How To: Flash your X1900 Series card!!!

[HousERaT]

Since I know people are going to ask me how I did this I'll just create this little how to guide. With the release of the new Sapphire X1900XTX Toxic (liquid cooled) card, people like myself are going to want to use the bios for extra performance. This guide will work for any of the bios floating around but this new "Toxic" bios has the fastest default clocks (675/801) for the XTX line of cards. This bios will also give you a little boost using CCC as well. I'll show you the differences as well as what to use for the flash.

Before we get started I'll state that I assume no responsibility for any damages caused to your system or equipment by following this guide.

Bios I'll use for this flash is the brand new Sapphire X1900XTX Toxic bios. I'm not hosting it so you'll have to look around for it yourself. As I find links to the bios I'll post it. You can go to W1zzards site to find bios. The Toxic bios isn't there yet but I'm sure it will be soon. You can use any of the flash programs at his site for the job. I'll be using my favorite which is winflash v1.05. It looks like this:

[HousERaT]

Before you start make sure you backup you bios by hitting the save button. Then all you have to do is load your .rom file by hitting the button that says "Load Image." This will allow you to search your computer for the correct file then load it into the software. Next you'll have to check the space that says "Force." This will allow you to force the different bios to you card. Once you've loaded the bios to flash and checked the "Force" box you're ready to hit the "Program" button. Once the card is flashed you'll get a notice that the programming was successful (or not )

[HousERaT]

If the flash is successful, CCC should look just a little different. Don't get too excited about the difference in scores...... standard bios only allows you to clock the ram to 800 which in turn is only 792 actual. Since the Toxic bios has it's lowest clock of 801 you get the actual clock of 801 (the memory divider for these cards is defaulted at 9).

[HousERaT]

and again.

[HousERaT]

The timings on the Toxic bios are a little bit relaxed compared to the standard bios (I'll see if I can get some pics) so I'll have to do some testing clock for clock to see if you lose anything. Also I'll see if my max overclock changes with the new bios. I didn't notice much of any change in card temps with the new bios but then again I have really good cooling on mine. If you want to use this bios then make sure your card can run 675/801 out the box. Enjoy.

[beavismorpheus]

Can I flash my x1900xt to the toxic XTX bios or are xt and xtx bios' incompatible? I hate having to reset my clocks everytime i reboot. Is it just as easy to flash back to the original bios for when you sell the card on ebay?

[HousERaT]

Can I flash my x1900xt to the toxic XTX bios or are xt and xtx bios' incompatible? I hate having to reset my clocks everytime i reboot. Is it just as easy to flash back to the original bios for when you sell the card on ebay?

In some cases yes, just make sure your card can run clean 675/801 & see what type of ram you have on your card. Only the early XT cards have the XTX 1.1ns memory. Later models have the 1.2ns memory. I'm not sure if those will flash without problems or not.

Edit: The Toxic bios flash works fine with XT cards that have 1.1ns memory.

[Sucka]

Flashed mine, worked great. Thanks for guide

[robs03gts]

Can I flash my x1900xt to the toxic XTX bios or are xt and xtx bios' incompatible? I hate having to reset my clocks everytime i reboot. Is it just as easy to flash back to the original bios for when you sell the card on ebay?

Why not just use ATI TOOL for your overclocking? it lets you save your overclock profiles and allows you to have it automatically loaded up everytime you power on your computer. That way if you want to run XTX speeds or greater you can do so without having to reset over and over because it saves it

Why take a risk with a flash that could potentially ruin your card?

Im sorry but after using ATI TRAY TOOLS for the main interface and ATI TOOL for overclocking I will never go back to the bloated CCC. My system has never ran faster.

[HousERaT]

Flashed mine, worked great. Thanks for guide

It's all good Ben...... Please add any insights or observations about the bios.

[DareDevil_747]

Why not just use ATI TOOL for your overclocking? it lets you save your overclock profiles and allows you to have it automatically loaded up everytime you power on your computer. That way if you want to run XTX speeds or greater you can do so without having to reset over and over because it saves it

Because its hard on the card, jumping up speed like that when windows loads, better to re-flash and have it running at a constant speed. Also, if you do it correctly, it shouldnt ever screw anything up, I have reflashed almost every card I've ever owned, and never had one screw up yet (knock on wood, getting ready to flash current card )

[traldan]

I'll do a little playing with my card, make sure it's ok at those speeds (XT, not XTX, but it was an early one, I'm almost positive it has 1.1ns memory though I haven't popped it off to check). Thanks for the guide.

[HousERaT]

here's round 1, Toxic bios on the bottom.

[HousERaT]

here's round 2, Toxic Bios on the bottom. You see the trend? The relaxed timings on the Toxic bios does hurt performance just a bit.

[robs03gts]

Because its hard on the card, jumping up speed like that when windows loads, better to re-flash and have it running at a constant speed. Also, if you do it correctly, it shouldnt ever screw anything up, I have reflashed almost every card I've ever owned, and never had one screw up yet (knock on wood, getting ready to flash current card )

Yeah I can understand where your coming from.

[BWR]

So would you consider this the "safe" alternative to ATI TOOLS (for use of overclocking)? And what about ATI TRAY TOOLS? Will the Toxic BIOS cooperate with that?

[Sucka]

So we can say that flashing to this BIOS is counter productive? I haven't run any tests, but this is making me want to flash back to XTX.

[robs03gts]

I am going to set my boot up speeds back to stock XT speeds and only overclock when needed in certain games such as Oblivion. I usually play Oblivion at 732 core and 832 mem

[HousERaT]

So we can say that flashing to this BIOS is counter productive? I haven't run any tests, but this is making me want to flash back to XTX.

I suppose it depends on why you flashed in the first place. You will certainly have much faster default speeds. If you're a person who only overclocks with CCC then the advantages are obvious from my first set of comparisons. The Toxic bios wins hands down. Now if you're a hardcore overclocker/benchmarker this might not be such a great idea. You will lose points clock vs clock against a standard bios but the real question is how much more can you overclock with the Toxic bios? For my XT rig it would be best to use the default bios if I were using it as a benchmark rig...... why? Because that card has a bad memory controller. With the stock bios the highest I can get it to clock is 810 on the memory. With the Toxic bios I benched clean with 819. The scores with the memory at 819 and laxed timings were less than the tighter timings at 810. I haven't tested how high my XTX card can go with the new bios yet so I can't attest to whether any extra overclocking will be able to make up for the difference in timings. I've seen some people claiming an extra 40-50Mhz on the memory using the Toxic bios. So at this point it could come down to individual cards as to which is better. I know I'll be leaving my XT card flashed with the Toxic bios. I'll keep you posted on how the XTX vs Toxic bios turns out. If anyone does this kind of testing before I do, don't be afraid to post your results.

[chron]

this got a sticky but my x1800gto 12pipe 500/500 flash to 16 pipe 700/700 didnt... lol