9800PRO to XT Conundrum

[Rags]

I am about to mod the bios on my 9800PRO and add a AC Silencer 1 (Rev 2) cooling solution plus OZ Cu ram heatsinks. But I have made an observation about two XT retail cards on the market that pose an overclocking conundrum.

The cards are the GeCube 9800XT and the VisionTech 9800XT. The cards I am referring to both have Samsung 2.8 ns,128 meg ram. If you look at the bios section of PowerUp, you will notice that both of these cards have overclocked cores at 500 MHZ! How is that possible?? I've looked online at the Visiontek card and it does have two large cooling fans and a very large copper heatsink. But I doubt there are ram sinks on the backside of the card. I also know that the XT bios has improved memory timings; I used Rabit to view them in comparison to my PRO card. So how do they get 500 MHZ?

I think both companies have found they can overclock the core and achieve very high fps while meeting the thermal thresholds of the card with their non-watercooled cooling solution. They use heavy duty heatsinks and fans and underclock the ram!

I think the key is what they are doing to the clock on the Samsung ram. If you look again at the PowerUp bios section you will see that the GeCube ram is underclocked to 325 MHZ and the Visiontek ram is underclocked to 300 MHZ, while the ATI default is 365 MHZ.

 

[Hellraiser1981]

500MHz on a 9800XT??? I seriously doubt it. Maybe the bios files were modified. Make sure you're 9800 is a R360 core, or it can't be flashed to XT!
Also, keep a pci vid card on hand!! (I can't stress that enough)
GeCube and VisionTEK released the 9800XT at 412Mhz GPU clock.
Remember, ATI had a very tight grip on thier board partner's balls back then, they would never have been bested by a third party manufacturer.
412Mhz is default GPU clock on 9800XT
If you don't agree with the clocks in the bios, you can always change them with RaBit.

 

[Rags]

Thanks Hellraiser! When I look with Rabit into the bios of both the VisionTek and GeCube, they both are set to 500 Mhz. Fortunately the "Advanced Version" at PowerUp allows you to modify both the core and memory settings which I did. I set a conservative 391.5 core and 351 for ram. I want to see how my cooling solution works prior to resetting the default to 412 core.

BTW I was able to find the bios for an ATI 9800 XT with 128 meg of samsung ram. It is set at 412 Mhz core and 365 mem. Comparing the memory timings with the GeCube, which also uses samsung ram, it is clear that GeCube is pushing the performance of their cards.

 

[Hellraiser1981]

Good luck, come back if you have any probs.
Weird that those bioses are clocked that high. 500Mhz seems like a pipe dream of sorts.

 

[Rags]

Hellraiser,

After looking again at the bios' for the two cards, I think they are really for a 9600 XT. The narrative in the bios references the v350agp chip.

There is no way I will use the GeCube bios for my upgrade. I found an ATI labeled card's bios, and I will use that one. It has the standard core and mem. It also references a v360agp. (I've confirmed that my PRO has this chip.)

Thanks for saving my ass!

 

[15th Warlock]

I have a VisionTek 9800Pro @ XT, but even with a Tt Giant III (and the included Cu ramsinks), I cannot push it past 470 core/390 mem without getting massive artifacts, maybe watercooling would help a little, though the Tt Giant III is supposed to reach watercooling performance, but the noise level is definitely too high for daily use, so I don't use the 9000 RPM blower for anything more than benchmarking.
My VisionTek has hynix RAM, not samsung, btw.

EDIT: I originally posted 490 Mhz max OC for my Ram, but there's no way the memory in my card can get anywhere near that clock! The max I've pushed it is 395 Mhz Sorry about the typo

 

[Hellraiser1981]

I have a VisionTek 9800Pro @ XT, but even with a Tt Giant III (and the included Cu ramsinks), I cannot push it past 470 core/490 mem without getting massive artifacts, maybe watercooling would help a little, though the Tt Giant III is supposed to reach watercooling performance, but the noise level is definitely too high for daily use, so I don't use the 9000 RPM blower for anything more than benchmarking.
My VisionTek has hynix RAM, not samsung, btw.

I wish I had your card.
Mine did 403/350 stock (R350+Hynix 2.8)

 

[watzup_ken]

Its possible to get that kindda clock with a extreme cooling sys and some volt mods. The card is limited in overclocking due to the heat that it generates and lack of power.

 

[zAAm]

Hellraiser,

After looking again at the bios' for the two cards, I think they are really for a 9600 XT. The narrative in the bios references the v350agp chip.

There is no way I will use the GeCube bios for my upgrade. I found an ATI labeled card's bios, and I will use that one. It has the standard core and mem. It also references a v360agp. (I've confirmed that my PRO has this chip.)

Thanks for saving my ass!

Yup, the 9600XT runs default 500MHz. But it is the RV360 chip. The 9550 has an RV350 if I'm not mistaken... I think by "v350" and "v360" you actually mean R350 and R360 eh?