9800 Non-Pro - Questions & Tips

[Ninja Prime]

Just ordered a Sapphire 9800 Non-Pro from Newegg. Does anyone here have this card? I've heard talk of BIOS flash with a 9800 Pro BIOS and it works like a 9800 Pro perfectly. Has anyone tried this? Does it make the card run too hot? Thats quite a overclock... 9800NP is 325/580 and the 9800P is 380/680, thats 55mhz core overclock and 100mhz mem, or about 17% on both.

Now I am sure the are built on the exact same core, and they have the exact same HSF, so quality of the chip and mem is the only real reason it would be slower... Should I try it? I have some thermal tape and some old heatsinks I could hack up and stick on the memory, I can imagine that would help for the mem, but the core...

Another question: My old card is a GeForce 4 Ti 4400. Should I uninstall the old drivers normally within Win2000 or should I use some kind of driver cleaning program? Or should I do the dreaded full system wipe and install?

[GlowStick]

You core will overclock very nicely, however the ram is rated slower and dose not clock as well. I havent seen anyone use a bios flash yet.

For installing the drivers, id recomend useing uninstall program from the control panel. Next driver haven has a utility called "driver cleaner" and id run that.

Now, if you are expericing werid results, then you could consider a reinstall of windows, but its not really nessisary.

[Dazz]

Originally posted by Ninja Prime
Just ordered a Sapphire 9800 Non-Pro from Newegg. Does anyone here have this card? I've heard talk of BIOS flash with a 9800 Pro BIOS and it works like a 9800 Pro perfectly. Has anyone tried this? Does it make the card run too hot? Thats quite a overclock... 9800NP is 325/580 and the 9800P is 380/680, thats 55mhz core overclock and 100mhz mem, or about 17% on both.

Now I am sure the are built on the exact same core, and they have the exact same HSF, so quality of the chip and mem is the only real reason it would be slower... Should I try it? I have some thermal tape and some old heatsinks I could hack up and stick on the memory, I can imagine that would help for the mem, but the core...

Another question: My old card is a GeForce 4 Ti 4400. Should I uninstall the old drivers normally within Win2000 or should I use some kind of driver cleaning program? Or should I do the dreaded full system wipe and install? HAHA same stuff as me, I ordered a Sapphire Radeon 9800 also (not sure what memory it has yet) and it's replacing my Ti4400.
Use this program and read the instructions. http://content.guru3d.com/index.php?page=detonatorrip&menu=0
Currently their file section is off line for mantainace but should be back up soo. Noticed this as i couldn't find any files to download but there where links :o

[Ninja Prime]

I've read that it uses 3.3ns Samsung RAM, what would be the operating spec on that? I'm guessing 300mhz(600DDR), so if I add some RAM coolers I'm betting I could get it to at least 330mhz(660DDR) or so without problems... any thoughts?

[Dazz]

I think it's 333MHz or 666MHz thats what i heard from reviewers.

[PreservedSwine]

Lot's of folks have been flashing their R9800np to R9800PRO BIOS's, with more success than not.....

Here (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33695811) is a thread on the subject.

[saturnotaku]

Before I would flash anything, first use a program like Sapphire's Redline or Rage3D Tweak to overclock the card to see if it can handle 9800 Pro default speeds (378/337 if I'm not mistaken). If you don't have any problems, then go ahead and attempt the flash. Wouldn't want you flashing something then have the card get messed up.

[PreservedSwine]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
Before I would flash anything, first use a program like Sapphire's Redline or Rage3D Tweak to overclock the card to see if it can handle 9800 Pro default speeds (378/337 if I'm not mistaken). If you don't have any problems, then go ahead and attempt the flash. Wouldn't want you flashing something then have the card get messed up.

Better yet, since the BIOS flash itself tends to add ALOT of overclocking potential, edit the BIOS of the PRO BIOS you want to use to non-pro clockspeeds. Once you have the new BIOS in, then overclock to see if can handle Pro speeds. (Radedit is a simple BIOS editor, very user frieindly)

I've heard many theories, but it seems that the PRO BIOS allows for MUCH greater overclocking, even w. 3.3ns RAM......than the original non-pro BIOS...



So a non-PRO card using it's original BIOS may not be able to attain PRO speeds, but the same card with a PRO bios installed may have no trouble at all attaining pro speeds.........

Enjoy:)

[Ninja Prime]

Interesting, thanks! :D

How about this post:

this is the highest i could achieve with no visual artifacts stock np to pro mod through bios
6156 3dmarks
GPU = 425.25 mhz
RAM = 364.50 mhz


:eek: