ATi 9600PRO <--- PLEASE HELP!!!

[Stopppppppppppp]

I am new to your site and OCing in general, but I am somewhat of a veteran with computer hardware and have my A+ certification (for what its worth). I do not claim to know everything (or even close), I have just come here to ask the advice of the experienced people who can answer my questions and better my knowledge. Here is a rundown of what I am working with:


Case: Lian-Li PC-60 (6 case fans)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-8IK1100 (No Rev.) (Don’t buy from zipzoomfly.com, they don’t have the new Rev.)

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz/800FSB/512K

Memory: Kingston Hyper-X Dual Channel (KHX3200AK2-1G)
2 x 512MB Kit = 1024MB

Storage: 1 – Western Digital Raptor 10k SATA 36GB
1 – Western Digital 7200RPM SATA 120GB

Video: ATi 9600PRO 128MB DDR

Sound: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum

OS: Windows XP Professional w/ SP1


I have several questions about this setup, but my main question for this post is about the video card. By the way, as of yet the machine has not been modified (OCed) in any way, I just built it a few weeks ago.

I have run 3DMark03 on the machine and returned a score of 3237, which from viewing the on-line comparisons looks to be pretty weak, even for a stock card. I have been reading other post about this card and how to mod it, but you guys get a little over my head very quickly with your posts.

Is there a way to mod this card for better performance without making any hardware changes?

I saw another post that said the RAGE3DTWEAK program was the best to do it with, and I did download it, but am lost as to how I go about using it. It looks pretty simple, but I don’t want to fry my new expensive video card doing it either. If anyone has experience with that program a walkthrough would be a big help!

I also saw on a post that the RAM on the card is important, in regards to what the card can be OCed to. Mine has the following:

SAMSUNG 319
K4D263238E – GC33
WVD056FB Korea


This card was bought about 1 month ago from zipzoomfly.com (was googlegear.com)



All of your help is deeply appreciated, I love your site and you people amaze me with your knowledge and dedication!

[fazz33]

ok your score is about right for a non clocked up card, ok to overclock the card using Rage3dtweak, go to the overclock tab and move the slider to the right to increase the clock rate, first the top slider is a GPU clock rate slider the bottom one is the ram clock rate slider, I'd say to first try 440 mhz for the gpu and then 320-330mhz for RAM. when ur done fiddling click apply, then select yes, if you want the overclock to be effective after a restart just click on the Restart and adjust the mhz to what it is that u set it too without the reset.

a simpler program to use is radclocker.

[OldGuyNeedsHELP]

Welcome I'm new also.

When researching before my system build I found the 9500pro to be superior in almost every way to the 9600pro except GPU speed. aparently the 9600p is bottlenecked in the pixel pipline reducing overall performance. I would recommend if not to late returning the 9600pro. The 9500pro I've heard if ATI or saphire will take a bios flash that will increase performance to near the 9700pro level. I purchased my 9500Pro on ebay for 150.00 the best computer related purchase for me ever.

I'd like to here more from others on this topic as well. I hate 3Dmark2003 but my 2001se scores before OC'ing are in the mid 13,000's I'll run a 2003 tonight and tell you my score

good luck

[Stopppppppppppp]

I did what you said and uped the gpu to 440 and the ram to 320. I ran the 3DMARK03 again and it turned out a 3502 this time, much better than the 3237 it did before.

How high is safe?

I saw no troubles when it preformed the test.


any thoughts?

[mtnbikerjerry]

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!!

[\dev\goat]

Increase in small increments and run 3dmark or play a game each time to make sure there are no artifacts or errors, when you get to the speed that it will not run, bump it down 1mhz and leave it there :).. If you want to push it further have an 80mm fan blow across it

[OldGuyNeedsHELP]

At stock settings my 9500Pro scored 3679 3Dmark03. Let me know how the soft tweak goes, I'm just about ready to push mine up also.

[stan03]

at stock in the system in my sig mine only got 3000 :(

[Stopppppppppppp]

Ok, I cranked it up last night to 462Mhz for the GPU and 336Mhz for the memory. It turned out a 3666 score in 3DMARK03 this time. Looked very good in the nature video on 3dmark (Water looked way better and more real). Still no errors in the test or after a couple of intense games of counter-strike!:)


Tonight I will put it to the test and pump it up another level!

[sQUiRLy]

I've got the same card as you Stopppppppppppp. Right now I'm at a 10% overclock core/mem and I get 3661 3DMarks. Becarefull you don't fry the core... I turned my back on 3D'01 once and that damn dragon burnt my core to a crisp. If you want to get greedy with your oc invest in some cooling mods. My old Tt Valcano 5 looks to fit snuggly without any cutting. :) Hey all, do you freeze the card to get the sink off or can I do it a safer way?