9800 pro to 9800 XT MOD!!!

[cadaveca]

I bought a 9800 pro today....
pulled off the heatsink to replace it with a copper unit.....
and what i read...

R360

????

i thought the 9800 pro was R350??!

i thought the die was a little bit big.....

did some research....

flash to 9800 XT bios to enable the pixel shader!!

Whoo-hoo!

gonna give it a whirl....will report back with details.

[cadaveca]

well...it worked... simple bios change and 600 point jump in 3dmark03 (now double the 9600np i have)

[karbon86]

hey dave from CA i have the same card and i just looked at the chip and it was the same one. What software did you use to flash it to the 9800XT cuz i want to do the same. I just put some OCZ copper ram sinks and some artic silver 5 to do some colling till i get my WaterChill kit

[cadaveca]

first...overclock your card and make sure that it can handle 412 @ the core & 365 mem...try ati tool to find out.
i did a search on google and found a bios that matched my ram (hynix 410A) and made sure to back up my original bios using a program called flashrom.

if you do a search on the sublect af changing to xt from pro on google, you'll find a site:
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx...var1=92&var2=0

that will link you to bioses and the flashing prog.

i did some benches myself, and i set my pro to xt speeds and ran 3dmark03...it still performed lower than it did with the xt flash, WITH HIGHER RAM SPEEDS THAN XT.
There was a VISIBLE difference....and no artifacts.
No...it did not help me get high gpu or mem speed on overclocking.
but as i understand it, it enables a pixel shader or something that the XT has and the pro does not.
i have not put any ramsinks on, just AS5 and and iceberq heatsink/fan. i can't find ramsinks anywhere in town here..gonna have to make my own.
you don't have access to the ATI overdrive, or the tempsensor, but i'm sure there is a way to read that sensor somehow. when i find out i'll post how.
i bought 2 other 9800 pro's today...one in the same box and one in a different box, both by ati. on the box that contained the R360 there was a line on the back of the box that basically said it was a new processor "Advanced stability meets revolutionary features in the RADEON 9800 PRO, the only 8-pipeline graphics solution in it's second generation." Second generation? uh..was the 9800 not originally the R350? so second generation means what? The board is still the same....new memory..so ok, might be that...but i think they were hinting at the new processor on the board!
BTW..sapphire 9800 pro 256mb's are on the XT boards.....SO THEY ARE XT'S WITH A BIOS FLASH TO DISABLE THE XT FEATURES! THIS MEANS PAYING 100 EXTRA FOR 128MB OF RAM THAT NO GAME USES IS WORTH IT! *the 256mb gets used if you use 2 displays, AFAIK.

[karbon86]

yeah i got the OCZ copper heatsinks from newegg and they are great without my side pannel fan they are real hot meaning they suck out the heat and with the pannel on they are cool so i take it that they work

[Marcus Bertolli]

Not a big deal.

My retail ATI 9800 Pro can do 490/386 with stock hsf.

[karbon86]

how can you do 490 gpu without artifacts. i start getting the ocasional flash or tear at around 425? with stock hsf.

[Pitch]

490 seems a little agressive...

[Marcus Bertolli]

I can provide a 3dmark2003 URL LINK to verify the overclock if you like.....

[cadaveca]

490 gpu would be a 350, not a 360 gpu.

[Marcus Bertolli]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

490 gpu would be a 350, not a 360 gpu.

That is correct, however THIS 350 gpu is faster then most, if not all, the 360's.....

9800XT is no better then a highly oc'd 9800 Pro.

But for those having problems oc they 9800 P's the mod is useful.

[cadaveca]

yes
i actually took that card back yesterday....the thought of it not being the same proc kinda irked me..i'd rather have the original... and that's what i got with my second. i'm actually hoping to get a little more money and buy the ASUS 256mb 9800 pro , that is actually an XT through and through

[bradmax57]

Originally Posted by Marcus Bertolli

Not a big deal.

My retail ATI 9800 Pro can do 490/386 with stock hsf.

You sure were lucky there, mine would do about 430 stock, once i put a vga silencer it would do 465

[karbon86]

after playing around with my settings i'm running 438 core 371 men stable at stock voltage with mem heatsinks and artic silver 5 paste on the gpu oh and running the new omega drivers.

[cadaveca]

[QUOTE=Marcus Bertolli
9800XT is no better then a highly oc'd 9800 Pro.

But for those having problems oc they 9800 P's the mod is useful.[/QUOTE]

it did not help my overclocking

IT DID MAKE A VISIBLE DIFFERENCE IN 3DMARK03(ALMOST 40FPS IN SOME SECTIONS) AND A 600PT GAIN ...WITH THE xt BIOS@412/364 IN COMPARISION TO THE 9800 PRO BIOS @ 412/378. 600 PTS! THAT'S LIKE UPPING MEM FROM STOCK PRO SPEEDS TO IN SYNC WITH THE GPU! those 600 pts have to come from somewhere.
the problem that i had with the card was that the 360 gpu has things in different places and an added temp sensor IN THE SAME DIE SIZE. to me this means there is something hokey going on. how do they get that extra performance while adding parts in the same space? and how do they get it to work on a PCB that is different than the standard?
i know that the first demo 9800xt's where on 9800 pro pcb's, and that they only had the new gpu and bios flash, but i still can't deal with that. going and buying a 9800 pro with a 360 is like buying the product as it was when it was being tested, and i don't like that. for a hundred dollars more i can get a 9800xt gpu on the pcb designed for it, that only performs up to spec of a pro(wether this is because of bios or poor chips i'll find out when i pick mine up), even with then temp sensor enabled.
and it's the temp sensor that i want.
AFAIK it's also the temp sensor that makes the gpu harder to overclock as well...

check out the asus 9800 pro 256... they even tell you that it is the xt gpu AND that the temp sensor works!

[cadaveca]

so here's an update.
after running the 360 gpu's on standard 9800 pro boards, i noticed a trend happening on every card that i got. first flash....bench. 6600-6800 points. bench again...400 point loss. bench the third time.. another 200 points gone. so now it ain't much better than a reg pro with the mem run in sync with the gpu. further benches lead to differing results... but not one more run like the first. the most that any of the cards can achieve now with all settings @ performance is 6100 points. i can get that without the bios flash.

so.. in conclusion to the 9800 pro pcb side of things....it really is not worth it. although the gpu's are the same size and almost the same architechture, running an XT bios on a non-XT board does not really benefit you at all...except that you just voided your warranty.

HOWEVER...
if you are one of the lucky one who ended up with both the 360 gpu AND the XT board...you can definately flash to your hearts content and get noticible gains...the drop-off in 3dmark03 has not been noticed with these cards...at least not by me. My current fav, and the card in my system now, is the ASUS one that i mentioned earlier. the thing i like best about this card is that it has a bright orange pcb...goes right nice with the Tt smart-fans i have! As well, all of the options that are available to the XT are available to the ASUS pro....and i think a few more. ASUS smart doctor allows you to monitor core voltage, AGPvddq, vcc, and fsb vddq (system ram vddq, based off of a fastwrite bench if i am correct). As well, you can either let the card increase fan speed by temps, or do it manually. And did i mention ram and gpu temp monitoring, as well as alarm sensors? VIVO? free half life 2 as well as 10 cd's in a snazzy orange case? all of these things, and not the fact that it is an XT in disguise make me so satisfied with this card, and it's higher-than-BBA price.
there are some downsides..this was the only card to not include a 12v molex splitter..in fact there was no supplied power cable at all. very foolish if you ask me. the second is that all the overclocking and temp monitoring happen through ASUS's own drivers, not the standard Catalyst drivers. Although the ASUS ones give me 7 points( lol yes 7 points lol ) in 3dmark03 over the recent Cat's, it's a slight inconvenince. the best i can sum that up to is that by default the ati drivers detect that the card is using a 9800 pro bios, and disable the temp reporting and overdrive. ASUS obviously overcame this when they did thier own version.


SO...IMHO
if you are goiung to buy a 9800 pro just because you heard you can flash it to XT...don't, unless you can be sure that you are getting both the 360 gpu and the XT pcb.