9600XT OC results

[AMD-Me]

Just make the switch form nvidia to ATI, and lovin it! Man the IQ of ATI cards is so much better than nvidia!
Got my card runnin everyday stable 543/351 with stock cooling no artifacts and NO MODS
UPDATE Cpu is 1800+ niuhb@2505 (only)200fsb Water cooled

3dmark03:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1701132
3dmark2001:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7369693

UPDATE- Got my final ATI bench up above ^^

9800pro for me tommorow ;)

[Cyberwiz01]

nice O/C, glad to see you have come to the light!

[PreservedSwine]

Impressive score

[stan03]

ill have to agree with that ^^^

[SpaceyWilly]

which one is this? ATI, Sapphire, Asus, Hercules?

[Ec]-[oMaN]

nice overclock, but iam surprised that card and clock speed is only 200 points higher than mine on those tests

[DOHCrazy]

It says its an ATI retail.

[Giblet Plus!]

Originally posted by PreservedSwine
Impressive score

My ti4200 can beat it in 3d01:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7150059

but for sure not in 3d03. Nice score and card. I want one. :)

[webfreak]

Good job. I've been wanting one of those cards for some time, now I want one even more... It'll be replacing my dead 128mb Ti4400 card. :/

[AMD-Me]

Ahhh getting dual sticks of buffalo ram pc3200 and a vantec iceberq copper comming in for xmas...watch out page one ;) 15,000+ 3dmarks comming at ya. Ive already achieved 14900 3dmarks but futuremark wont lemmie publish it :(.

[PreservedSwine]

Originally posted by Giblet Plus!


My ti4200 can beat it in 3d01:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7150059

but for sure not in 3d03. Nice score and card. I want one. :)

I was talking about his 3dM03 score

3DM01 scores are so system dependant, unlike 3DM03.

If you want to compare GPU's, 3DM03 is the way to do it
(Btw- nice score w/ your Ti4200:) )

[SpaceyWilly]

Originally posted by PreservedSwine


I was talking about his 3dM03 score

3DM01 scores are so system dependant, unlike 3DM03.

If you want to compare GPU's, 3DM03 is the way to do it
(Btw- nice score w/ your Ti4200:) )

yeah my 3d01 score jumped up 300 points when I upgraded to XP AND benched with my cpu 200mhz SLOWER :eek:

Im getting one of these cards for xmas, cant wait to see what I can do with it :D

[=ACID RAIN=]

AMD-ME I have a 9600XT that I'm working on now. I'll let you know what I get it up to soon. I also have a whitewater block on the way, so me and you are gonna have to duke it out for top spots! :) hehehe....

[AMD-Me]

against my better judgement, im gonna return this 9600XT and upgrade to a 9800pro, gotta love my best buy employee discount ;) Im gonna install my iceberq and dual channel ddr and see what i can get, only have xmas off from work :(

Hope we get some new 9800pro's in with HL2, i hope.

[=ACID RAIN=]

Ah you bastage! Now I don't stand a chance! :p
Oh well, I'll go for your previous results then :cool:

My current: 14167
Your previous: 14763

Ok time to get to work! Hehe....

[q149]

Here's (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7040689) my score with a 9600 Lite

Pro (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7083613)

[glock19owner]

rerun 2001 with default settings and see what you get...instead of running your Z-Buffer at 16...default is 24...

[=ACID RAIN=]

Jesus....

If my CPU was running at 3.6GHz(!), I'd have a humongous score too :p

Unknown 2429 MHz
Intel Pentium 4 3619 MHz

FSB 219
MHz 301 MHz

I just noticed my cpu is "unknown". It's not unknown damnit! It's a Tbred! :D

[yochan]

Awesome..
I'm wondering which one can be OCed more, 9600xt or 9600pro
This might be my consideration to buy new ATI
thanks

[=ACID RAIN=]

My new 9600XT is 550/700 without mods, you tell me :)

Check the data base for 9600 pro cards, I think only one or two are higher than mine. and I'm on the supposed low end of the OCing spectrum for this card.

EDIT:
Database - http://www.ocforums.com/vb/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=227071

[q149]

Looks like mine is the only one higher than yours.

1. q149................606/375
2. chimp...............510/350
3. asw7576..........480/350

If you buy a 9600 Pro, expect lower clocks than #3.

[R.Rabbit]

dont mean to rain on your guy's parade but the 9600XT's are pretty damn close to 9700np prices so wats the point?! im in the market for a cheap card too cus my 9800np is dead! :(

[yochan]

I have my 9600xt, but I'm quite know how to OC this device.
use the omega 24.96c and I can only set the core at 303.75 and the memory at 324.00.
I cannot go beyond that. Actually My MB does not support AGP 8X
so I run at 4X.
At that rate, on 3d Mark 2001 the result is only 7507 which is very dissapointed.
any advice will be appreciated..

[SpaceyWilly]

q149 keep in mind that your card is modded, whereas acid rain's is out-of-the box. Im betting that the xt and the pro OC similarly, as they use similar ram. But the xt has temp monitoring and the overdrive feature, which increases stability, so even at the same clock, the xt would give you increased performance and stability... and half life 2 :)

[AMD-Me]

Same here 562/714, no mods, strait outta the box ATI retail goodness.

BTW my 9600 is no where near 9700 price, i got my retail box for $163 ;) hehe best buy emplyee discount

[=ACID RAIN=]

Yeah wait till I mod mine....I can see it now - 600/750 BwahAHAhaha...oh sorry, got carried away. :eek: ;)

I got mine for $172, and the 9700np was a bit too high for me at around $200. I was originally supposed to spend about 150, but I went over my budget so I could have the 9600XT.

[SpaceyWilly]

yeah the 9600xt can be had for just over $150 (www.allstarshop.com), wheras the most expensive one, the asus, is $200, and while it might not perform as great as some cheap $200 9700np, I think Id rather get the 9600xt since the software and accesories you get with it are second to none. With the cheap 9700, I doubt youd get much goodies.

[yochan]

I heard that Powercolor Ati 9600xt sucks. Is that true?
Is is really different with Ati Radeon Retail? because the price is a bit cheaper.

[trojanman]

I wont buy anymore Powercolor cards. Seems like marketing BS to me. The one I got was a 9600pro ez. WTF. I thought I was getting a pro but no it was a pro ez. Might as well not een call it a pro if you asked me. And then when I did get it it didnt even work. Got a normal BBA 9600 pro to clock to 540/330 and havent regretted it. And that was for $107 refurb from newegg.

[q149]

Maybe you should actually check on things before you buy them. PowerColor clearly states the memory clock of the EZ cards on their site. It's also clearly marked anywhere i have seen them for sale, including Newegg.

Sapphire is the only company i know of that blatantly rips people off with lower clocked memory. Their 9600 Pro "LITE BOX" cards as an example.. they come with horrible ass memory and underclocked. The memory clocks are never marked as being lower than normal.. Their site even says it's the same thing as a 9600 Pro besides for what's included in the box.

And no, PowerColor 9600 XT does not suck.

[AMD-Me]

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7369693

Finnaly! Broke 15000 with avengence!
ATI 9600XT@ 358/364(728)!

And still NO MODS, minus the upgraded NB cooling ;)

[=ACID RAIN=]

I hate you :D :p ;)

I have yet to mod mine, but I know I can go no higher than 550/700 as it stands without mods - even with 2.8ns samsung ram. When I finally get time to sit down and do some mods, I'll see what this card can do.

[AMD-Me]

Too bad this sweet card goes back to the store tommorow :), i have gotten my goal of 15k now its time to break 20k!

[harryinny3]

Is there a guid to the mods you are talking about? Are they the mods to use a molex connector for the card? Any help would be great.

Harry

[=ACID RAIN=]

This is one article I found, but I am unsure of the hardware consistency between models:

http://www.3dmaxx.net/articles/9800vmod/3.shtml

[Alacritan]

No sir, they most certainly do not. 680mhz memory bus speed out of the box. And cheaper retail box than the Sapphire retail. I think they learned from the number of complaints about their 9600 Pro EZ card. Nobody can beat ASUS for sheer quality though. I'm going to put a Zalman northbridge fanless heatsink or two on the ram chips on my Powercolor 9600XT though.

[harryinny3]

Alot for Ocing your card. One thing i did find though, Is that my ram chips(even with out ramsinks) Did not get any warmer at all when Oc'd to 344 Mgz. I put on some Black silver sinks just to be safe anyway. I think i can get atleast 350-355 on the memory. Gonna try later today.


Harry

[SpaceyWilly]

580:eek:/700 (ignore whatever it says in my sig; it's never right.

[harryinny3]

Ive only gotten to 553/688 for now. Going to run at that for a few games and bump up from there.

Harry

[SpaceyWilly]

yeah I benched at 600mhz stably and got the same score in 3d01 as I did at 580mhz, so maybe my card has a ceiling or something, or maybe it's just that fast :)

Anyway 13,700 3dmarks aint worth cryin over :D

[SpaceyWilly]

the weird thing is though, my ram is like uberstuck at 350. Even turning it up to 355 causes lots of artifacts in 3dmark... it's 2.8ns though so that's what it's supposed to be able to do, but I never realized the standards were so strict.

[harryinny3]

Maybe if you back off the core you can get a bit more out of the memory. I can go 353 without artifacts, but im staying at 344 just to kind of burn in for a few days. Then going to 350.

What settings for that 13k score? drivere settings? Thata pretty good man.


Harry

[SpaceyWilly]

driver setting=performance (no AA, AF, or anything else).

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7393441


that is at 580/700 (as it says in the description). I didnt bother uploading the 600/700 score since it's nearly identical to that one.

[=ACID RAIN=]

Originally posted by harryinny3
Maybe if you back off the core you can get a bit more out of the memory. I can go 353 without artifacts, but im staying at 344 just to kind of burn in for a few days. Then going to 350.

What settings for that 13k score? drivere settings? Thata pretty good man.


Harry

Sounds like we need to test the floppy mod and the core/mem volt mods ;)

[harryinny3]

a how to to do the floppy plug mod for sure. I need some reference sp? pics to see. As far as i know i have the right board. I have the 4 soldering points in the corner of my card, just need directions.

Catch ya tomarrow.

Harry

[=ACID RAIN=]

YGPM :)

I found this, but the hardware doesn't totally match on the XTs I think:

http://unoid.net/9600pro/power.html

[q149]

As far as i know all the XT's all have the stripped pcb and won't make use of an fdd power connector.

You need the extra cap and coil that i circled in yellow here
http://q149.netfirms.com/cgi-bin/96f1.cgi

[L337 M33P]

This is what my 9600XT looks like. If the PCB has a socket for the Floppy plug + cap, I'm sure we can find the right values :D...

http://www.uploadit.org/L337M33P/Floppy-connector.jpg

[harryinny3]

Thats exactly how my card looks. I love my ramsinks. They are the black silver sinks SSS was selling. They might not help all that much, But they look cool as heck.

There has to be a way to mod our cards. There just has to be.

To give the card a bit extra boost, Is there a way we can mod something to where the HSF plugs into on the board? Or would it not make much of a difference? In theory wouldnt that give the card back some of the power the is lacking because of the fan? I dont know, Im just throwing stuff out there to consider.

Harry

[SpaceyWilly]

I guess you could just unplug it and plug it into your mobo, but I doubt it would help much.

Or just unplug it and leave it out, the 9600's run pretty cool. :mad:

[R.Rabbit]

you could always try upping the agp voltage...

[harryinny3]

as far as performance. I tried and gained nothing. Worth the thought though.

Thanks

Harry

[L337 M33P]

Yes the stock cooling on my Sapphire sucks - I took the cooler off and relpaced the "silver" thermal grease with AS Céramique. The HS is little more than a bent thin aluminium sheet with a really lame fan on it. Also the RAM chips get finger-crisping toasty.

Hence the reason for THIS :D - AK-350 1U CPU cooler that I will mod for the GPU :D
http://www.uploadit.org/L337M33P/GPU-cooler-top.JPG
http://www.uploadit.org/L337M33P/GPUcoolerbase.JPG

I need more practice at lapping :(

[harryinny3]

The lapp is fine. It looks good to go right now.


Harry

[f00t]

I'm just gonna throw in a comment here concerning the fdd mod:

I tried the floppy mod on my 9600pro rev.2 (missing all the same components the 9600xt does) and it did nothing. On the other hand, a guy a [H] soldered a 12v molex to his 9600xt and gained an extra 12mhz on the core. I might give th 12v mod a try later on but at 540 core without any core volt mods I'm happy for a little while

[harryinny3]

I have my core to 567 and memory at 344. If i raise my memory to 350 i gain 1 point in both benches. So as of now Even if i lower core and raise memory i still gain nothing.

Im going to try Raising core again today, Will post results.


Harry

[L337 M33P]

567 on stock cooling ?!?!?!

How are you managing this without artifacts as I get major screwups in graphics anything above 530 (It says on the box "532 MHz core speed ready, go figure :rolleyes: )

[harryinny3]

And yes its overclocking. I went up 1000 points from stock core speed when i applied the new core clock. Try same settings as me, 567/344 see if it works, If not keep memory at 324 and raise core and see.

Good luck. BTW my core temp from back of card only gets to 32c With the stock cooling.


Harry

[harryinny3]

And got NO artifacts. It runs 1c more at 580. I tries with lowest driver settings with a stock run and at highest driver settings with stock run in both 01 and 03. I gained 39 marks in 03 but didnt do a full test in 01.

Dude you should be able to pump that core up quite a bit. We have the same card right? I think that 536 ready is what that core should be the default clock. Then The overclock comes in. Im haveing NO problems with overclocking the core. I think i might be able to push 600 out of it if i tried.


Harry

[harryinny3]

At 594/344 The 03 bench locked about 5 seconds in.

Im going to stay at 567. It runs like a monster and games run awesome. Plus temp stays at 31C even after playing CoD for 2 hours.


Harry

[L337 M33P]

I think it might have been the RAM: I pushed it up to 351MHz and got corrupted shadows in Proxycon and then complete borkiness in Troll's lair. I will lower the mem OC and try the core.

The HS does get very hot though - with the side off it's at about pain threshold which is about 50C.

Oh and I think that the "532" bit is reffering to Overdrive, which I do not get under Cat 3.9 or 10. Rivatuner doesn't give any temperature monitoring readout also.

If you have Overdrive, can you take a high resolution pic of the area around the back of the GPU? I have a little gap for an IC and some components that I fear were supposed to be the temperature monitoring circuitry :(

[harryinny3]

Mine isnt on the board. They never put it on.

Im useing a temp probe Affixed to the back of the card right on the back of the GPU. It gives a pretty good reading of the temp. Try that if you want. Also i dont get overdrive. Have no idea why, But i think the ATI cards BBA are the only ones that have it. Sapphire gives you there version of rage3d called redline. But when messing with the funky settings in redline i messed up XP and had to reformat and reinstall windows. I really liked the redline, But im back to riva because alls i really wanted was just the OC feature.

Let me know if you get that core up.

Harry

[POL-tec2002]

i finnally got some money together what 9600xt should i get IDK with one i saw one with 670mhz memory??

[L337 M33P]

Pol-tec I replied in your other thread :)

I did some more lapping for the hell of it :D

http://www.uploadit.org/L337M33P/Shinylapping.JPG

Oh and 567 is artifact free in 3dm03. Looks like the memory doesn't do 1MHz over 350 :(

[SpaceyWilly]

yeah my ram doesnt want to go above 350 either... I guess either the quality control on these rams is spot on, or maybe there's something more to it...

[mrnuke]

nice, i was lookin to get one for my spare machine

[SpaceyWilly]

Originally posted by harryinny3
At 594/344 The 03 bench locked about 5 seconds in.

Im going to stay at 567. It runs like a monster and games run awesome. Plus temp stays at 31C even after playing CoD for 2 hours.


Harry

hmm well that's odd... I wonder if maybe powerstrip reading it wrong for me? Seems strange that I can hit 600 when most people are having trouble getting past 550...

and man, how can you play CoD for 2 hours? Whenever I play that game for more than and hour I feel like someone fried my brain... guess it's just that good. The multplayer's a bit weak though I thought (wayyyyy too much sniping), but then... that's what Enemy Territory is for :)

Anyway back on topic, I guess I'll try rivatuner or something and see if my results are any different.

[harryinny3]

To pdo i think it was, XT's are all good. The sapphire fireblade like we have is great. The Asus is another great card. I havent heard much on the powercolor But have heard it can reach insane speeds. Core and memory OC like a mad man.

Now on to my plight, Im pretty sure if i bump my ram down to like 330, I could get 600 out of the core. But seeing i only gaind 39 points with a 10-15clock bump from 567 i figure the extra heat and possibility of a problem isnt worth it right now. But i will try it for one bench and see whats up.


Good for you, Atleast you got up there to 567 for now. Anyway Ive had my memory up to 360 with NO artifacts. But it gets pretty hot. Not burning hot but its close. But i gained only 10marks with the 16mhz bump.

Harry

[SpaceyWilly]

rivatuner showed 600 too, so I guess it's right. Anyway, I think I'll turn it back to at least 580 for now, because I really don't see a noticeable difference in performance at 600mhz from 580. I think the ram is dragging the performance a bit, but then there's not much I can do about that. Maybe the new power supply Im getting will help some.

[Alacritan]

Right now I'm stuck at 576/366. It artifacts if I bump the ram speed up and Rage3d won't let me crank the core up any higher. How's rivatuner in comparison to Rage3d?

[L337 M33P]

Rage3D tweak's sliders can be set to higher limits:

http://www.rage3d.com/radeon/r3dtweak/faq.htm
How do I increase/decrease the overclocking limits?
Use Regedit:
Find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Game Util\ATI Radeon Overclocker. Change one or more of the following:
UpperCoreX
LowerCoreX
UpperMemX
LowerMemX
They are multiplied by the defaults to get the ranges.

[f00t]

never thought of that. will give it a try tonight cause i like rage 3d more than radclocker.

:edit: and you know what, it worked wonderfully. thanks for the tip

[Alacritan]

Yeah. I tried that and it didn't work. Maybe I have to do a full system restart to get it to work, but just restarting Rage3d certainly didn't.

[f00t]

you sure you edited the clocks correctly.mine didn't even require a restart of anything. not even rage 3d. just uninstalled rage3d, rebooted, reinstalled it, edited clocks, opened with game utiliy and voila. worked very nicely

[L337 M33P]

lol

I tried doing what I suggested as I have currently maxed out the core slider on the Rage3d tweaker - it no worky O_o

EDIT: Ok I have managed to get the RAM slider to go up to something insane like 590MHz, but the core slider refuses to go past 576MHz. I can adjust the lower end values just fine.

[Alacritan]

AHA! I knew I wasn't doing something wrong. The core slider just won't go past 576. Strange. Maybe someone should let Rage3d know about this....

[harryinny3]

Can you change the incraments it goes up by? Like say its going up by 6.75. Can you change it to go up 10mgz at a time and that might give you a higher selection? I think if i do that with riva, it gives me higher settings. I know it did when i use to have radclocker.

If not, Rivatuner does just fine and i can go past 700 right now. I only use riva for the overclocking anyway. Im trying to read up on the vast selection of tweaks to learn how to use them. But i messed up my whole windows with rage3d last week because i touched something i shouldnt have LOL. Trial and error i guess. It just stinks when you have to lose all your game saves. Grrrr!

Good luck

Harry

[tconthpec3]

My friend got this 9600xt up to 621/?

[f00t]

:eek: 621 with stock cooling and without vmod on gpu. that's crazy

[Alacritan]

I want to rip off the stock cooler and put on a small CPU cooler. That'd kick ass. And another to go on the ram chips! That might get a little heavy though. I'd have to brace it somehow....

[f00t]

did that with my pro and got +10 mhz on the core.

[harryinny3]

http://imageevent.com/marginjohn/viperjohn


This guy sells those mod kits man. Are they Friggin monsters or what!


Harry

[Alacritan]

I got RadLinker and I'm still going higher:

630/364 - when I stepped up the core speed to 630 from 580 (I did it in a couple of steps), I had to bump the memory bus down to 364 from 367 or I'd get a couple small artifacts on Troll's Lair. Right now I'm getting 3922 in 3DMark03 and almost 19,000 in AquaMark3. I need to get my 1800+ back up to stock speed (old mobo won't let it run at full speed) and we'll see how I'm doing then. Ramsink are on the list of things to do, but I was also looking at one of these for the core:

Zalman CNPS3100 (http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/cnps3100P.htm)

http://www.zalman.co.kr/images/septemberimg/3100p1b.gif

Only 25mm wide means it'll fit on a video card. I just have to check for clearance over capacitors. I suppose I could cut it down if I had to...

[L337 M33P]

Righty then:

I have had several discussions with the sapphire tech support via email, and they say that "Cards with Overdrive support can be found on our product matrix (http://www.sapphiretech.com/media/product-matrix/product-matrix.asp)" - well, the coding is kinda borked and it says that all XT cards have "Overdrive ready". This is definitely not true as a) I don't get an overdrive tab in the ATi display control and b) there is a suspicious-looking area of empty solder points where an 8-pin TSOP package would go, with a few surrounding components. LM79 I think was the temperature sensor.

For this reason (non-implementation/sporadic implementation of Overdrive temp sensor) I would say to anyone looking to buy one, get a PowerColor or Hercules card instead. The 2.86ns RAM is nice but there are cards shipping with 2.5ns RAM. Also the RAM doesn't seem to clock 1MHz past 350MHz in my case, and not much more for other people.

I plan on doing a 1U cooling mod to the graphics card with an AK-350, lapped as per the pics above. I will use the spare foam pads from my Thermalright SK-7 to prevent me chipping the core as the thing came with no shim o_O. The RAM also gets hot so I may just buy a £3 cooler for an AMD processor and butcher it for RAM sinks.

It will be hard finding volt mods to this card as a) it's really new so b) nobody has done one yet, and doesn't want to risk frying it. I will be able to find the datasheets for all the various voltage regulation chips on the card but I ain't that crazy...

I have maxed out the slider in Rage3dTweak, and RadClocker nicely messes my display up - pretty noise! and then corrupts it's directory.

http://www.uploadit.org/L337M33P/untitled.JPG

The card was stable at 567, I will bump it up more now.

[f00t]

why the wonderful paint work L33t M33p ;)

[L337 M33P]

Originally posted by f00t
why the wonderful paint work L33t M33p ;)

No spying for y00 :P

The card was stable at 576MHz, I think I saw a corrupted shadow in 3Dm03, but I dunno. The cooler ain't very cool - finger + HS = OW! :eek:. Anyway I maxed out Rage3d's core slider :(, and crazy crap happens when I up the RAM to 358 MHz.

I got 4325 in 03 :D

[L337 M33P]

List of possible MODS!
-----------------------

I have done some digging around the internet, writing down part numbers and such.

Voltage Mods:

There are actually 3 VRM chips on the Sapphire 9600XT, one for GPU, one for RAM and one that is near the floppy connector area, more about that later.

The GPU one is most likely the chip at the back of the card very near to the VGA connector. The part number is RT9202, and is built by RichTek. It is a PWM DC-DC converter chip thingie that all video cards seem to utilise one variant or another of. The datasheet makes a reference to using either 12v or 5v to power the device, but someone brave enough to stick a test lead on it will have to verify where the chip gets the power from, and where the VGPU is derived from. The 12v pin on the AGP connector is at the end of the slot nearest the outside of the case so it would be logical to place a 12v powered regulator there. Lots of caps/inductors surround this chip on the other side.

DATASHEET (http://www.richtek.com.tw/Product/Docs/DS9202-02.pdf)

The feedback pin is pin 5, anyone want to try some SMT grabbers? :p

The VDDR voltage controller chip is most likely the one in the middle of the card, part number ISL6522CB. This chip is 14-pin and built by Intersil.

DATASHEET (http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn9030.pdf)

It specifies a recommended 12v source for the chip, but that doesn't mean that the VDDR is derived from it. Good news if it is, because then we can crank lots of volts through the RAM to make up for crap OCs.

All of the power MOSFETs on this card used for switching the supply voltage are made by a company called Anpec (http://www.anpec.com.tw/), and you can get the various datasheets on the MOSFETs there. All of the ones used on the card are low voltage, extra low RDS(on) and low gate charge which means they are ideal for switching regulators.

FLOPPY MOD
----------------

There is a chip sat right next to where the floppy connector would be, and it has the same part number as the one used for deriving VGPU - RT9202. I will perform some simple tests to determine whether the chip is actually connected up or not, and whether we have a working circuit as there are plenty of spare solder pads around. There is a small dual-MOSFET in a SMT 8-pin package next to the chip, so it may just be controlling the DDR voltage. There is however a big empty spot where a freewheeling diode is supposed to be connected... There is another, smaller diode and an inductor and a few caps on the underside of the card.

I will post detailed pics etc of this card and maybe we can work out if sticking a floppy connector on it will

a) Do nothing
b) Provide an alternative voltage source to GPU/RAM
c) Turn the card into cripsy £128 toast :eek:

[=ACID RAIN=]

Well in the interest of information, since I have a new 9600XT on the way, this time from powercolor instead of sapphire (the last one bugged out on me), I'll be sure and follow this thread and help where I can.

generic radeon volt mod:
http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/radeon_voltmod/index.shtml

9800 Pro volt mod:
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=gethowto&howtoID=42

9800 volt mod: (good photos)
http://www.fastlanehw.com/reviews.php?action=view&revid=74

9700 volt mod:
http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/articles/guides/R9700_Vmod_1.html

radeon voltmod pic:
http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/radeon_voltmod/voltage_mods.jpg

Mod warnings:
http://www.liquidninjas.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7130

Hope that helps!

[L337 M33P]

I made a gallery out of the high-res pics I took - 1600x1200, 800K each, so 56k=no


http://www.uploadit.org/gallery/10315/

[f00t]

I'll try to find that pic of the 9600xt with the 12v molex soldered to it later tonight if that'll help any.

justfor the record, i soldered a floppy connector to my 9600pro/ has same missing components as xt/ and did not see any improvements. was kinda dissapointed but the card works fine

[L337 M33P]

bump

[=ACID RAIN=]

Yeah man just got my powercolor 9600xt, I'll be testing it over the next few days :)

[f00t]

hey guys. go here (http://unoid.net/9600pro/index.php). this guy has a great website and needs some people with 9600xt cards to help him collect info

[Josebmw]

I'm getting an BBA 9600 XT card in a couple of days. How does Unoid's BBA 9600 XT bios help in oc'ing?

[harryinny3]

For some reason It says File not found on this server. Go figure. The 9600pro bio's are there but not the XT ones.

Harry

[Josebmw]

I downloaded the BBA 9600 XT BIOS with no problems. The "9600XTBI.BIN" file that is. Anyone tried it?

[f00t]

tried on my old 9600pro
performance didn't improve although core voltage was slightly increased. mem oc went way down though

[Josebmw]

so it increases the core voltage? Why is it that on the radeon 9600 series, that when you oc the core more, the memory goes down and the same thing the other way. Is there not enough power going to the radeon 9600 pro?

[L337 M33P]

err HOW does it increase the core voltage? Did you check with a multimeter? As far as I know the voltage output is set by the potential divider attached to the feedback pin of the voltage regulator chip. At least, on graphics cards it is. CPU Vcore regulators have built-in DACs that convert the VID digital input to an output voltage, but no such feature exists on any of the VRMs on the Sapphire 9600XT at least.

[=ACID RAIN=]

Just FYI, my current voltages for the powercolor 9600XT ultra 500/675:

Vcore 1.22
Vmem 2.57

Both can stand a little more voltage IMO

BTW the core on this card and on the sapphire are different. The core on the sapphire had "R360" on it, and on this one it says "Radeon 9600 XT". Interesting, but it may mean nothing. However my sapphire overclocked better - 550MHz, and this powercolor only reaches ~520MHz. I didn't ever bother with a voltage reading on the sapphire card though, and I wish I had now, to see what the core voltage differences were.

[Unoid]

Bios files are worthless. I shouldn't have put the section up to begin with. bios's don't affect voltages.

it appears most 9600XT's are voltaged the same as the 9600pros.

I take it no one has voltmodded their sapphire XT seeing as how I havne't listed the right solder points.? meep you find them ? or should I look through your chip .pdf's and tell ya which to use?

[=ACID RAIN=]

Originally posted by Unoid
I take it no one has voltmodded their sapphire XT seeing as how I havne't listed the right solder points.? meep you find them ? or should I look through your chip .pdf's and tell ya which to use?

Well hey guys, are the points on 9600XTs different compared to say the 9600Pro?

Oh BTW Unoid, welcome to the forums :)

[L337 M33P]

Welcome to the forums, Unoid :)

As I said before the chip nearest the VGA connector is most likely the GPU voltage regulator, as it is on the 9600Pro.

My core did say "R360" on it when I took the cooler off and replaced the crappy "silver" paste.

I haven't found the max OC on the standard Sapphire cooler yet as Rage3d doesn't go past 576MHz, but Call of Duty freezes at 570MHz anyway. 3dm03 only has minimal artifacted shadows in Proxycon though. Bearing in mind that the cooler on this card is a 1mm sheet of bent aluminium with a crap fan and a huge deadspot, I think this card does excellent overclocks :)

I need to find some 10-turn 50k pots or something to do the volt mods with, but I am a scaredy-wuss and don't want to fry this card - I didn't pay for it so I think my dad will kill me if I destroy it...

I plan to replace the GPU cooler with that 1U cooler soon, but I need an OC utility that doesn't bork up and will go past 576MHz. RAMsinks may be easier to do at this time, as the RAM won't budge past 348MHz.

Radlinker = corrupted display, forced reset.
Rivatuner = doesn't like Cat 3.10 drivers (no OC util when I use them), which I need to play CoD stably.
Wizzard's OC tool = dunno if it actually OCs my card or not.

As for the regulator chips [EDIT: finished diagram, if you looked at it before you need to refresh yer browser]
VGPU/VDDR reg Feedback/Ground pins - www.uploadit.org/L337M33P/blah-046.jpg

[Unoid]

I take it you have a multimeter right m33p? If so see those two caps right where you have "pin 3 ground" writen? that should a capacitor on the other side. On reference ATI PCB's you read gpu and mem voltages off the capacitors there. give it a try. You can find the general area of the vgpu chip and the vmem chip by its proxmimity to the capacitory with the proper voltages, gpu should be 1.25v to 1.30v, vmem will be 2.5v to 2.75v.

meep could you find the company who made the chip you think is gpu and look up their info on that chip? they usualy are .pdf's and link me to it, I'll make sure you got the right leads. and look on the other end of the card for a possible vmem chip. the vmem u have looks more like VDDQ due to it being so close to vgpu.

And yes ACID, his Apprently these Sapphire XT's strayed from ATI's refernce PCB design which means theres different components at different places on the card. So you hav eto rediscover almost the vmod details.

MEEP: Could you see if you can find or get 1600x1200 or some high quality of your card but the entire card.. I'd like an entire front and an entire back. good enough quality to see each pin from the chips if possible.

[L337 M33P]

This is what I got for voltages

http://www.uploadit.org/L337M33P/Chips1_2.JPG
http://www.uploadit.org/L337M33P/Chip3.JPG

Conclusions:

VGPU = 1.30V
VDDR = 2.63V (DATASHEET FOR RAM (http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/GraphicsMemory/DDRSDRAM/128Mbit/K4D263238E/ds_k4d263238e_gc_r17.pdf) - this sez you can go up to 2.9V and still have it in spec - but check out the CAS latencies - 5 cycles?! *faints*)

VGPU is most likely derived from 3.3V line
VRAM is generated from 5V line?
VDDQ is generated from 12V line?

Company that made the RT9202 is RichTek, datasheet is the first link under "List of possible MODS" post.

As for the floppy mod, the guy on your site that soldered one to his 9600Pro got better mem MHz didn't he? That would make sense if the VDDR controller was right next to the floppy port and could get juice from it. It looks doubtful though as there are many missing components about that area.

As for the whole-card pics they will have to wait until I do the GPU cooler mod as I can't be arsed taking the card out again :p. I can do 2276x1500 or something with the digital camera.

[Unoid]

Sorry for being lazy or anything but The .pdf didn't work from earlier.

If you could link me to the pdf's for each of the two chips you believe are vgpu (8pin one) and the other 14pin you think is the mem?

the placement of the resistor should be on FB and GND.

[Unoid]

SMall update: floppy power mdo won't help you guys at all. I believe the rev1 pcb from ati allowed for the power mod to work but when they took off the extra components they couldn't use the power mod anymore since they didn't need it in the first place.

Also M33p what card do you have exactly? I THOUGHT it was a sapphire 9600XT. Looking at this review of it http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/sapphire/9600xt/index.php?p=2

it shows refernce PCB with proper voltage IC's. You have a newer revision from sapphire or what?

[L337 M33P]

Sapphire like to monkey with the board's design in their own editions. I however do not have that board design, the two controller chips on each end are replaced by smaller ones on my board, the RichTek ones. Looks like I am an attractor of wierd cards, my MX440 had a non-standard voltage regulator design O_o

[Josebmw]

I just received my Radeon 9600 XT. I received this card by a company called "Xpert Vision", in a retail box without HL2. I ordered the BBA 9600 XT OEM card, from gameve. The core clock can only do 540 MHz stable, which I think is not good. The memory can do 345 MHz stable. Why is it that when you get a good mem o/c, the core oc is not good? The card also came with a nVidia t-shirt. Kinda odd...

[L337 M33P]

wtf? If you got a product not made by ATi and it says "made by ATi" on the box or as listed on the website, then Product != Description and you should return it.

[Josebmw]

I emailed them, I hope they do return it. Not really happy about this, even the box it came in was crushed, the vid card works though.
I have a question, is there a risk of eventually frying the card if the core voltage increase to say 1.35v is succesful?

[L337 M33P]

Dunno, cos nobody's ever done this to the R360 core before :p

[harryinny3]

ATI doesnt actually MAKE cards. They Have other companies that ATI leases the Fab Equipment to them. So I have no idea. If im wrong please correct me.

But i for sure would Send that card back. Goto zipzoomfly or newegg and get the sapphire OEM card. They are pretty cheap, and WONT have a Tee Shirt with it LOL.

Also ATI only agreed to Put HL2 coupons in Boxes until January 31st. So the card you got Prolly was Packaged After that date. Thats a bummer for sure.

BTW, 540 isnt that bad. I have the same problem with the 9600xt. If you max the mem out the core doesnt go as high.

Harry

[L337 M33P]

ATi hire out a bunch of factories and guess who they use to put the cards together for them? That's right, Sapphire :p

Sapphire also make their own versions of cards, but do a lot of "Built By ATi" cards too.


Anyway...

The RAM on this card would DEFINITELY need RAMsinks if you are going to voltmod it. Running 348MHz at the default 2.63V, the chips are hot enough to cause lots of pain to the end of my finger. I will have exact values soon but I expect the 55-60 degree range.

[Josebmw]

I'm angry that I got a low quality card.

http://www.techaddicts.net/photos/r9600xt.JPG

Gameve did not even return the email, guess I have to call.

[Josebmw]

Does the Shappire 9600 XT cards get good o/c's?

[harryinny3]

Ill edit when i look up my OC i had on mine till i put it in my kids rig. BBS



OK I was at 567/688. And that wasnt MAX. I also only had stock cooling and ramsinks. I will say though The 9600XT ram stays alot cooler than my 9800pro Ram does. Strange but it does.


Im gonna go test the card in a few, Its in a Gigabyte SiS 645 rig, so i dont know how high it will go in that box, But ill let you know.

Before i got the 9800Pro 2 weeks ago My 9600XT (sapphire) Was one super rock stable OC'd card.


Harry

[L337 M33P]

Update: I got the core up to 603, RAM 348 and passed 3dmark03. Call of duty crashed though, I guess your theory about them both being high and one affecting the other is right. I only got a marginal increase in 3dm03 score from 571-->600, so it is dependent on RAM - grr need RAMsinks. CoD showed no artifacts though, it is just very error intolerant and dies if you get one.

4354 is my current :)

Oh and did some pr0bing with the multimeter last night - the resistance from FB to GND is 680 ohms for the GPU controller, 470 ohms for the DDR controller.

[f00t]

hey m33p, you sure the card is performing on par with other ocd 9600xt's.

not to criticise but i get that with my old 9600pro

linky (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1850322)

I know my system is clocked much higher than yours but since 2k3 is primarily a vid card benchmark it shouldn't make too much difference

[Josebmw]

I heard that the heatsink that comes with the card is small, does the shappire card stay within reasonable temps?

[harryinny3]

The core on the 9600 series cards doesnt produce too much heat. My highest temp on it was 35C While overclocked, With the nasty silver hard crud on it. After i changed the Paste To Artic, i was at 30C full load on air. That was with probe on back of GPU.

The HSF isnt too bad on the sapphire XT cards. Its ALOT better than the Cruddy one they put on the Pro.

If its gonna be a problem, You can always get the iceburq4 for it. Its a great HS and is quite inexpensive.


Harry

[Josebmw]

I might get the sapphire 9600 xt then for 148 bucks in allstarshop, or the gigabyte retail 9600 xt one for 153 in allstarshop. I have not heard much about the gigabyte one, have any of you guys heard about the quality of their cards?

[harryinny3]

Thats just hearsay, But IF i have a chance to see one up close ill let you know. Honestly, Ya cant go wrong with the sapphire.

Im heading over there to check that Giga card out.

Harry

[harryinny3]

But seeing the pics are blurry, i cant see the ram chips good. I saved them and Looked again. It looks like theres a 3 In the top right group. Where as the Sapphire has a 2. So i dont know.

The sapphire they have pictured is the exact same as the one i have.

Harry

[Josebmw]

Alright, thanks. It's a great deal retail for 153 including 2 games, but No HL2 unfortunately, I might be wrong though, so don't take my word for it.

[Josebmw]

"Overclocking was moderately successful. With Gigabyte's utility we managed to get the card to 576/718 while looping in 3dmark for approximately 45 minutes. It would have been nice for the core to be able to hit a bit higher as we were stygmied around the same range with the ATI branded 9600XT." From the neoseeker gigabyte 9600 xt review. I dont know if I can trust the cards they give out to review, some times they give out the ones that oc the best.

[Josebmw]

I looked at some pics in newegg of the sapphire 9600 pro and the 9600 xt cards and they look to have identical heatsinks, that's kinda odd, or did you see pics of a worse cooler?

[harryinny3]

I researched the gigabyte card a bit just now. It looks like a great card. It has better cooling and better bundle. Also if you want to you can Download there bios at this site. Its the F2 bios and it will allow you to enable overdrive if you want. The description of the bios says ENABLE OVERDRIVE. So thats Cool. Its an ATI Source Bios. I wonder if i can Use that bios to flash my sapphire? Hmmmm.

But anyway the more i look at it, the more i would buy the gigabyte. Dunno, its up to you.


Harry

[Josebmw]

the only thing thats setting me back is that I dont know how good it oc's. everything else looks great. I'm gonna take a look at more reviews/users that have it.

[bboe]

I was just wondering how you guys get the temp reading of the core or mem? I have sapphire 9600xt. Thanks!

[Josebmw]

I unfortunately do not have access to it with the catalyst 4.1 drivers, with my xt card. It seems that the "overdrive" menu for my card is not there, odd, when I use the 3.10 catalysts, there is an overdrive tab, where the temp. measuring is, but not there, as it is not supported in the 3.10 catalyst. I dont know about sapphire, but I think ATi only made it for thieir BBA cards.

[L337 M33P]

Originally posted by f00t
hey m33p, you sure the card is performing on par with other ocd 9600xt's.

not to criticise but i get that with my old 9600pro

linky (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1850322)

I know my system is clocked much higher than yours but since 2k3 is primarily a vid card benchmark it shouldn't make too much difference

Looking at the ORB for 9600 users, the ones at the top are all just running the game tests only. I am forced to do all the tests since I have the non-Pro version of 3Dmark (no CC)

10k in 2k3 with a 9600XT? Futuremark=broken

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1939618

Anyway, I quit all active processes (that weren't critical) in the task manager, changed the settings to "Optimal Performance" in the ATi control panel (couldn't be arsed with tweaks) and then benched. I may need to reinstall 03 since 01 gave me 8700 for some reason and Aquamark 3 went funny.

Or it's about time to reinstall XP...

[harryinny3]

Ive been on the internet all morning looking for that card you have. The ONLY place in the US that has that card is Gameve or whatever that place is.

ANYTHING i can find on it Is in Europe. Theres not a single review on it.

I personally would return it and get a Gigabyte or a Sapphire. I dont trust a off brand card.

Also, In the Product Des. Where you bought it it DOES say POWERED by ATI. Not BBA.

Id send it back. Goto newegg and buy it. They will send the Sapphire Fireblade card.

Harry

[Josebmw]

After I called them, they changed the pic on their site since it was misleading, they had a pic of a BBA Radeon 9600 XT. They were rude when I spoke to them, cutting me off, they even said it was a "higher quality card". That card I can tell has a pretty poor PCB. Just by looking at the capacitors and components, that are very different than the BBA cards and the other "Powered By ATI" video cards.

[harryinny3]

Why i canceled an order with them 3 days before xmas. There site said instock, then (This is after checkout) I got an email about 10 minutes later saying it was out of stock and it woulkdnt be back for 2 weeks! I Called them ASAP and let em have it, AND i got a free shirt and My credit back in 10 minutes. Atleast they were good about that.

Seriousely dude, Deal with zipzoomfly.com, Or newegg. I think they have both card for about the same price.

Better card my butt. Ill bet a hundred bucks they couldnt even tell you what it looks like.


Good luck man, And get the other card, doesnt make a difference which one. But I did find that MY sapphire's bios is locked, And i cant flash it. The Gigabyte card you can flash to the F2 bios from there site and get overdrive.


Harry

[Josebmw]

Thanks for the help, I will try to get the Gigabyte card.

[=ACID RAIN=]

So who's going to be the first to mod one of these bad boys? I have a powercolor I'm willing to mod, but I want to make sure I have the right VRs before I start. Are 10k VRs correct, or are there other values that are more appropriate?

[harryinny3]

And GL. I would try, but i sold the 9600pro fall back card i had for backup. Neither of my rigs has Onboard Vid.


Harry

[L337 M33P]

I got a POS MX440 here as backup, but I will be killed if I vmod the card and fail.

Before you go messing around, we need to look at what kind of VRMs are on your Powercolor as it is neither BBA or Sapphire. Can you post pics of the card? Like high-res pics of the topside. Then we can confirm what pins you need to put stuff on.

[Josebmw]

Guys, I found a good deal for anyone looking for an 9600xt card

http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product.asp?pid=8174&sid=SCE82G2XC0Q28GVH2430RHRBWVNH72A5

146 bucks... not bad for a good sapphire card @ allstarshop.com

[harryinny3]

Exact same card i have in my kids rig. But i paid $170 total for it 2 days before xmas. LOL Grrrrr.

Go for it, You will be much happier, And Sapphires Customer service is Pretty good. I think ATI themselvs will honor the 3 year warrenty also.

Almost bet they wouldnt be so inclined to do so with that vision thing ya recieved. :(


Great buy man. :)

Harry :beer:

[bboe]

I just loaded the 4.1 drivers and got the temp reading in the overdrive window. Is this temp too high? 37 at idle (no OC) and 43 after playing for 2 hours of CS (OCed).

[L337 M33P]

me + 4.1 = no worky on the overdrive front :(

[bboe]

L337 M33P are you using the omega drivers? I didn't have the temp reading thing before 4.1 and I am using omega drivers.

[harryinny3]

The overdrive doesnt work on the sapphire. It just dont, it doesnt support it. Thats why sapphire gives there own utility called redline. But also, The sapphire doesnt have the Temp sensor anyway on the PCB.


Harry

[harryinny3]

From what my copy of the paper says, That you can only get All the other HL games for free till Dec 31st. Not HL2. So i guess thats what i remembered.

Harry

[Josebmw]

bboe, you do have the same card here to get the temp measurement in the 4.1 cats? :
http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product.asp?pid=8174&sid=SCE82G2XC0Q28GVH2430RHRBWVNH72A5

[bboe]

Yes Josebmw thats the card I have. Actully that is the store I ordered from and it has overdrive. I got HL2 coupon with it too.

[=ACID RAIN=]

Got the ramsinks epoxied to the ram (artic silver epoxy). Not much, but a beginning. I'll grab a 12k variable resistor soon, I want to start off around 2.7-2.8v at first as opposed to 10k and lowest being 2.9v. I'll find the chips I have, and try to show you the circuits, camera's acting a bit dumb at the moment. Been a busy weekend I guess :eek:

[f00t]

i let the rzm on mine run at 3v all day. i would not advise this if you do not have good cooling, but I had beefy ramsinks and a 120mm fan blowing over the card

[L337 M33P]

Just ordered my proto-RAMsink and 4 micro-clip grabbers along with two 10k 15-turn pots :)

Time of reckoning is near...

I plan to cut this really dinky 45mmx47mm heatsink (pin fin, 16mm pins) into 4 long strips. Each one should just about cover the RAM modules, and the heatsink will bridge the two modules.

[f00t]

Originally posted by L337 M33P
Time of reckoning is near...

I cant wait to see what your card can do. just thinking of it makes me all tingly inside

[L337 M33P]

Originally posted by f00t


I cant wait to see what your card can do. just thinking of it makes me all tingly inside

rofl

seriously? My sarcasm detector is offline :p

[Josebmw]

Gameve is trying to pull a trick for the RMA. They told me that OEM stands for "Other Engineered Manufacture". It stands for "Original Equipment Manufacturer". These people are making so many excuses. Just Great..

[=ACID RAIN=]

L337, I'm waiting patiently for your results ;)

Jose, three words:

Better Business Bureau. Turn their @$$es in :)

[harryinny3]

AND goto resellerrateings.com and punch in there name and leave a negative rateing. Thats a must. Just put down thw truth and let them prove your lying.



Harry

[harryinny3]

Try To pm SILVERSINKSAM He will help you out. And get some results. Also goto vendor disscussions and give it a go.

Harry

[Josebmw]

I put a negative review on reselleratings. I will contact Silversink sam.

EDIT: I called them up and settled this.

[Alacritan]

Gameve is notoriously horrible. They used to be called something else before, I forget, they were notoriously bad then, and then they relaunched under Gameve and their reseller rating has been consistently bad even still. I almost bought a card from there, but so many people were complaining about products not shipped, I decided to get it from Allstarshop.com Even better than Newegg I say.

[Alacritan]

Awesome. I just went over the whole thread and it looks like my 620/367 stands as the best overclock for the 9600XT yet. Just wait till I get my ramsinks and a Zalman CPU heatsink strapped to this mofo!

[Josebmw]

That's very nice. You have the powercolor volt modded?

[L337 M33P]

Originally posted by Alacritan
Awesome. I just went over the whole thread and it looks like my 620/367 stands as the best overclock for the 9600XT yet. Just wait till I get my ramsinks and a Zalman CPU heatsink strapped to this mofo!

Ouch.... no mods?

My current max is 602/348 (actually I don't know the core's max, I havent pushed the envelope yet), I blame the RAM. We shall see once all the parts are in :mad: :) :mad:

Bleh the pin-fin heatsink was out of stock and is now on back order :-/

Should get the pomona grabbers today though :)

[L337 M33P]

Alacitran

Please use the ATI OCtool to test the max OC without artifacts - it tops out a 590/349MHz for me.
http://atitool.ocfaq.com/

sooo 590/349 it is for me, and looks like it will stay that way as my pin-fin heatsink is on back-order ETA: 3 weeks :(

[f00t]

Originally posted by Alacritan
Awesome. I just went over the whole thread and it looks like my 620/367 stands as the best overclock for the 9600XT yet. Just wait till I get my ramsinks and a Zalman CPU heatsink strapped to this mofo!

my old 9600pro still beats your 9600xt core oc by quite some amount.

not in mhz to mhz but percentage. my rev 2 9600pro did 540 on the core stable without volt mods.

you=120mhz oc on core (124% gain)
me= 140 mhz oc on core (135% gain)

i still can't touch q149 though since the floppy mod didn't work.

the ram is different story. my 3.3ns capped at 360mhz even with 3v

[L337 M33P]

hehehe I'm going to figure out this floppy mod even though I haven't got the components required on the board - I think it only needs 5 capacitors and an inductor...

[f00t]

it needs way more that that m33p. there are ~30 small resistors missing all throughout the board+ the caps+ other stuff

[L337 M33P]

argh


I just looked at the pics again, a whole load o stuff missing around VDDR. Looks like that mod is out for me :(

[InvisGreenMan]

So you're saying there's no way to floppy mod the 9600XT's?

[Alacritan]

I've run Artifact Tester, 3DMark03 and AquaMark looped. My max OC was 635/375 but I got lots of artifacts after a few minutes so I had to back it down to 620/367. I let the Aquamark demo loop for 4 hours while I was gone and everything was stable. The entire 3DMark03 benchmark ran 3 times through with no artifacts too. I've noticed though that right out of the box it doesn't OC as far as it can. I was able to overclock it higher than before after it had run with a moderate OC for a little while. Now it runs at 620/367 flawlessly.

[L337 M33P]

O.O

Are you outside? :p - and what make is the card? If you got a slightly better heatsink on than a 1mm sheet of aluminium then that might be the reason why - and it bodes well for my imminent GPU cooler mod :)

[AMD-Me]

Bump for all the 9600xt owners out there ;)

[L337 M33P]

Update: Several folks at Xtremesystems including myself are working on a mod to enable thermal monitoring for 9600XTs without it, namely 3rd-party manufactured boards...

[JCLW]

Refresh my memory... Is there any difference between a 9600pro and 9600XT apart from the clock?

I've got a 9600pro that does 520/340 stock.

[L337 M33P]

9600XT is a new core - RV360 as opposed to RV350. The memory on BBA cards is usually the same for 9600Pro/XT, but the core clock speed is 100MHz higher.

[AMD-Me]

bump for al the 9600xt owners

[SpaceyWilly]

600/335 on air, default volts

yeah no mem OC, go figure; but I'm not gonna complain about a 100mhz OC in the core! :D

[JethroDOod]

BUMP! Been messing around with a BBATI card. Does 620/330 rock solid. wouldlove some vmods! have waterblock but i dont want to go thru trouble to install if i cant find at least gpu mod! ther is no "great" way to mount a mcw50 to this card im finding!

[wanab]

what kind of 3Dmark03 scores you guys getting with these cards? :)

[hibner]

Abit 256MB 9600xt w/vivo

534 core/315 memory
stock cooling
using omega drivers:burn:

[threeme2189]

too bad the 03 score aint published any more and i cant see the friggin number in the whole thread! can someone pm me with the actual score?
just for the record i got 4580 with my asus 9600 xt stock cooling and no mods too at about 590/360...