X800 Pro VIVO mod 12P to 16P

[cmberry20]

woot!

Mod worked fine!
Bought a Connect3D X800 Pro VIVO & modded the BIOS, card is now a X800XT-PE @ 520 x 560. No volt mod required.

Benchmarks to follow.


R.I.P
One Softmodded ATI 9500 128Mb
Finally passed away on 28/09/04
Will be sorely missed by all & will be remembered for pi**ing all over cards 4 times the price.
May its score of over 6100 in 3dMark'03 be noted in the History books

 

[NRP]

Alright, I installed the P4c 3.4 GHz cpu, and here are some comparative benchmarks:

P4c 2.6 GHz:
Doom 3 (1024x768, Med): 56.4
Doom 3 (1600x1200, High): 47.4
Halo PC (1600x1200, High): 54.12
3DMark03 (default): 11,852

P4c 3.4 GHz:
Doom 3 (1024x768, Med): 66.6
Doom 3 (1600x1200, High): 51.9
Halo PC (1600x1200, High): 60.05
3DMark03 (default): 12,491

Nice increases, actual gameplay is noticeably improved. However, I was kind of expecting more . . .

so . . .

I'm building a new system based on an AMD64 FX-53 (socket 939) cpu and an ASUS A8V Deluxe motherboard. At this point in my life, I've got more dollars than sense, but I just want to see how much of a difference the fastest cpu/motherboard combo currently available will make with my videocard. Everyone says the X800 XT PE needs a fast cpu to really perform. We'll soon see.

I've got the new system up and running, and here are the results as well as some conclusions:

AMD64 FX-53 (Socket 939 @ 2.4 GHz) w/1 GB PC3200 RAM:
Doom 3 (1024x768, Med): 91.5*
Doom 3 (1600x1200, High): 56.8
Halo PC (1600x1200, High): 67.15
3DMark03 (default): 12,827

*Since Doom3 is cpu-limited at low resolutions, I think this benchmark score is most indicative of how much faster the FX-53 processor is compared to the P4c 3.4 GHz. All of the other benchmarks are basically evaluating the graphics card.

As soon as I got this thing running I immediately ran benchmarks, and, admittedly, I was initially disappointed by the results. These benchmarks seem to show that it isn't worth dropping ~$1,500 (US) on a new FX-53 based system. I guess I was expecting larger benchmark score differentials.

Then I started to play games. Three words best describe the new system: Hol-E-Crap! The actual gameplay feels like a "night-and-day" difference. Basically, the framerate dips are much smaller now, even at 1600x1200 resolution with the highest settings. I guess when you throw in Havoc physics and destructable environments (I love shooters), the FX-53 really shines.

What did I learn from all of this?
1. Well, benchmarks don't tell the whole story (everyone always says this, and I just spent a lot of money to learn it's true).

2. Above a certain minimum specification (a 2.6 GHz P4c cpu in my case), a good video card is more important than a good cpu.

3. The best benchmark is to play your favorite games. If your current system experiences large variations in in-game framerates, then upgrade your videocard first, cpu second. Unlike cpus, the latest videocards are so much faster than the last generation it's ridiculous.

I know I'm not really telling you people anything you don't already know, but if you're like me, you don't necessarily believe everything you read. I actually spent the money and did the research. I hope this experiment will be helpful to someone.

Oh yeah,
4. Far Cry and Painkiller are a hellava lot more fun to play than Doom3.

 

[NRP]

Congrats on your successful mod, cmBerry20! Get ready to enjoy insanely high resolutions and never-seen-before special effects.

 

[cmberry20]

Cheers NRP,
Just been playing Doom3 on 1280 x 1024 with 8AA on High - Very nice. The visuals look sooo much better than my 9500. Its so smooth now.

Benchmarks:
3dmark 03 = 12734
3dmark 05 = 4634
on a 2500 mobile @ 2.5Ghz (200 x 12.5) & 1Gb Corsair Ram (2 x 512Mb)

 

[Quazi]

Just a bit more FYI about my VIVO mod. I purchased a Sapphire X800Pro VIVO. The first thing I did was to bring the cards voltage up to XT PE standards. I posted this info on page two or three. I was told that I may be close to the max. Probably right. I took the resistance down to 380 ohms on resistor #1597. This brought my cards voltage up to 1.55v's. The next thing I did was use W1zzards edited flashrom and the Sapphire X800XT PE bios, and then flashed the bios. No problems at all. I noticed the heat increased by 5C from the idle to the load temps. But still yet, never got above 76C under load. The best oc I could attain here was 527/567. Then I installed a Zalman ZM80D-HP with the ram sinks and the fan. Load temps stay below 60C now. And my max oc is 543/591, with load temps still under 60C. I could oc the core more, if I bring the memory down. But memory = frame rates. And at that speed, the core can handle all the eye candy maxed out at 6x AA and 16x AF. With a 3.06GHz cpu @ 533MHz FSB, 3DMark03 score is 12,010. 3DMark05 score is 5,087. Seems the Sapphire XT PE bios is another good one to use. I am getting decent over clocks, but I am sure some of that has to do with the vmod.

 

[Urlyin]

NRP ... did you enjoy doing the testing and upgrades? I see you have your system running pretty good... nice benchmarks

 

[Fahim]

I posted this in another thread, but, since I started this thread, I thought I should include it here.



I have been playing with ATI Tool and found the memory speed seems to be the cause of the artifacts. The maximum stable memory speed for my card is 544.5 (the core seems to be stable up to around 550). If I go any higher on the memory speed I get artifacts after about 5 minutes.

Do you guys think that ram sinks would help to achieve stable operation at the X800 XT's default memory speed of 560? If so, what type(s) can you recommend? I've ordered a VGA Silencer 4 (not sure if it has ram sinks), so I may have some clearance issues on the GPU side of the board.

By the way, I thought I had ordered a Sapphire card, but I was sent a PowerColor X800 Pro VIVO. Oh well, no matter - I was able to successfully unlock 16 pipes and the card runs fine (if a little too hot). It would be nice to run at the default XT speeds, but overall I am quite pleased with the card's performance with 16 pipes at X800 Pro speeds of 475/450.

Which memory type your card comes with? 2.0ns or 1.6ns?

 

[cowboyb]

I been noticing that on every internet discription of the x800 pro says that it works up to 16 piplines. Have they increased it or are they lieing. They cant lie can they?

 

[NRP]

NRP ... did you enjoy doing the testing and upgrades? I see you have your system running pretty good... nice benchmarks

Yes, it was fun to build a new computer from the ground up. I think I got a little too caught up in all the benchmark nonsense (which ultimately made me decide to build a new system), but my new machine really kicks ass! I've been playing games and having a blast. My old computer is just used for day-to-day stuff (e-mail, word processing, screwing around with C++, etc), and I've put together a wireless network in my home (two PCs and an XBox).

On that note, I'd like to thank everyone on this forum. This place has been the best hardware-related forum I've ever seen. Everyone here is smart, helpful, and no one flames anyone. W1zzard produces excellent articles and reviews. In a word, this place is fantastic!

 

[NRP]

Which memory type your card comes with? 2.0ns or 1.6ns?

It has Samsung 1.6ns memory.

 

[Urlyin]

NRP ... I see you almost edged me on the Doom3 benchmark... Glad to hear you had fun ... catching the OC bug is like being a crack addict... gotta go faster ... just one more FPS ... where's that mod .... hehe

 

[NRP]

I been noticing that on every internet discription of the x800 pro says that it works up to 16 piplines. Have they increased it or are they lieing. They cant lie can they?

All X800 series cards are based on the same R420 gpu, which is built with 16 pipes (four groups of four pipes). Sometimes some of these pipes are faulty due to the manufacturing process, but the rest of the chip is perfectly functional. If only one group of pipes is defective, the manufacturer simply disables the defective group of four pipes (leaving the gpu with 12 functional pipes) and sells it as an X800 Pro.

Sometimes, all 16 pipes are functional but either the gpu or the memory can't run at the X800 XT PE speeds (520 core/560 memory). In this case, the manufacturer simply disables one group of pipes in the card's Bios (again, leaving the gpu with 12 pipes) and sells the card as an X800 Pro VIVO (475 core/450 memory), or leaves all 16 pipes active and sells the card as an X800 XT (500 core/500 memory).

Even now, it is nearly impossible to purchase an X800 XT PE (very low supply). So the least expensive option is to purchase an X800 Pro VIVO and perform the modifications described in this thread (and all the other threads) to make it an X800 XT PE. You can now also purchase an X800 XT (which has 16 pipes enabled) and increase it's speeds as described in this thread, but these are more expensive than the X800 Pro VIVOs.

In summary, it isn't lying or false advertising on the manufacturer's part. It's just a way to still make a profit from slightly out-of-spec parts (it's a good business strategy, and it's good for us hardware enthusiasts also). If you want to do this, you must purchase an X800 Pro VIVO, not a regular X800 Pro. Keep in mind that you are taking a risk because some of the pipes may infact be physically defective so if you unlock them you'll get visual artifacts. However, the success rate for X800 Pro VIVOs seems to be very high, so I think it's a good risk. On the other hand, if you buy an X800 XT, you're guaranteed to get 16 fully functional pipes but you'll pay extra for it.

 

[NRP]

NRP ... I see you almost edged me on the Doom3 benchmark... Glad to hear you had fun ... catching the OC bug is like being a crack addict... gotta go faster ... just one more FPS ... where's that mod .... hehe

Yeah, I almost beat your score, but I needed an $800 (US) cpu and a $160 (US) motherboard to get anywhere near you. You definitely have an awesome system! It looks like the Prescott cpus are very formidable when properly overclocked.

On a related note. I'm using the Thermalright XP-90 heat sink (with a 92mm fan) on my A64 FX-53 (stock speed - 2.4 GHz). I don't know how hot this cpu runs with the stock HSF, but mine idles at 33C - 35C and never gets above 50C during absolutely grueling benchmarking or gaming sessions. This heat sink isn't too large, and it works with the stock intel heat sink bracket (it comes with a spare bracket for AMD cpus). I highly recommend it!

 

[Urlyin]

But that AMD64 will still be cranking when my OCed 3.0 is smoldering ... I was looking at those heat pipes but the Cooler master Hyper6 caught my eye... maybe I need to give the XP another look...

 

[slash0r]

i'm about to flash my asus x800 pro vivo to an xt but i have some questions

1) what should give best results, the ati X800 xt bios or an asus X800 xt bios ?
2) also i already ran the atitool artifacts detector with xt speeds (520/560) and it
detected one unmatched pixel. it doesnt do that with 510/550. is there a way
to permanently change the bios values to 510/550 ?
3) whats the maximum 'safe' temperature ? atitool reported a max of 72/55 when
scanning for artifacts

greets

 

[Fahim]

I mod my ASUS AX800 PRO/TVD to 16 Pipe. Running successfully. I check with ATI Tool for 1 hr. This forum & this site helped me a lot in this matter. Congrates everyone...

 

[NRP]

i'm about to flash my asus x800 pro vivo to an xt but i have some questions

1) what should give best results, the ati X800 xt bios or an asus X800 xt bios ?
2) also i already ran the atitool artifacts detector with xt speeds (520/560) and it
detected one unmatched pixel. it doesnt do that with 510/550. is there a way
to permanently change the bios values to 510/550 ?
3) whats the maximum 'safe' temperature ? atitool reported a max of 72/55 when
scanning for artifacts

greets

I'm not sure which X800 XT Bios is best. You'll probably have to try them all to see for yourself. I'm not aware of any way change the Bios clocks by increments any smaller than 6.75 MHz, so the closest you could get is 506.5/546.75. ATI claims the gpu can run up to 100C safely, but most people like to keep the temp below 70C just to be safe. Good luck with your mod!

 

[NRP]

But that AMD64 will still be cranking when my OCed 3.0 is smoldering ... I was looking at those heat pipes but the Cooler master Hyper6 caught my eye... maybe I need to give the XP another look...

If you have to dissipate a lot of heat, maybe the XP-90 isn't the best choice (it only has 4 heat pipes). The Hyper6 has 6 heat pipes, so it can no doubt handle larger thermal loads. I actually saw one of the Hyper6 heat sinks - it is HEAVY and tall! So much so that I was worried about mounting it in a tower case (cantilever beam stresses). Thermalright also makes an XP-120 with 6 heat pipes, but this thing is freakin' huge! You may have clearance problems. If it does fit, the advantage is the 120mm fan flows more air and is quieter than the 80mm fan(s) of the Hyper6.

If your 3.0e gets fried, I hear there will soon be a 3.6e. With that one, you could probably get to 4.5 GHz! I'm sure Intel will keep the Prescott prices low to compete with the AMD64s.

 

[GoLLuM4444]

i'm about to flash my asus x800 pro vivo to an xt but i have some questions

1) what should give best results, the ati X800 xt bios or an asus X800 xt bios ?
2) also i already ran the atitool artifacts detector with xt speeds (520/560) and it
detected one unmatched pixel. it doesnt do that with 510/550. is there a way
to permanently change the bios values to 510/550 ?
3) whats the maximum 'safe' temperature ? atitool reported a max of 72/55 when
scanning for artifacts

greets

1) Assuming you have Samsung 1.6ns memory they should be almost exactly the same but you can try both and see if one performs slightly better.

2) The BIOS database on this site does not yet allow you to download x800 BIOSes with modified default frequencies (and i doubt it does elsewhere cause this site is the best ). However you can set atitool to load on startup with a profile with saved frequencies 510/550 and this will have the same effect as changing the bios values (assuming you dont mind running atitool on startup).

3) If the max is 72C then i would think that's fine.

 

[pcjm84]

help bios radeon 7000 dead

 

[GoLLuM4444]

help bios radeon 7000 dead

You're quite right the radeon 7000 is dead.
Get a new card.

 

[mR Yellow]

2) The BIOS database on this site does not yet allow you to download x800 BIOSes with modified default frequencies (and i doubt it does elsewhere cause this site is the best ). However you can set atitool to load on startup with a profile with saved frequencies 510/550 and this will have the same effect as changing the bios values (assuming you dont mind running atitool on startup).

Is it possible to edit the bios using RaBit and then flash it?
Reason: I have a Asus x800 TD (non vivo) and want to use the Asus x800xt PE bios and modify the core and mem speed and disable vivo feature. Then flash it with this bios to unlock xtra pipes?

What do u experts say?

 

[GIGGLA]

happy camper

The 16p mod successfully worked on my sapphire x800 pro 4A49 1.6N WITH ATI X800 PRO VIVO 16P. memory also went up from 513 max to 531. Thanks Wizz. best stable clock 521/531.

 

[Urlyin]

Is it possible to edit the bios using RaBit and then flash it?
Reason: I have a Asus x800 TD (non vivo) and want to use the Asus x800xt PE bios and modify the core and mem speed and disable vivo feature. Then flash it with this bios to unlock xtra pipes?

What do u experts say?

The softmod only works on a PRO VIVO, to unlock the just the pro involves connecting the laser cut on the GPU ...

 

[mR Yellow]

The softmod only works on a PRO VIVO, to unlock the just the pro involves connecting the laser cut on the GPU ...

Thats my plan...im going to join the laser cuts