Should I try flashing My 9800np w/ a Pro BIOS

-=TriX-R4-KidS= · Oct 5, 2003

Card is a ATI Radeon 9800np w/ 2.8ns samsung RAM chips.

w/ the stock GPU cooler/ no RAM sinks I am already able to hit 452/363.....Should I flash to the Pro BIOS? (even though my card is already recognized as a 9800 pro by windows...(strange...its not a pro maybe its because it uses the faster RAM chips :? ).

Thanks,
TriX

Supertrucker · Oct 5, 2003

well, most people can overclock thier ram higher with the pro bios, and it is generally believed that this is because of looser timings. what i would do is make a copy of your current bios and edit the stock clocks to what you run it at 24/7, then you dont need an oc program running in the backround. info and tools at www.rage3d.com if you need a place to start

-=TriX-R4-KidS= · Oct 5, 2003

thx for the reply trucker,

So it would be a good idea to flash to the pro BIOS. Where can I DL a Pro BIOS? i looked on rage3d in the files section but didnt see anything for BIOS. I thought I saw a thread here that the BBA and sapphire/non bba cards should be flashed w/ different BIOS's......

Supertrucker · Oct 5, 2003

actually, i would not bother to flash to pro bios, when you get the higher ram clock, its do to looser timings and thus you get the same performance anyway. i would make a dump of the bios already in your card (a bios that you know is 100% compatible with your card, its a little difficult to blind flash a vid bios without a second comp or a pci vid card if something goes wrong) and edit the clocks to the speeds you want. none the less, here is a forum thread with all files you need for 9800np ===> 9800pro bios

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33695811

-=TriX-R4-KidS= · Oct 5, 2003

thanks

Supertrucker · Oct 5, 2003

glad i could help, make sure you thank they guys at rage, i just showed ya where to find them

Fredrik · Oct 5, 2003

-=TriX-R4-KidS= said:
Card is a ATI Radeon 9800np w/ 2.8ns samsung RAM chips.

w/ the stock GPU cooler/ no RAM sinks I am already able to hit 452/363.....Should I flash to the Pro BIOS? (even though my card is already recognized as a 9800 pro by windows...(strange...its not a pro maybe its because it uses the faster RAM chips :? ).

Thanks,
TriX

Where did you buy your card?

-=TriX-R4-KidS= · Oct 5, 2003

Re: Re: Should I try flashing My 9800np w/ a Pro BIOS

Fredrik said:
Where did you buy your card?

ebay....260 bucks

-=TriX-R4-KidS= · Oct 5, 2003

it would be interesting to see some results regarding benchmark/game performance on a 9800 oc'd to the max vs one w/ the pro bios oc'd to the max....just to see if the tighter timings are better than the increse in RAM speed.

PreservedSwine · Oct 5, 2003

The timings thing is just a thoery....it's never been proven to be true or untrue.......

Frankly, I doubt it...it doesn't make sense to use "looser" timings on the premier board, and "tighter" timings on the cheap card, does it? I believe there is another explanation.....

Try reading through this thread at R3D....it's long, but full of very usefull info..

You'll find literally hundreds who have flashed their non-PRO's to PRO's, and most acheive higher clocks and better performance as a result....

~Swine

shiyan · Oct 5, 2003

what confuses me is that you say windows already recognizes the card as a 9800 Pro.

are you sure the card was not pre flashed to Pro?

nice card though.

Mac · Oct 5, 2003

PreservedSwine said:
The timings thing is just a thoery....it's never been proven to be true or untrue.......

Frankly, I doubt it...it doesn't make sense to use "looser" timings on the premier board, and "tighter" timings on the cheap card, does it? I believe there is another explanation.....

Try reading through this thread at R3D....it's long, but full of very usefull info..

You'll find literally hundreds who have flashed their non-PRO's to PRO's, and most acheive higher clocks and better performance as a result....

~Swine

i flashed to pro bios and believe that it uses looser timings. i was able to go from 340 to 380 and only gained an avg of 100 in 3dmark 03, which is a much smaller incrase than i got from 300 to 340.

-=TriX-R4-KidS= · Oct 5, 2003

"what confuses me is that you say windows already recognizes the card as a 9800 Pro.

are you sure the card was not pre flashed to Pro?

nice card though."

yeah...its strange....I purchased the card from ebay so i cannot be sure that the BIOS hasnt been flashed....didnt come new in box...so...i dunno....but id think that i could get a faster RAM clock on it than 727 if it had already been flashed to a pro BIOS...thanks for the replies guys.....i think i will just flash to the Pro BIOS when I get some time and see the results for myself.

tweaker · Oct 6, 2003

Seems to me that someone already flashed the bios if windows reads it as PRO and the core and ram are unlocked and adjustable to those speeds.

Maybe not... Maybe so....

lol

happy trails

Tweaker

Miknow · Oct 6, 2003

So how did the flash go?

tweaker · Oct 6, 2003

Mac said:
i flashed to pro bios and believe that it uses looser timings. i was able to go from 340 to 380 and only gained an avg of 100 in 3dmark 03, which is a much smaller incrase than i got from 300 to 340.

Yo MAC!!HOWYA DOIN' !!!

Didn't U volt mod your card?? Just asking 'cause we talked on another post. Hope all is well.

U only gained 100 points? +-
What R your Ram timings and gpu temp?

Tweaker and RadMan

Mustanley · Oct 6, 2003

Many non pro cards show up as a pro in windows, including mine. Look at the default core and memory speed and that will tell you for sure. I too believe that the pro bios loosens memory timings. I benchamrked with 3dmark03 with the card running 380, 340 with both the stock np bios and then with a pro bios, and the np bios scored higher by almost 100 points. But I ended up sticking with the pro bios since it allowed me to overclock the memory much further (almost 50MHz) and I achieved an overall higher benchmark score.

Here's a good 9800np bios flashing thread from this forum.
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222513&highlight=bios+flash

-=TriX-R4-KidS= · Oct 6, 2003

Miknow said:
So how did the flash go?

I have yet to try falshing it Miknow....If I have the time Illl try this evening/night and post results.

Mustanley said:
Many non pro cards show up as a pro in windows, including mine. Look at the default core and memory speed and that will tell you for sure. I too believe that the pro bios loosens memory timings. I benchamrked with 3dmark03 with the card running 380, 340 with both the stock np bios and then with a pro bios, and the np bios scored higher by almost 100 points. But I ended up sticking with the pro bios since it allowed me to overclock the memory much further (almost 50MHz) and I achieved an overall higher benchmark score.

Here's a good 9800np bios flashing thread from this forum.
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222513&highlight=bios+flash

Thanks for the thread link mustanley. ill be sure to read through it.

-TriX

Mac · Oct 6, 2003

tweaker said:
Yo MAC!!HOWYA DOIN' !!!

Didn't U volt mod your card?? Just asking 'cause we talked on another post. Hope all is well.

U only gained 100 points? +-
What R your Ram timings and gpu temp?

Tweaker and RadMan

sup t&r. I'm going to volt mod it this week hopefully.
I only gained a 100 points when flashing the bios, yes..

if you mean gpu ram timings, i have no clue how to find out, but my system ram timing is in my sig, 2-6-3-2. gpu temp, not sure on that one either, it should be pretty close to ambient at full load with this peltier i got on it (mcw50t)

l8r,
Mac

Mac · Oct 6, 2003

tweaker said:
Yo MAC!!HOWYA DOIN' !!!

Didn't U volt mod your card?? Just asking 'cause we talked on another post. Hope all is well.

U only gained 100 points? +-
What R your Ram timings and gpu temp?

Tweaker and RadMan

sup t&r. I'm going to volt mod it this week hopefully.
I only gained a 100 points when flashing the bios, yes..

if you mean gpu ram timings, i have no clue how to find out, but my system ram timing is in my sig, 2-6-3-2. gpu temp, not sure on that one either, it should be pretty close to ambient at full load with this peltier i got on it (mcw50t)

-Mac

Should I try flashing My 9800np w/ a Pro BIOS

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