Fx 5900 Xt

[chrisbard]

OK, OK, I know this card is old but I have a question. When I set the core at 500 Mhz and the memory at 750 Mhz the nvtune program report this as 500/750. After I run 3dMark 2003 if I go into more details tab I find there that the core is at 300 and the memory at 750. Can this be wrong? Or in case it is right why is nvtune not working? I would think that nvtune is more accurate.

"This is the only 5900XT-based graphics card to use an original PCB design that deviates from NVIDIA’s etalon. The power supply circuitry was redesigned most of all and the standard volt-modding recipe doesn’t work here. Notwithstanding the adjusted PCB design, the characteristics of the card (also its overclockability) don’t differ from the norm. They come into shops as Palit Daytona and XpertVision (the second trademark of Palit). If you’re willing to reflash the BIOS – the only BIOS that keeps the TV-Out operational is from the BFG GeForce FX 5950 Ultra VGA (BIOS Version 4.35.20.35.33)"

IS it worth trying to update it's bios? if I mess up can I write the old bios back?

Thanks, Chris

[danrok]

I think it is normal for 3d mark to report the stock card speeds even when it is overclocked.

[MONKEYMAN]

yeah for some reason it reports the 2d clock speed and not the 3d core speed

[chrisbard]

OKIDOKI, is anyone here that can tell me if it's worth updating the bios to the ultra version?

[GrahamGarside]

You will want a pci card to hand in case it mucks things up, either that or a dos boot flopyy with an autoexec.bat file contaniing the command to flash unprompted.

[chrisbard]

I have one ati Rage on PCI in the other computer. So I think I'll go for it as soon as I find the bios I am looking for

[MONKEYMAN]

if you are planning on flashing to the 5950ultra bios.....DONT!
I have flashed the bios on the card in my sig to that of a leadtek 5950 ultra, the memory timing are relaxed more on the 5950u bioses and the core voltage is raised to allow for the higher memory/core clocks, I found that although you can get higher clocks with the 5950u bios(15-20mhz) the performance increase was actually negative in the case of my card(-200points 3dmark03).
overclocking with extra cooling is your best option, as you can see in my sig I can get over 6000 points 3dmark03 which is around the same as a 5950ultra clocked at 550/1050.

[chrisbard]

I usually get 5790 in 3dmark 2003 and in hot as hell but without artefacts I get 6056 points. Maybe I should be happy with this results and forget about overcloking! But I've seen that your memory is at 800 at stock, how is that possible? Mine is at 700 at stock.

[MONKEYMAN]

xfx clock their memory higher as as standard, i can get the memory upto 990mhz but very hot , cant get the core over 490mhz