First Overclock: 9800Pro (not quite to XT?)

Sir Random

Lol, I'll be getting a 6800u on release anyway (G/F's Xmas present). My current 9800 is actually hers. I'm just keeping it warm until Sims2 is released

Adeptus Titanicus

LOL. I thought for a sec you were buying HER the 6800u! Hmmmm... It's my Birthday on Sunday..... :cool:

Adeptus Titanicus

VGA Silencer arrived this morning, so a little lapping this evening and it'll be all systems go for an XT flash!


Terms and conditions apply.

ozmo

Originally posted by Adeptus
VGA Silencer arrived this morning, so a little lapping this evening and it'll be all systems go for an XT flash!


Terms and conditions apply.

My new replacment video arrived to day to replace one the Zalman Cooler killed.
I have an Artic Cooler ready for it now - but its got bigger ridges than the Alps.
Any tips for lapping?
How can you ensure it doesnt just get rounded and only touches the chip in the middle - doesnt it have to be microscopically smooth and flat?
(wont be overclocking - just want it quiet)

Sir Random

Use a clean flat surface for lapping (sheet of glass) and finish with the finest grade paper you can get. Most auto-dealers have up to 1200.

Adeptus Titanicus

Yep, like what Sir Random said, with pictures :

http://www.modsynergy.com/Article%206.htm

http://www.bigbruin.com/html/lapping-guide.htm

Adeptus Titanicus

Finally got the Pro flashed to an XT. Nice! Thanks Sir Random!

At stock XT speeds of 412/365 I got a 3DMark03 Score of 6672, up from 6,421
on my original overclock of 411/365! Didn't think it'd make that much of a difference for basically 1MHz. So, overclocked a little more. Got it to 430/385 using ATITool and ran for about 10 mins without errors , stopped it then and ran 3DMark and scored 6937! So close! But there were a few little sparklies on the rhino on the pixel shader... Tweaked it a little more to 432/385, but definitely more sparklies, and only got to 6947...

Close enough to 7k for me!

Sir Random, would be interested in seeing how your mem heatsinks help.

Data, thanks for talking me out of getting the XT originally!

(All values rounded to closest integer)

Woden

Originally posted by Adeptus


(All values rounded to closest integer)

lol at that,

no problem XT was never the way forward

Col_Loki

Must say very nice results there !! Good to see things workin out for ya, u might try running 3dmark again with all other programs shutdown (dont know if that will help but i know results can vary a little and 7k is a nice barrier to break ).

So data artic cooler on the way for you then? Mabye an XT flash? Mobile chip? You know you want it!!

Woden

bah the thought of putting on an arctic cooler and changing to a mobile chip instills me with fear lol

i could get XT though with the stock cooling though i don't know if i'd run it all the time, next upgrade will be another half gig of ram to improve BF: Vietnam loading times and someform of large scale back up device either a dvd burner or an external hdd we'll see.... oh and a 17inch tft but my mam is paying for that

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by Dataisgod
bah the thought of putting on an arctic cooler ... instills me with fear

<VOICE style="Darth Vader" tone="Vaguely Enticing">
You don't know the power of the Dark Side...
</VOICE>

Col_Loki

oh and a 17inch tft but my mam is paying for that

Ahh now i like the sounds of that ....... always a good way to go!!

i could get XT though with the stock cooling though i don't know if i'd run it all the time

Yea i know what you mean i would be worried about it with the stock cooler too. You got a good card and you'd be perfect throwing on the artic cooler and poping up the speed, but then again your already prob playing every game at full specs so ........ lol its not that much of a problem (although benchmarks....). Mobile chip + Thermalright with 92mm enermax fan = 2.4ghz minimum and prob more.......... i gotta get €200 water cooling to get to that :rolleyes: , silly me !!

Woden

Originally posted by COL_LOKI
Ahh now i like the sounds of that ....... always a good way to go!!



Yea i know what you mean i would be worried about it with the stock cooler too. You got a good card and you'd be perfect throwing on the artic cooler and poping up the speed, but then again your already prob playing every game at full specs so ........ lol its not that much of a problem (although benchmarks....). Mobile chip + Thermalright with 92mm enermax fan = 2.4ghz minimum and prob more.......... i gotta get €200 water cooling to get to that :rolleyes: , silly me !!

for benchies i can hit about 440-50/380-90 iirc doesn't make much diff to 01 but about a 1000 in 03, next time i have a clean install i'll try that see what difference it makes.

i bet you'd get 2.6 though with a mobile on water cooling

Woden

Originally posted by Adeptus
<VOICE style="Darth Vader" tone="Vaguely Enticing">
You don't know the power of the Dark Side...
</VOICE>

i can here the calling... must resist....

Adeptus Titanicus

<VOICE style="Borg Drone" tone="Borg Drone">
Resistance is futile.
</VOICE>

Woden

Originally posted by Adeptus
<VOICE style="Borg Drone" tone="Borg Drone">
Resistance is futile.
</VOICE>

lmao at that

Sir Random

Nice one Adeptus
I'm about to have a few beers here, so I might attack the ramsinks about 2am I'm making up some fan shrouds to keep them cool too, I'll post pics when it's done.

neokenzo

I tried flashing to XT but it went terribly wrong. Graphics was all over the place. It did give me about 200-300 more on 3DMark2003. Probably get water cooling and then overclock the card more. Too bad my card R350 and HYnix memory so no way of flashing it to XT

Woden

do people see an actual increase in 3dmark from say a standard pro at 412/365 and a flashed pro at 412/365?

data

neokenzo

Apparently yes Data. When I o'c my card to 425 I got about 6400++ on 3DMark03 but when I flashed it even at 412, it was giving me 6600++.

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by Dataisgod
do people see an actual increase in 3dmark from say a standard pro at 412/365 and a flashed pro at 412/365?

I was wondering about that myself as this is what seemed to happen to me. I just rechecked what my original overclock on the Pro was and it was actually slightly more than the XT stock speed, 414.0/364.5.

At stock XT speeds of 412/365 I got a 3DMark03 Score of 6,672, up from 6,421 on my original overclock of 414/365 on the Pro BIOS. So 2MHz less on the core and I got 251 more? Can anyone explain this?

I feel your will wavering!

(All 3DMark03 Scores are based on a common base CPU speed of 3.6GHz. No Troll were hurt during the generation of these scores. Terms and conditions apply.)

Sir Random

The extra marks come from the R360's better PS2.0 support. The XT BIOS allows these shader optimisations to be used, so DX9 games run faster.

As for the R350 also gaining 3DMarks from the XT BIOS, this is apparently because the R350's lack of hardware support for these optimisations causes artefacts (instead of shading the pixels), which falsely increases the score.


From another post at Rojakpot:

It is no secret that the R360 core has certain shader optimisations over the 9800Pro. Also a 9800XT vs. a 9800Pro at the same clockspeeds, the 9800XT will win clock for clock due to these optimisations. My theory is, on the old core, with the BIOS flash, those optimisations were being called by the different programs (games, benchmarks etc) which resulted in artifacts and artificially increased the scores. Anyone who benchmarks regularly will state how artifacts can both decrease and increase scores.

http://forums.rojakpot.com/viewtopic.php?p=99710

Adeptus Titanicus

Thanks Random, that better PS support makes sense.

BTW, did you manage to stick your memory heatsinks on (hopefully not while drunk? )

Sir Random

I had the card out to do it, but decided against it (sensibly). I don't have any epoxy anyway, so I'll spend some more time getting the fans and stuff ready, then do it all in one go.

El_MUERkO

I'm using a 9800 non-pro so I'm limited by the memory and I wouldnt really want to push the GPU to 425 which is +100 on its stock but... could I flash the bios to 9800XT then clock back the ram and GPU?

Big Chief

is there anyway to find if the core is a R350 or R360 without removing the zalman heat pipe... was a bitch to get on as it is without having to remove it all again ;(

my 9800 pro is currently oc to 400/359 at the minute (if i goto 360 i seem to get small artifacts?) i can push the core further up but as i cant monitor temperature i was a bit dubious to do so? or could i go ahead

currently have zalman heat pipe + fan at the moment on it (the comp has been changed a fair bit since then, but the gfx setup is still the same)

silverside

AFAIK you can use AtiTool to downclock it back to 9800pro stock clock speeds.

Probably worth a try for the ~5% performance boost at the same clock.

El_MUERkO

I use Atitool to OC at present I'm just wondering if theres any issues with doing it.

Sir Random

I've had no problems o/cing with ATI Tool. I wouldn't go by their "find max core/mem" thing though, I prefer to find that myself.

Only the R360 cores actually benefit from the XT BIOS. Most R350s get artifacts/sparklies with the BIOS, even if they can clock much higher than 412/365 with the R350 BIOS.

Some people claim to have R350s working as XTs using the "Gigacube" XT BIOS. Might be worth checking out, but the R350 does not physically support the shader optimisations that are made available through the XT BIOS.

neokenzo

Originally posted by Sir Random
Some people claim to have R350s working as XTs using the "Gigacube" XT BIOS. Might be worth checking out, but the R350 does not physically support the shader optimisations that are made available through the XT BIOS.

The "Gigacube" BIOS you mentioned is not a XT BIOS. Its actually a 9800 Pro BIOS. However, this BIOS will only work if you have a Samsung memory. Some ppl have recorded better overclocking than flashing to an XT BIOS. If anyone is interested, you can get the BIOS here.. Look for Gigacube 9800 Pro 128MB dated 2003-29-08.