What should i do with my 9550?

[tkpenalty]

I am going to Crossfire 2 X1600PRO from HIS for my new rig (yay for arctic cooling), but i still want more performance from my R9550, clocked at 515mhz/280mhz artifacting very rarely, only when i accidentally block airflow to the 80mm fans (yes the cooling is worth more than the card, so what???). So what will give more performance increases? Memory timings may kill my card however, and I haven't yet found any 9600 PRO Bioses that use Infineon 4.0 ns DDR1.

Overclocking does help but i am beginning to realise that there might be a lack of voltage, the new 80mm fans, mounted on the stock passive heatsink (with some thick screws; four of them to be exact. The fan sucks air and blows it onto the card's stock heatsink, the fan is mounted over the memory, and GPU. Looking at it, the heat is pumped out towards the sides of the card.

Should I Flash (Providing someone find me an Infineon 4.0ns 9600PRO bios), Voltmod, or just leave the card the way it is?

NOTE:
I can play CS:S at around 40 to 70 fps (when running around 12 bots on the server), higher when online, at 2x FSAA, 4x/8x Antiso, All high settings (without hdr, i get blinded by that shit). Right now, i want much much more performance.

Ill put pics up of the card later.

 

[tkpenalty]

Pictures of the card:

80mm fan on heatsink, mounted about RAM heatsinks

Top of my card, cooler for RAM modules of the card, note the PC is actually on and the fans are spinning, the camera rawks

Side view, note position of fan

Screws to hold the fan in place (double sided tape as a precaution)

 

[Munkul]

I am going to Crossfire 2 X1600PRO from HIS for my new rig

WHY???
dont buy the 1600pro, even in crossfire. its not worth it.
buy a decent single card, then you can upgrade any time to crossfire ad have an even faster setup.
have you looked at benchmarks for the 1600pro? if you havent, i suggest you do.
i am only trying to help you get the best value for money, but if you are set on those cards, or you get a really good deal, then whatever

btw, nice cooling!

 

[tkpenalty]

WHY???
dont buy the 1600pro, even in crossfire. its not worth it.
buy a decent single card, then you can upgrade any time to crossfire ad have an even faster setup.
have you looked at benchmarks for the 1600pro? if you havent, i suggest you do.
i am only trying to help you get the best value for money, but if you are set on those cards, or you get a really good deal, then whatever

btw, nice cooling!

What does 119 AUD tell you? XD. Thanks, i spent a lot of time trying to get the cooling to work. Gotta admit its fking 4 slot cooling.
Do you know anything about memory timings that will improve the performance and work without destroying the card?

 

[Munkul]

i would try voltmodding. im not sure whether atitool will let you relax timings on that card, but it does on x800's. you could try clocking it higher that way.
btw, nice camera! i see what you mean in the pictures, they are great.

how you plan to buy 2 1600pro's with 119$ i have no idea, ive just taken a look at aussie online shops. however, we both know that 1 1600pro will kick a 9550 a long way into oblivion...
good luck anyway

 

[DR.Death]

the 1600 will beet the 9600 but it would be better to go with a 1650 at least

 

[tkpenalty]

i would try voltmodding. im not sure whether atitool will let you relax timings on that card, but it does on x800's. you could try clocking it higher that way.
btw, nice camera! i see what you mean in the pictures, they are great.

how you plan to buy 2 1600pro's with 119$ i have no idea, ive just taken a look at aussie online shops. however, we both know that 1 1600pro will kick a 9550 a long way into oblivion...
good luck anyway

Bah most of those reviewers benchmark games at insane resolutions which only my CRT can support, my LCD cant D:. Still, the card doesnt suck at all and at 1280x1024 The X1600 is 60fps + most of the time, i only play games like Half Life 2 Ep1 and CS:S, NFS:C, etc. You get the idea.

But i would need help to voltmod, i don't know what to connect D: Do you think this cooling is sufficient? Ive got an old Athlon 64 cooler ready to chop up into some voltage control heatsinks. By the way, Munkul, check out www.umart.com.au, thats where i found it, its even GDDR3

EDIT: Just a question, why to the mosets on the back of the card (under the translucent fan) get much hotter than the ones away from the fans? This is rather odd.

Im not planning on ditching this card, as soon as i get a new PC i am still going to try max out the performance of this card. Someone post Voltmod Pics and instructions for the 9550 please X_X

 

[tkpenalty]

Something off topic but, this is for a new PC im going build soon, greyed out items are parts i have ordered/purchased. I have a budged of 540~580 AUD, deduct cash from the non-greyed items. Blue items are the ones that i need a suggestion for.

Processor: Core 2 Duo e6300 (250 AUD)
Motherboard: P5W DH Deluxe (360 AUD)
RAM: 1GB ramkit of Corsair Value select PC-4200 (99 AUD)
HDD: 160GB Maxtor SATA (78 AUD )
GPU: 2x HIS x1600PRO 128Mb GDDR3 (119 AUD each)OR X1950PRO which will make me lose my extra cash left to buy other things.
Extra Cooling:
-7x 80mm fans ready to use
-Generic pure copper "flower" CPU cooler, 65mm diameter of fan itself, 100mm diameter of copper heatsink, rated at 3125 RPM, basically a faux zalman, except without heatpipes, direct transfer through fins
-Northbridge cooling?
Optical Drives: 1x Pioneer general DVD burner
Case: Generic case, adequate cooling (Iceq will be useful)
Misc: Rounded/Folded IDE Cables

 

[lemonadesoda]

Don't get Value Select. You'll have a problem upgrading to 2GB if you ever want to. Value Select doesnt like working with 4 sticks. The premium Corsair is fine.

Unless you are going to overclock the E6300, you can get a 12v to 7v converter for your CPU fan. It will cool sufficiently, and it will go silent.

160GB is not enough. Better to get a bigger HDD than to have 2 HDDs, each of which is too small, and together, twice the power and twice the noise.

Why IDE cables? You chose SATA! For the DVD the free cables with the mainboard are sufficient, and out of the way.

 

[jlewis02]

Vmod it and go for a record.

 

[tkpenalty]

Don't get Value Select. You'll have a problem upgrading to 2GB if you ever want to. Value Select doesnt like working with 4 sticks. The premium Corsair is fine.

Unless you are going to overclock the E6300, you can get a 12v to 7v converter for your CPU fan. It will cool sufficiently, and it will go silent.

160GB is not enough. Better to get a bigger HDD than to have 2 HDDs, each of which is too small, and together, twice the power and twice the noise.

Why IDE cables? You chose SATA! For the DVD the free cables with the mainboard are sufficient, and out of the way.

*Coughs* look at my budget, my fan is fine the way it is, its on 12v and is almost silent (hahha lol, same performance as a Zalman FTW???)

I cant get more.... the next interval; i.e. 200GB is sold out and the 250GB is not worth it (and my budget will deplete) The PATA HDD ive got is silent, i don't get why HDDs these days are so ffin noisy. Noise is not a problem for me anyway as i have headphones on most of the time (and its a little nicer with that soft PC noise).

Whoops your right... -_- ill buy this instead

DDR2 1024MB (2x512MB) 667Mhz Dual Channel Kit+Copper Heatspreader OCZ.

 

[Munkul]

do what you want with the hard drives, but if you have the choice between 2 1600pro's and 1 1950pro, then for goodness sake get the 1950pro. some games arnt even optimised for crossfire, so you wont get any benefit with two cards. the 1950pro is a great card, i was thinking of getting one myself.
the memory situation: never used corsair value, but have used plenty of cheap ram in 4 slot config, and it works fine.
the northbridge will be fine on stock cooling, going by your propensity for modding things you'l likely put a better fan on it, etc

 

[tkpenalty]

HIS's offering for X1950 is completely irresistable, but looking at Powercolour's stock fan design, is it good? Or should I get the Extreme edition?

 

[Munkul]

you could get the one with the stock cooler, buy an AC Silencer and overclock it yourself, far more fun than buying an expensive pre-modded one.
i dont know what the stock hsf is like, but iwould buy it and decide myself whether it needs replacing or not.