• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

About to mod my 9800Pro

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Bobtod

Member
Joined
May 16, 2003
Location
UK - Midlands
Hi guys, just about to void the warranty on my shiny new retail Sapphire 9800pro :eek:

I've just bought a WaterChill vga cooler and also plan to add some home made ram sinks.

The ram sinks are 2 athlon xp h/s cut in half to make 4 h/s, each one covering 2 ram chips. I was thinking about getting some copper plates about 5mm thick and 15-20mm square with artic alumina thermal adhesive to sandwich between h/s and memory chips.

Is this a good idea or will the h/s on their own be good enough being as they are quite large anyway.

I just want a bit more performance (and lower noise) without having to do any vmods if possible (the soldering iron is not my best friend;) ).

Do you think there is much more to tap without any vmods?

any advice appreciated

Bobtod

BTW. my 3dmark scores did have some minor artifacts. I think I am running at around 440/720 ish for normal gaming. posting this at work BTW)
 
After getting no reply I did the mod anyway at the weekend, didn't use the copper plates though, just the h/s.
Initial tests look very good, i've just ran the 'nature' test in 3dmark 01 at the maximum overclock in Redline (sapphire overclocking util) at 500core/810mem This card rocks!!!! ..ok, there were tons of artifacts but it didn't crash.
Haven't had a chance to bench much yet, will try when I get home tonight. It ran without artifacts at 485/780 (3.38ghz) but I got a lower score than my previous best run 452/770 (3.44ghz) about 500 points lower WTF!
We've got a mini heatwave in the UK at the moment over 35C in places so it looks good so far for these temps. I am well chuffed so far :D
 
Could you please post your highest 3d mark compares ?
I have 2.6 Costa Rica as well, week 13. Can't get past 261 FSB for the life of me :( No matter voltages, settings, RAM, Hyper-Threading nothing. Must be one of those monday examples. I have IC7 instead and watercooling installed 44 idle 56 load

Thing is I thought about buying 9800 Pro instead for my modded 9500 @ 366/330. So I thought it would be nice to see how much of a improvement I should see. If you could post any other benchmarks with real games I would be thankfull as well! Anyway good luck with modding !

Thank you for your time!
 
Hi Melhisedek,

my compare urls are

3dmark01 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6672569

3dmark03 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=915949

I normaly run at [email protected] but the max I can now get is only 260fsb for some reason at any voltage. The link for 2001 was running at 264fsb I think. I think I've only run 3dmark03 twice so I haven't bothered optimising it yet and it was run @ 245fsb.

As for gaming the 9800pro will only come good if you're running 1600x1200 with AA/AF on. UT2003 is the only game I turn off 4x AA 8xAF because I like to keep the framerate 60-100fps and the framerate can vary alot with this one.

I regret buying the 2.6c because I can't get a high fsb that the 2.4c's are getting and my corsair xms3500 is only running @ 204fsb 2-2-2-5-8 which is capping my 3dmark score.
 
Melhisedek said:

I have 2.6 Costa Rica as well, week 13. Can't get past 261 FSB for the life of me :( No matter voltages, settings, RAM, Hyper-Threading nothing. Must be one of those monday examples. I have IC7 instead and watercooling installed 44 idle 56 load
Thank you for your time!

Me too have a 2.6C Costa Rica, pair with Asus P4C800-d.
It can do 262FSB total stable with 1.65V WHILE room temperture is below 75*F. I am only on stock cooling, 37*C idle 54*C full load. I don't get it why your water cooling gives you higher temperture? The funny thing is, when my room temperture is below 75*F, I can play BF1942 all day with total stable, yesterday and today the room temperture gets above 80*F, during BF1942 my system would restart sometimes, or just back to desktop some other time. Under this temperture, it is 40*C idle, 59*C full load. I believe the temperture is doing the trick due to the fact the situation still happen when I feed more voltage to it. However it did not happen when I take the FSB down to 258MHZ.

I am not worried :) After all it is the hottest days during the year right now, so I can set it back to 262MHZ no problem during most time of the year.

I suggest you check out your water cooling and case airflow, your temperture is higher than mine while mine is only on stock cooling. You may be able to go higher FSB if you can do something about your temperture.

BTW, I am using 2 x 512MB Corsair PC3200 with 5:4 ratio. They are great RAM, they can do total stable at 231FSB consider the fact there are 2 sticks of them + they are not even the latest reversion, but with 262FSB, I can only use 5:4.
 
Back