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

9800 pro flash or no?

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

FizzledFiend

Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2001
Location
Winston Salem NC
have a 9800 pro inbound from a member here. I am upgrading from a 9600 XT and i was wondering would there be any gains in flashing the bios to the XT..My question may be a bit naive as i haven't done too much research yet. I run water and plan to clock the fool outta this think like i did the 9600..just wondering if there are other advantages to flashing the BIOS besides the clock speeds?


BTW it's a PowerColor 9800 pro
 
Some people say that temp monitoring is really cool. I guess that might be a benifit, as well as looking at 9800xt when you boot up and not some 9800pro.
 
so temp monitor is only available on the XT modle and thats the only real added benifit...pfft not worth it if ya ask me. I run below ambient anyways so bah humbug :p

unless there is some otehr compeling reason........
 
Check the 5th sticky from the top.
Even worst case senario with a bad OCing, 350 core, nonXT pcb and 128 MB RAM the Flash to XT provides a bump in 3DMark03 score of about 300 points when running the card at pro clock speeds. Something to do with tighter memory timings. You also save wear on the card by stopping the jump to overclocked mem and core on each reboot.
Best case is getting a true XT for the price of a pro.
 
If your card has temp monitering then it doesnt matter what bios it is it will still read your temp. I bought a sapphire 9800pro that was a true identical xt with the pro bios and i was still able too see the temperature, then i flashed it because it is an actual 9800xt card and got overdrive.
 
I flashed mine to XT to avoid the wear on it. It was so easy that I figured what the hell and just did it. I have a R350 so I only gained the constant overclock but still. Just having that was nice. My max overclock remained the same strangely enough because I had heard that your max would drop a bit but not on mine I guess. Small boost in benches but nothing astounding.
 
Back