Hack 9500 into 9700...

[diehlr]

Thanks for the info, do you know where to obtain the thick thermal material like you mentioned? I plan on modifying my card eventually but not right away, waiting to see results of others and see if some kinks get ironed out.

 

[Smultron]

..electronics store maybe? ..or some computer shop?

My card should arrive today... i´m going to test the card troughoutly ..so it´s surely in good shape.. also going to get the test results to compare to the modded card. It will be so much satisfying afterwards when you can really see the power difference.

Not sure if i´m even going to do the mod on it though... wondering if i just return the card and wait the price to drop on real 9700. Don´t wanna end up wit card that has artifacts when hacked to 9700. Maybe i just do the mod and if it doesn´t work change the card back to 9500 and just sell the bugger... wit my luck the card probably doesn´t work even at default 9500

 

[james.miller]

James.Miller, you seem like somebody in-the-know on this subject. I'm a fair hand at soldering but given the size (or lack of) this resistor shift and the fact that I would need to spend $ on a higher quality iron I'm thinking that it would be best to just pop the heatsink off this thing and take it to a professional.

Would most any decent electronics repair shop be able to do this properly? And I'm guessing that a pro could probably do this in 5 minutes or under. What would you say would be a fair price for a shop to charge? $10 or under?

its not nessasery to get a better iron - i only suggested wellars or ersa's if people didnt already gave an iron. Wellar's can be picked up pretty cheap, ersa's? i dunno. my ersa iron at work was purchased for £85, and that was half price lol

As for the actuall moving of the resistor - a pro could do that in 15 second flat - easily. i myself built a board that had 60 3k6 SMT part's by hand in under ten minutes. To be able to do it at that speed take a lot of practice, though. Believe me ive had to work hard! lol

anybody atempting this should take their time.

As for electrical shop: sory i dont know any that would - you can phone around and ask, that all i can suggest

 

[Evnas]

I can't see how that would be possible. ATI would have to identify WHICH pipes work, which didn't and modify the PCB to use only those specific four good ones. It makes much more sense that ATI would simply chuck the ones without all eight pipelines working properly and simply disable the same four pipes on all the 9500 boards.

If they found all 8 pipelines werent in working order, they could simply disable 4 of the pipelines (as they do on the 9500), and test. If all comes out well, they sell it. If not, they toss it.

Now as to the artifacts, what happens when you overclock a GPU? You get artifacts. How do AMD and Intel determine WHICH processors are sold as higher clocked than others? By testing them first and sorting which ones perform within spec at default voltage with stock cooling. Those that don't make the cut are tested lower and lower until they either find a speed that the chip will handle at default voltage and heat levels or they toss it in the circular file (ie - garbage).

Artifacts comes from the memory, not the core. The core gives a whole mess of other problems if overclocked to high, hehe. And your Intel analogy there, isnt quite right. Intel could have a chip that could do 3GHz easily, but if the demand isnt there, they will bag it as a cheaper one, and sell it (almost all Intel processors are good overclockers and could have easily been sold as a higher speed to make more money). Dell is the #1 buyer of Intel processors overall. If they have a big order of 1.8GHz procs, and Intel doesnt have the 1.8s to fill the order, they wont hesitate to take higher clocked procs and lower them to 1.8 and sell them off. AMD does the same thing.

 

[Smultron]

Succes also in korea: http://www.darkcrow.co.kr/News/Eng_News.asp?board_idx=1655

These Sapphire cards seem to have different memories... In Korea, Russia, USA, Poland and Canada i have seen that they have Hynix 3.6ns chips, but here In Finland chips are 3.3ns Infineon. Maybe a little better OC´ability in these....

Maybe those artifacts come from that different memory? ...Infineon and Hynix chips may need different bios timings.

 

[Smultron]

DONT GO MODDING YOUR CARDS IT SEEMS THAT THIS MOD CAN BE DONE BY SOFTWARE!

Latest news: http://www.digit-life.com/news.html?1093#1093

 

[srwven]

the only sapphires that newegg sells are the 64mb ones ; isnt it ???

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=sapphire+9500

the oem 9500 128mb's dont say wether or not they are sapphire cards only the 64mb version does ....

That is not the one I am talking about. The one I am talking about is here. It is the one at the top of the list. Near the end of the description right before the see it link it says "powered by ATI Manufactured by Sapphire Technologies". By the way it is now 3 dollars cheaper than what I paid for it yesterday!

 

[OC Noob]

DONT GO MODDING YOUR CARDS IT SEEMS THAT THIS MOD CAN BE DONE BY SOFTWARE!

Latest news: http://www.digit-life.com/news.html?1093#1093

All I have to say is WOW!

 

[srwven]

DONT GO MODDING YOUR CARDS IT SEEMS THAT THIS MOD CAN BE DONE BY SOFTWARE!

Latest news: http://www.digit-life.com/news.html?1093#1093

Thanks a bunch Smultron for finding this That is truly good news. I wonder when this next version will be out? I don't doubt the legitimacy but I wonder how you can get around a resistor disabling 4 pipelines with software? I can't wait to see benchmarks. I will just use that 9500 128mb stock until I see this done!

 

[HeXenViRii]

haha ! i guess so ! it seems since it wasent in bold i glanced right over it

That is not the one I am talking about. The one I am talking about is here. It is the one at the top of the list. Near the end of the description right before the see it link it says "powered by ATI Manufactured by Sapphire Technologies". By the way it is now 3 dollars cheaper than what I paid for it yesterday!

 

[brint]

How can it be possible to "unlock" 4 pipelines by software?
When ATI made the lock physically (The resistor)
I will only believe it when I see it. So still I only believe in the hardware mod way to do it.

And that thing about ATi testing all the chips (like intel and amd dose)
I believe that they do test all the chips, and also that they, maybe, take a low performer chip and put it into a low speed card. Like the 9500 non pro.
And like Evens said, Intel and AMD do it too. But like she also said, they don’t hesitate about lowering the speed from a 2,0Ghz to a 1,8Ghz if the marked wants 1,8´s.
If you look back at the old AMD Athlons Slot A series, some users who opened the cpu case discovered that the cpu was infect a higher speed then what they bought it to be.
for example a 600Mhz could easily be a 650 or 700Mhz chip.

 

[Evnas]

But like she also said

HE! HE! Thats my fiance in my avatar, lol

 

[s[H]sIkuA]

software!! that is what i want

safer and easier , no fuss

Drool cant wait for this card to reach my country

 

[s[H]sIkuA]

wait I cant find a link to the full review

 

[Creig]

Well, Pneumothorax over at AT confirmed that the 128 Non-pro Sapphire's at NewEgg are built on the 9700 board. And that it comes with all the extras (cables, DVI-VGA adapter, s-video to RCA adapter, PowerDVD, driver disc). AND he's already modded it and has it up and running pulling 13,500 on 3Mark2001SE at 370 core/290 memory with a factory stock Dell P4 2.4 gig running XP Home. He's going to reformat/reinstall and rebench.

My willpower finally gave out and I ordered one for myself this morning. I was SO going to wait for the 9900, but for only $160 shipped I couldn't resist. This deal is just too good to pass up. I couldn't take the chance that future 9500 non pro's might be built on the 9500 PCB instead of the 9700 and I'd be kicking myself for months afterwards for missing out on one of the "Deals of the Year" for 2003.

 

[McWarren]

I was looking forward to being uber-leet and doing the solder job, but now I'll play it safe and use the software when I get my Radeon.

 

[ataxy]

check guru3d it seem that the next rivatuner will have a softmod for tweaking you 9500 in a 9700

 

[james.miller]

that info has already been posted

 

[ataxy]

ok then sorry for the unusefull post

 

[james.miller]

lol dont worry about it