mod the crap out of it to squeeze every FPS that you can out of it!"

First, improve the cooling on that thing. I decided to go with the Arctic VGA silencer, partly because I was looking for a simple, bolt-on solution to cool this thing. My core overclock went from being stable at 405 mhz to being stable at 420mhz. Not bad. My Ram wouldn't get past 360mhz, but we'll get to that in a minute.

After reading this article, I decided to volt-mod my card. I solder onto circuit boards about 3 days a week because of work, so I found these volt mods to be easy. If you have any type of background with soldering and using a multi-meter, I recommend this mod whole-heartedly (just be careful when doing it!!!) My core overclock has since gone to 440mhz, and my Ram overclock has gone to 365mhz (not great, but I don't have any Ramsinks, and my ram chips are hot as crap to the touch, so heat is limiting me on my Ram now).

So, be sure to check to see if you have an R360 core before flashing to XT. Also, check over at rage3d.com forums, or ask here, or PM me if you have any more questions.

 

[CasTroLTraN]

Thanks for putting your time in giving a very good answer kyparrish. As of currently, I have not flashed my card. Man...I just fininhed putting on the Zalman on the r9800pro that I wanted to flash and I forgot to look at the core. Dang......so hard to take off the zalman. Right now my card is able to go at 441core /374 mem ( I have done nothing to the card). The card is very stable and has not sign of artifacts when I run 3dmark03, aquamark3 and Halo. I have not have the courage to try to go any higher ( I don't want to kill the card). Would I get more performance from the flash to 9800xt or keep it at this clock (441core /374 mem)?

 

[Megatomic]

I just tested my 9800P at 420MHz Core/360MHz Memory. Using ATiTool I had a stable core speed up to 453MHz and memory speed up to 377MHz, but what I have it set to now is good enough for me for now. All my games run well here.

I'm thinking about using RadEdit and setting my speeds there permanently and doing away with Radclocker... Anyone care to comment?

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: CasTroLTraN
Thanks for putting your time in giving a very good answer kyparrish. As of currently, I have not flashed my card. Man...I just fininhed putting on the Zalman on the r9800pro that I wanted to flash and I forgot to look at the core. Dang......so hard to take off the zalman. Right now my card is able to go at 441core /374 mem ( I have done nothing to the card). The card is very stable and has not sign of artifacts when I run 3dmark03, aquamark3 and Halo. I have not have the courage to try to go any higher ( I don't want to kill the card). Would I get more performance from the flash to 9800xt or keep it at this clock (441core /374 mem)?

Nope, but you might risk crashing you card.

 

[leeland]

great thread I am getting a new radeon soon and will be revisiting this thread once I get it in

 

[exar333]

I understand why some people like to flash their boards...but using a number of tools you can achieve(most of the time) the same performance. Also, people forget that their memory may not be able to handle the voltages and speeds that come along with flashing. All I can say is that to do a lot of testing FIRST, and not assume thier board can be flashed with no problems.