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ATI Radeon 9550 Overclocking and BIOS modding FAQ Guide

hi all..., im a new guy about overclocking, i hav HIS 9550 256 MB iceq(double stacked cooling device), it already comes with overclocking tools to overclock it at 450/350, i thought it was the edge, coz it stop responding when i tried higher clockrate. then i tried this amazing tool, which is AtiTool, somehow my card could managed to reach 510/450, and it still runs fine. my question, in "3d view" at AtiTool, it shows some artifacts, but when i run 3d games, i not seen any artifacts(yet), sorry if i mistaken, im a really newbie. TQ B4...
 
Hello, I just bought an ATI Radeon 9550 Extreme 256mb DDR2 8x for my old PC. I just curious that after running 3dmark03 I only got 24XX points while some of you can manage to get 31XX. here my spec

AMD Athlon XP 2000+
Asus A7V8X-X
512x2 DDR 400MHz
Windows XP Pro SP2

Graphic Card
Description : ATI Radeon 9600 / X1050 Series
Vendor ID : 1002 (ATI)
Device ID : 4152
Graphics core : RV360 (4pp)
Memory bus : 128-bit
Memory amount : 256MB
Core clock : 432.000MHz
Memory clock : 276.750MHz (553.500MHz effective)
Reference clock : 27.000MHz

thanks
 
I bought and it already like that. Well, im still curious that ppl below than my core and memory clock can achive more than 29XX points using 3dmark03.
 
AlterFx said:
I bought and it already like that. Well, im still curious that ppl below than my core and memory clock can achive more than 29XX points using 3dmark03.
Click to expand...
Could be a difference in cpu clocks. have you overclocked your cpu at all? If not, give it a shot.

If i recall correctly, I had over 3k with my old 9550 set to 420/260 on a P4 2GHz Northwood (512k L2 cache), overclocked to 2.4GHz.
 
Wile E said:
Could be a difference in cpu clocks. have you overclocked your cpu at all? If not, give it a shot.

If i recall correctly, I had over 3k with my old 9550 set to 420/260 on a P4 2GHz Northwood (512k L2 cache), overclocked to 2.4GHz.
Click to expand...

yeah, i tried o/c it to 1.86.. it just added 100-200 points :confused: ... maybe its time to format my PC :ohwell:
 
AlterFx said:
yeah, i tried o/c it to 1.86.. it just added 100-200 points :confused: ... maybe its time to format my PC :ohwell:
Click to expand...
That's also a possibility. Also, when you bench, kill all unnecessary processes using the task manager. You can even kill explorer.exe, so long as you already have 3DMark open.
 
Wile E said:
That's also a possibility. Also, when you bench, kill all unnecessary processes using the task manager. You can even kill explorer.exe, so long as you already have 3DMark open.
Click to expand...

herm.. ok, i just killed some processes include explorer.exe and did the 3dmark03.. the score still same .. 25XX, there any way to know which part of my computer is bottleneck?
 
AlterFx said:
herm.. ok, i just killed some processes include explorer.exe and did the 3dmark03.. the score still same .. 25XX, there any way to know which part of my computer is bottleneck?
Click to expand...
Judging by your specs, I'm gonna say it's your cpu. Compare your cpu results in 3dMark, to someone that has a similarly clocked 9550, but better cpu.
 
Hello, I just bought an ATI Radeon 9550 Extreme 256mb DDR2 8x for my old PC. I just curious that after running 3dmark03 I only got 24XX points while some of you can manage to get 31XX. here my spec...
Click to expand...

Hmm! Well I get 4,000 3DMark2003 easily, but that with a Radeon X600 Pro overclocked to Core/Mem~575/2x275 :P. But well, I do have a HIS Radeon 9550 before and it could easily reach around 3,600 3DMark2003, and the max. OC is like 512/2x200.
 
This is my videocard

I want to flash my bios 9550 with 9600. Who bios must use ?
 
Thank you for this thread - it helped me a lot in flashing my GV-R955128D
Since I didn't see it written - here is the answer of all the questions how to flash Gigabyte ATI Radeon 9550 GV-R955128D using flashrom:

flashrom -f -sst -p 0 bios.bin

Best wishes!
 
Sapphire 9550

Hi all! I've got a Sapphire 9550 Pro. My PC (see pics) is getting kinda old, and I decided to overclock it. Apparently my motherboard, a GigaByte 8IDML-C uses an ASync BUS frequency, which puts CPU OCing out the window, so I got a 9600 BIOS to try to flash my card. For some reason, my floppy drive won't work on bootup, and neither will my flash drive. That too out the window, I got ATITool and tried overclocking it. I selected "Find Max Mem. Clock" and left for about 10 minutes. When I came back, my screen was artifact city, and after it cooled down, I left it alone. THe clock was somewhere around 340 Mhz, any support on how I can overclock it? My card still has the stock aluminum cooler, but I don't want to spend $20+ on a new one, I'm saving up for a new PC.

I got this advice:
If you can boost the memory to 220 MHz, I think the best would be to leave the core at about same overclocking ratio, +10% (275 MHz).
Click to expand...

Any support? Would I need to get a new cooler to get any worthwhile results with my games? (Orange Box; mainly Ep2 causes trouble, Star Wars: Empire at War, Empire Earth II)

EDIT: The pics I uploaded didn't show up.
CPU/Memory:
cpuzcpubw7.png

cpuzmainboardzr7.png

cpuzcacheqc6.png

cpuzmemoryxc4.png

cpuzspd1xr3.png

cpuzspd2wz4.png

9550:
gpuzmn8.png

Artifacts:
omghelpbz3.png
 
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cc666 said:
Hi all! I've got a Sapphire 9550 Pro. My PC (see pics) is getting kinda old, and I decided to overclock it. Apparently my motherboard, a GigaByte 8IDML-C uses an ASync BUS frequency, which puts CPU OCing out the window, so I got a 9600 BIOS to try to flash my card. For some reason, my floppy drive won't work on bootup, and neither will my flash drive. That too out the window, I got ATITool and tried overclocking it. I selected "Find Max Mem. Clock" and left for about 10 minutes. When I came back, my screen was artifact city, and after it cooled down, I left it alone. THe clock was somewhere around 340 Mhz, any support on how I can overclock it? My card still has the stock aluminum cooler, but I don't want to spend $20+ on a new one, I'm saving up for a new PC.

I got this advice:


Any support? Would I need to get a new cooler to get any worthwhile results with my games? (Orange Box; mainly Ep2 causes trouble, Star Wars: Empire at War, Empire Earth II)
Click to expand...

Hope I understood your question.....I has an MSI 9550se POORLY cooled with a tiny-medium size aluminium heatsink, then I tried to OC with poor results, then I flashed it to a 9600 and put a 80mm fan aiming the heatsink and it worked aparently fine at 450/250 (if i recall right). Then a couple of weeks later the system began to show artifacts, for my bad luck it was too late to solve that problem, I pushed too much with the shitty stock cooling solution and damaged my card.

So if your cooling solution is POOR (like mine) then stay away from the OC, or just do a little OC (+20 core +20 mems for example) to prevent damaging your card.
 
i have an asus 9550 ge , and I managed to get 460 mhz core and 270 memory with stock cooling( some kind of aluminium radiator with a cooler) using atitool 0.27. It generates no artefacts, but I haven't yet opened the pc case to see how hot it gets :))
I played battlefield 2 with all details high, antialiasing and all that stuff at 1024/768.
I think i will rise these frequencies a bit, to see what happens ;))
 
hello , I'm new to overclocking so all the help I can get would be very apreciated , I have an ati rdeon 9550 128 mb ( dont know hou moch bits but i assume that i have 64 beacause it's not the 256 mb model. In atitool i've got it to 402/240 ( gpu/memory ) in games i se a diference , it runs smother is it save to run at that clocks ?

and i have another problem ( this is an older one , it didnt aperar afther the overclock ) if i try to open an movie my computer restarts , if i move the slider under propierties , advanced , trobleshoting to disable all but basic accelerations , i can see movies.

and i have 2 more questions

1. could somebody give me the memory timings for an ati radeon 9550 128mb/ 64 bits ASUS , i have messed with them a long time ago and i whant the back to stock

2. do i get better performance with CCC , i really hate it , it's anoying , i have drievrs suite 6.2 instaled , with the newest 8.x it's slowing my pc or it's just me

my pc specs are athlon 64 3500+ and 1g ddr2 667

many thank's in advance and sorry for my english but it's not my homecountry language :)
 
@musikstefan : I think you can't reach higher mem freq. wit your 64 bit old card....becareful with the artifact.... if you want good rech high oc on agp.. i recomended use GF 6200 128 bit card ....
 
current flash bios

I'm stuck with my ati 9550 until I get a new pc but in the meantime I keep on finding ways to juice up my gc. I was hesitant to use the flashing method but seems it is better than just using atitool. I've managed to successfully get the right bios from techpowerup.com in upgrading 9550 to 9600. I downloaded the 9600 bios according to my manufacturer Asus, here http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/9480/Asus.9600.256.080218.html. I also found out there were at least 4 versions for the 9600, Pro, XT, SE and plain 9600. For the obvious reasons I downloaded the much higher XT one and boot up to DOS. Added info for booting to DOS under Ntfs I downloaded Ntfsfloppysetup.exe over the net. After flashing and rebooting, the screen's color were distorted and had boxes with different colors. So I guess its not the right bios for my gc. So I downloaded all available 9600 bios and worked my way down to the basic Radeon 9600. Finally I got everything clear now and its much stable. I just downloaded the current drivers from Asus for the 9600 (never imagined I'd be doin it) and would run a few more tests to check stability. My GPU details now is

[ AGP 4x: ATI Radeon 9600 XT (RV360) ]

Graphics Processor Properties:
Video Adapter ATI Radeon 9600 XT (RV360)
BIOS Version 008.015.028.000
BIOS Date 2008/02/18 16:06
GPU Code Name RV360
Part Number ASUS 9600XT 256MB Elixir DDR2
PCI Device 1002-4152 / 1043-C004 (Rev 00)
Transistors 76 million
Process Technology 0.13 um
Bus Type AGP 4x @ 4x
Memory Size 256 MB
GPU Clock 432 MHz (original: 432 MHz)
RAMDAC Clock 400 MHz

Memory Bus Properties:
Bus Type DDR
Bus Width 128-bit
Real Clock 432 MHz (DDR) (original: 216 MHz, overclock: 100%)
Effective Clock 864 MHz
Bandwidth 13.5 GB/s

Memory Clock 432 MHz (original: 216 MHz, overclock: 100%)

Looks like scary numbers from 9550's 250/200 but with proper cooling, got from CDR-King Jetart VGA Cooler. I think I might pull this off and would be the last modding I'd do til I get a new pc.
 
I hate to say this to you, while it is impressive that you clocked the crap out of it, you won't get more out of it. (I used to have a 9550). Wow this thread got de-stickied...
 
I'm afraid I have to agree with you tk, not for the performance but the results. I have been using condition zero as benchmarking the performance and frankly ripped the hair off my head. The computer either froze, bsod'd and artifacted all over the place. I tried almost all 9600 bios and never found a stable one. Even went to 9550ge and le. But in the end just stuck with the most latest bios for asus 9550. Right now I'm going back to basics and get run the handy atitool. Problem with asus I also heard is it has quite unique manufacturing. Currently the most stable I'm running as of now is 457/214. With a few tweaks on memory timings. I think im happy with this right now and performance on cz is dramatic.
 
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 256 MB

Hi!

I'm new to this forum and I have a few questions.
First of all I have some experience with R9550 & R9600 Series.

I've bought GeCube R9550 128 MB and flashed vBIOS to R9600 Pro. Then I sold it and bought Club3D R9600 256 MB second hand and flashed it to R9600 Pro @ GPU 445.5 MHz and memory 2 x 229.5 MHz stable.

Now I've bought Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 256 MB. Unfortunately GPU-Z shows it is RV350 and not RV360 as it should be. Another thing is that the memory used on this card is not at techPowerUp! database. The memory is Samsung K4D551638H LC50. The VGA is clocked GPU @ 500 MHz and memory @ 200 MHz so it is something between 9600 and 9600XT. GPU is clocked as XT and memory as an ordinary R9600.

I want to try what this card can achieve but I'm not sure which vBIOS from your database I have to try out or if I have to modify the original vBIOS to higher clock speeds?

Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions. K8!

Edit: I forgot to include the information from GPU-Z validation so here it is.
 
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