Sapphire Radeon 9800 PRO Ultimate Edition

[detlev24]

Hi,

I made a big mistake. I bought a "Sapphire Radeon 9800 PRO Ultimate Edition" including "Zalman ZM-OP1" instead of a GeForce 6600GT AGP (for the same price). In any case I installed it on my AMD Athlon XP 2000+ system with RAM 512MB DDR.
How can I overclock my 9800 PRO the best way and is it possible to make a 9800XT out of it? What is the maximum that is possible with my cooling?
Thanks!

Bye!!!

 

[INSTG8R]

well I know that Sapphire was makin 9800Pros with R360 cores on XT PCBs so if your lucky enough to have got one of those you can easily flash it to an XT Bios cuz it certainly has the cooling for it. Im hoping to pick up a Sapphire 9800Pro in the next week and keepin my fingers crossed I'll get the XT PCB version

 

[detlev24]

@INSTG8R: And if I've got the R360 one, where can I find the matching bios file (@412/365MHz with overdrive etc.)? But it should also work with R350, right? ...just because I do not want to remove the cooling unit...

Bye!!!

p.s. how can I save the original bios before flashing to XT?

 

[INSTG8R]

well if its a 128(which I assume it is) you can find the BIOS here and if ya wanna dump your original BIOS use ATI Tool

 

[detlev24]

@INSTG8R: Thanks for the link. But which bios file should I use? I want it at default XT clocks (412/365) with overdrive - is the 3. SAPPHIRE 9800 XT 128 HYNIX BIOS the right one or is it without overdrive?

Bye!!!

p.s. ***.mmj.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bios.bin and ***.mmj.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bios2.bin are both broken links

 

[INSTG8R]

well unfortunatly the Ultimate edition is well covered with the Zalman cooler and it probably has the Ram covered with Heatsinks as well as for knowing for sure check the link on this site about Temp Monitoring IF your board has the chip it is a safe bet its gonna flash to an XT without issue

 

[detlev24]

@INSTG8R: Unfortunately my Sapphire [...] Ultimate Edition does not look like this but like that. So first I dumped the original bios with ATITool and analyzed it using RadEdit - it is named "R360 Hynix DDR 113-A07537-103 BIOS".
Thus I decided to force Flashrom to replace it with GeCube.9800XT.128.Hynix.bin. (Or should I better have used Sapphire.9800XT.128MB.Hynix.bin?) Before flashing I modded the GeCube.9800XT.128.Hynix.bin at default XT clocks (398/350 to 412/365) and PAL (I'm living in Europe).
I hope it works fine and was no fault!!

Bye!!!

p.s. do you know if I can use overdrive and which driver can you recommend (Catalyst, Omega etc.)?

 

[INSTG8R]

well I would say use Sapphire for Sapphire but thats just me as for Overdrive if it doesnt have the Temp Monitor you wont get the Overdrive but I think the XT has some better Shader support so its not a total loss to tell its an XT. I also have 2 Sapphire Bios's one for Hynix and one for Samsung(Im ordering a Sapphire 9800 Pro next week) so I am just getting prepared for an R360 core as it seems Sapphire uses em consistently. So if ya can figure out what type of RAM is on your card if its Samsung PM me and I'll send ya the Samsung BIOS

 

[detlev24]

@INSTG8R: Sorry, I can't tell you what type of RAM is on my card because it is covered with heat sinks but I guess it is Hynix 2.8 because the originally installed bios file by Sapphire is named "R360 Hynix DDR 113-A07537-103 BIOS".
Currently I'm using "Sapphire.9800XT.128MB.Hynix.bin" and it definitely is working better than the GeCube one I had installed before!! I just didn't install the "Zalman ZM-OP1" fan yet and thus the card became very, very hot - I nearly couldn't touch it. ...hopefully I didn't damage anything...

Bye!!!

 

[INSTG8R]

well they say they get pretty warm and that Zalman should do a great job keepin it cool I have considered ordering that model myself but its pretty pricey here in Norway another 500Kr which is like $100 so I will look into an Artic Cooler or similar for mine I think

 

[INSTG8R]

Keep me posted on how it went as my Sapphire 9800 PRO is in the Mail expecting Wednesday

 

[detlev24]

@INSTG8R: Till now my flashed Radeon 9800 PRO is working perfectly with "Sapphire.9800XT.128MB.Hynix.bin" installed on. And the optional ZM-OP1 fan is doing a great job; first I nearly burned my fingers touching the heat sink and now it's kind of "freezing"...
But I need to practice some "hardcore gaming tests" to ensure that I can go on maximum overclocking using "ATITool"! So I think I'll post again next week or something.

Bye!!!

p.s. good luck on Wednesday!