Powercolor 9800 Pro - How high should i OC?

Adaman · Nov 30, 2004

I got a Powercolor 9800 Pro over a year ago, and now's the first time trying to overclock it, just wondering what to shoot for, or what would be considered a good OC. Right now it's at 408/371, no artifacts yet. Would it be better if i just flashed it or does it not matter?

ziggo0 · Nov 30, 2004

Your ram speed has done pretty good for no cooling. Thats slightly past a stock speed of a 9800xt. The core on the other hand is about 412/415 for a 9800xt. If your hoping to flash you gotta have a few things first, one i believe is hynix memory, and something else that helps is a r360 core. Try pushing your core some more if you got the cooling, just wait till you see artifacts then start to bump it down

Adaman · Nov 30, 2004

Ok, good to know, thanky. I have an Arctic VGA Cooler 3 on there, not sure what the temps were before or what they are now, but from what i've heard it get's the job done. How high should i try to push the memory? Just until i start seeing artifacts? I got it at 384 now with no artifacts. Got my core to 423 with no artifacts as well.

jcw122 · Nov 30, 2004

hmm i didnt know u needed hynix memory to flash ur 9800pro bios to an XT...darnet...i have an MSI 9800Pro (red PCB)....samsung memory

Avg · Nov 30, 2004

You don't need a hynix mem to flash it, just get a modified bios for a MSI with samsung mem.
And by the way I also have a Powercolor at first I was able to oc it to 435core and 385 mem but now with a slitly moddified silencer rev.3 I'm up to 455mhz on the core and 395mem with ram sinks.

ziggo0 · Nov 30, 2004

I just slapped a Thermaltake Volcano 8 onto my gpu and i got about 15 more mhz out of it, its up to 435 core and 375 mem. Im working on the ram sinks too...its gonna take a bit to cut them, i barely got 2 done in about 2 horus

iLLestOne · Dec 1, 2004

I love that hynix memory! Mine went up to 410

My core only went up to 435 though....

You should check out atitool, it's a safe way to OC

http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

Adaman · Dec 1, 2004

I'm using ATItool actually.

I guess that OC was too high, ended up getting lines all across my screen after gaming for a bit. Guess i'll have to try something lower. I think it was the memory that was OCd to high. Could someone give me some speeds to try out? Something reasonable.

fabulouscoops · Dec 1, 2004

If you are using ATI Tool then just hit the "find mem" and "find core" buttons and let it do it's work. It will test each iteration for artifacts and adjust the clock speed accordingly until it finds the highest stable speed. Each card is different so we cannot tell you what will work for your card.

mtb856 · Dec 1, 2004

I'd run 3DMark03 after using ATITool, that seems to stress my video card the most.... if your core is too high, you'll get lots of snow in nature and the pixel shader 2.0 test. If your memory is too high, you'll get huge amounts of artifacting in nature (look in the water and the grass) and probably proxycon as well.

Nature's the all around best test IMO, it's a fairly bright test, so it's easy to see snow or artifacting.

With a VGA silencer I got my card to 450/365, but it dropped to around 430/370 when I flashed it to XT. My 3DMark03 score went up by 200 points though after I flashed it, so if your into benching it's well worth it.

Adaman · Dec 1, 2004

Would flashing to an XT get you better results than overclocking it the normal way? I'm not sure if i can flash this anyways, according to the sticky thread i saw it doesn't cancel me out, but it's a fairly old card, and has samsung memory, and an r350 core.

I'll try running 3Dmark03 then, thanks. Would i have to run it more than once to notice artifacts or anything?

mtb856 · Dec 1, 2004

You should notice artifacts within about 1 minute after you start 3DMark.

I have an r350 core with samsung memory as well..... which means that you can flash it but you'll get weird artifacting in 3DMark03 in Proxycon and Troll's Lair... it doesn't appear anywhere else though.

The advantage to flashing is that it's better for the card... especially if it can run XT speeds with no problem. When you boot up normally, the overclocked settings are only applied once you load Windows, which can be a little hard on the card after a while. When you flash, 412/365 is seen as the stock speeds of the card, so it stays at that speed even in BIOS.... better for your card in the long run.

Note: the bios for the card in the sticky is corrupt, so it won't work if you try to flash it. The BIOS I used is in the article at www.rojakpot.com..... it won't let me link to it, but it's in the article database in the modifications section. It's a Gigacube BIOS or something like that, but just follow the instructions in the article and it should work fine

GeoXx · Dec 1, 2004

just curious..im a newbie..what is an artifact?

Adaman · Dec 1, 2004

From that article, it says my card is not modable, this vid card only has 128MB, it's not 256mb...i don't think =p

I run 3Dmark at 423/371 and everything worked well except for the pixel shader 2.0, the Rhino was covered in snow (or artifacts), the pattern was sort of a criss-cross diamond shape. So should i up the speeds or take it down more? It didn't look too good. Like i said though all of the other tests ran fine.

Avg · Dec 1, 2004

GeoXx said:
just curious..im a newbie..what is an artifact?

error resulted by overheating or unstability, most of the time it is like a snow effect with small white dots, or a checkboard effect that makes your screen look like a checkboard, there is also the texture ripping. Artifact will be different depending on what is overheating but you'll definately notice that there is somthing wrong.

Avg · Dec 1, 2004

Adaman said:
From that article, it says my card is not modable, this vid card only has 128MB, it's not 256mb...i don't think =p

I run 3Dmark at 423/371 and everything worked well except for the pixel shader 2.0, the Rhino was covered in snow (or artifacts), the pattern was sort of a criss-cross diamond shape. So should i up the speeds or take it down more? It didn't look too good. Like i said though all of the other tests ran fine.

Take it down, it will show up when your playing games. Your card is moddedable you just need a modded bios for a 128mb card, I remenber the sticky had links to a lot of bioses.

mtb856 · Dec 1, 2004

9800XT Bios for Samsung E die cards

Here's the BIOS that I used..... I have the exact same card as you only it's an ATI card. Mine's 128MB, with Samsung memory, r350 core..... the Rojak article is referring to accessing the extra shaders of the 9800XT. An r360 core card is basically just a 9800XT with a different BIOS, it has all of the shaders and temp sensors of the 9800XT, you just need to flash the BIOS to access them.

An r350 core won't get the shaders or the temp sensors, but you will get the stock speeds that the XT has.

Just follow the articles (or the stickies) instructions, both will work.

Adaman · Dec 1, 2004

Can anyone give me an estimate of what speeds i should be able to run stable then? Your guess is probably as good as mine, heh. Keep it reasonable though

I might flash to XT, but i'm still unsure of how to do it, i'll just have to do the research i suppose.

fabulouscoops · Dec 1, 2004

I have a powercolor 350 core, 128 meg card and flashed to XT where it will run at 412/364 with no artifacting*. I can run it as high as 422/385 and still get a score in all the 3DMarks and aquamark3 with out artifacts. I usually run it at pro stock speed (378/338) to keep the heat down after I boot into windows but switch to XT speed for games or OCed to the max for benchmarking.
Like I said before, each card is different.

*(except for the ones in trolls lair and proxycon as mentioned)

mtb856 · Dec 1, 2004

Just like the article says

Download Flashrom v2.23 and the BIOS to do the actual flashing.

Once done, rename either BIOS image into something simpler, like "9800XT.bin" (without the quote marks, of course). If you don't, the flash may not succeed due to the long filename. Remember, DOS does NOT support long filenames. It only supports a 8.3 file format.

After that, copy the selected BIOS image as well as Flashrom v.2.23 into a boot disk.

Restart your computer and boot up using your boot disk. If you don't know how to do this, please do not even consider doing this mod!

At the DOS prompt, type : flashrom -s 0 9800pro.bin

This backs up your current BIOS into a file called "9800pro.bin" into the floppy disk.

After that, type : flashrom -f -p 0 9800XT.bin

This writes the new BIOS image into your card. The screen may go blank for a few seconds. That's it! You've just flashed your BIOS.

Reboot into Windows and re-install your graphics driver. Make sure you delete and clear out your old graphics driver first. I suggest a tool called DriverCleaner for this and the Omega Drivers for very good customized ATI Catalyst drivers

That's it..... it takes maybe 5 minutes total to complete the flash and reload the new drivers.... not long for the performance boost that you gain.

Powercolor 9800 Pro - How high should i OC?

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