Popped the heatsink and fan off of my 128MB 9800 Pro and discovered it's an R360! So, with that in mind, and the knowledge that it can easily overclock to 9800XT speeds, what do I need to flash this baby to the real deal so I can get those nifty temp sensor and Overdrive functions?
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9800 Pro to XT Flashing
- Thread starter Cybercat
- Start date
CleanSlate
Supreme [H]ardness
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- Mar 28, 2003
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goto the mfg's web site and pull the flash for 9800 xt off the site, and then flash it.
~Adam
~Adam
DigitalEmperor
Gawd
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- Jan 24, 2004
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is there a way to tell what core you have without pulling the heatsink/fan?
Well, I did it, it's working like a charm. I now have a 128MB 9800XT. 
Unfortunately it doesn't have OverDrive or the thermal sensor in the Control Panel, but I find the performance to be faster than if I were to overclock it myself with a Windows-based app.
Here's what I did.
I used this article to find the flash program, and to find the 9800 Pro BIOS, in case I had to flash it back. That saved my ass a few times, because it didn't work when I tried to flash it with the 256MB 9800XT BIOS.
To get the 128MB 9800XT BIOS, I looked at this page. It's chalk full of them. I used the Sapphire 128MB "XT" Lite E-Die BIOS.
Remember: YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE R360 CORE ON YOUR CARD IF YOU WANT TO TRY THIS. To find out whether or not your GPU is the R360 core, you must remove the heatsink and fan unit and check to see what it says on the core (you may have to rub some of the thermal paste off).
Unfortunately it doesn't have OverDrive or the thermal sensor in the Control Panel, but I find the performance to be faster than if I were to overclock it myself with a Windows-based app.Here's what I did.
I used this article to find the flash program, and to find the 9800 Pro BIOS, in case I had to flash it back. That saved my ass a few times, because it didn't work when I tried to flash it with the 256MB 9800XT BIOS.
To get the 128MB 9800XT BIOS, I looked at this page. It's chalk full of them. I used the Sapphire 128MB "XT" Lite E-Die BIOS.
Remember: YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE R360 CORE ON YOUR CARD IF YOU WANT TO TRY THIS. To find out whether or not your GPU is the R360 core, you must remove the heatsink and fan unit and check to see what it says on the core (you may have to rub some of the thermal paste off).
DigitalEmperor
Gawd
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- Jan 24, 2004
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- 760
what advantage does this have other than automatically overclocking the card to XT speeds?
Though I'm not sure why, I've found performance to be better with it flashed than overclocked. If you have an R360 core, and can overclock to XT speeds anyway, I recommend this. It eliminates having to mess with an OCing program, you may get better performance than just by overclocking manually, and if your card supports it, you get OverDrive and a temp sensor reading in your drivers.
That's about all I can think of though. Personally I think it's kind of cool to have the drivers and everything recognize my card as a 9800XT.
DigitalEmperor
Gawd
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- Jan 24, 2004
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i can OC past XT speeds with my card but I don't want to take off my VGA Silencer to see what core it has. anything negative happen if I happen to have a R350 core instead of the R360?
I have a Built By ATI Radeon 9800 pro w/ a R360 chip. I flashed the card with the Gigecube 9800xt 128mb bios and my 3dmark03 went up 200 with the exact same clock speed. If you have the r360 and can go to 412 than it is a worthwhile Idea to flash the card to the XT bios.
not to change subjects or anything but i just got done checking on my 9800 Pro 128 chip and its a R360...interesting to say the least..but it makes sense i suppose...why continue to make R350's if you're getting good yield on R360...test the chip...does it run 412MHz no probs? Yes~~>XT ; NO~~>9800Pro
now for me to grow the balls and flash this puppy to XT as it will do near 415 core and memory speed is quite sufficient
btw Cybercat did you notice any better OC results after the flash? just kinda curious =P
EDIT: w00t! 400 posts =D
now for me to grow the balls and flash this puppy to XT as it will do near 415 core and memory speed is quite sufficient
btw Cybercat did you notice any better OC results after the flash? just kinda curious =P
EDIT: w00t! 400 posts =D
Originally posted by Seifer
yes there is, get AIDA32, it will tell you all about your video card, even the core
OK, I downloaded that and checked and I have a 350 core. Do you think it says 350 because that's what it thinks the 9800 Pro usually comes with or does it actually check the core?
To tell you the truth, I haven't really tried OCing it any further.
I'll get back to you on that one. --And W1zzard is right. Software uses the card's BIOS to identify it. ATITool for example used to show my card as an R350. Now that it's flashed, it registers as the R360.
The Gigacube 9800xt 128mb Bios is supposed to be the best one for overclocking memory.
With the original 9800 pro 128mb Bios memory would only go to about 370, With the Gigacube bios it would go to about 385 before I saw any artifacts. It was highly recomended on the Rage3d forums. Im sure the Sapphire Bios would work fine as well but I didnt have a chance to try it. But Like I said the Gigacube 9800xt bios is supposed to be the best one for overclocking the samsung 2.8ns memory.
Splat
As far as more overclocking is concerned, I can't really up the core any higher than stock without a little bit of artifacting showing up in the Halo demo. That seems to be the only place I've seen it, though I'd probably find some in 3DMark03 with the PS2.0 tests if I had the patience to run the whole thing. I'm very picky about artifacts, and so I think 412 is as far is she goes on stock cooling. My RAM however just kept going. I had it up to 390 before I gave up for the night. Even then I couldn't see any graphic problems whatsoever. That might change after some intensive gaming for a few hours, but it was somewhat impressive nonetheless. I have some homemade RAM sinks stuck on with double sided sticky tape. A nice one in the ghetto cooling mod book, but it seems to be working surprisingly well.
DigitalEmperor
Gawd
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- Jan 24, 2004
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on all the 128mb cards i've heard of black artifact holes on 3dmark .. i don't think anyone has found out why this happens but just a heads up, it doesnt seem like this is worth the effort unless you KNOW you have a R360 core/256mb .. that way you can use the onboard temp senors. other than that there is no reason to flash your bios. you can just use a tool like radlinker to overclock to your desired speed.
Well, as I've said before, my performance is better than if I were to overclock with a program. I'm not sure why this is, but it's a plus. Interestingly enough, I hit exactly 6K in 3DMark03 with this flash. Considering my CPU, this just goes to show how independent this benchmarker is from the rest of the system. I can only do 15.5K in 3DMark01, and a little over 40K in Aquamark3.
As far as the holes in 3dmark03 are concerned, This only happens if you flash the XT bios on a R350 chip. I have the R360/128mb 9800pro and I dont have any holes/artifacts at stock XT clocks with the XT bios and stock 9800pro heatsink. Most of the Current 9800 pro 128mb cards built by ATI that you buy now have the R360 Core and overclock to 412/365 without problems.