9550 to 9600 bios modding guide

[cjoyce1980]

As there seams to be a lot of 9550 to 9600 how to requests, this is my little guide as i've had lots of experience with this in the last few months.

For a start there is no extra pipelines available by modding your 9550 to a 9600.

The bios modding you can do....
9550 SE to a 9600 SE
The 9550SE and the 9600SE are the same basically, but early versions of the 9600SE used the RV360 core instead of the RV350. So to flash your 9550SE to a 9600SE you will need the 9600SE RV350 bios, (to find this information you will need to get the heat sink and fan off the GPU, but this is not advised), that compatible with 5.0ns memory. but all this just for an extra 75MHz, its safer to overclock to 9600SE speeds, (325/200).

9550 to 9600 Non-Pro
Most 9550 can be modded to the 9600NP (Non-Pro) as the card shares the same 5.0ns memory. Again early versions of the 9600NP used the RV360 core instead of the RV350. So to flash your 9550 to a 9600NP you will need the 9600NP RV350 bios, to find this information you will need to get the heat sink and fan off the GPU, but this is not advised. but all this just for an extra 75MHz, its safer to overclock to 9600NP speeds, (325/200).

9550 to 9600PRO
The first 9550's were 9600PRO's with the 9550 bios and 4.0ns memory or lower. As the 9600 run at 400/300, it is paramount that you make sure that your graphics card memory chips are 4.0ns memory or lower, or else a bad flash could cause you card to no longer be useable.

In order to see if you card can run at 9600PRO speeds you best better is to use ATI to find the MAX core and memory, or you could do it yourself. basically if you have a 9550 that can run at 400/300, (the 9600PRO speeds) then there is a good chance that a 9600PRO bios mod will be succesful, but make sure you get the right bios to match you memory chips.

You don't have to do a bios mod if you are unsure about doing one. Just use ATI Tool/RivaTuner/etc... to set the clocks to 9600PRO speed and enjoy your 9550 at 400/300.

The bios modding you can't do....
9550XT to 9600XT
This mod will just not happen, this is due to 9600XT 500MHz core clock speed. The RV350 core in the 9550XT will just not allow these speeds.

Overclock your 9550 like a 9600....
The safest way to overclock your card, if you are a beginner is to download ATI Tool and us it's find MAX CORE & MAX MEMORY features. This should help you identify how far you can push your card.