Legit Reviews

A couple of weeks ago, I heard from a friend that the powercolor 9800 Se can be softmoded to near 9800 levels because the card is identical to a 9800 pro but it has 4 pipelines disabled. I never softmoded anything before but I thought that I would try it and it work perfectly without artifacts. My 3d marks score was 5150 so basically I got a 9800 pro plus several games for 150 bucks. I don’t think this works with other brands because my friend said specifically to buy the powercolor. Here is how to do the softmod…

1) Download the Omega drivers 2.5.22 from omega homepage http://www.omegacorner.com/index_ati.html

2) When you start install the driver, you should pick the option "Soft-Mod 9800SE Omega Driver 9800SE -> 9800 NP/Pro/XT".

3) Actually, it is already unlock the other 4 pipelines when the driver finish installed. However, you cannot really tell from video properties. You should download riva tuner software http://download.guru3d.com/rivatuner/

4) After installed the riva tuner, you can see the 4 pipelines are already unlocked. (You need to responsible for your own risk!)

Good luck moding

Jeff,

What kind of performance increase did you see from this? Did you get any before or after numbers?

Great info and thanks for the post! I'm sure many will find this usefull!

premod was around 3400 post mod was 5151 on 3d mark

uh yeah thats a great improvement!

hate to see what you're going to do next! How's the CPU in your system running? lol

thanks for the post!

Very interesting info that I'm sure our readers will enjoy! (Me too!)

I will agree I softmodded a friends 9500non pro to 9700non pro and went from 9576 in 3dmark01 to 12487 the gaming is so much better!!
Still can't touch my 9800XT though but I let him mplay on it from time to time LOL

The 9800SE's are the steals of the century, most of them softmod. Apprentley what to look for is the "L" shaped memory arrangement, and powercolour seem to be the ones that do that the most.

unlocking 2x the processing power is a shure fire way to increase performance on anything!

Good Job! :D

That's a nice bonus!

It will not work with the next generation cards (well they are just released), this softmodding. Where with an 9800se the pipelines are just disabled, the new ones pipilines simply don't work in lower end cards!

dont count on it, there is NO difference bewteen the X800 Pro and X800XT. They are identical in every way, the PCB, the components, even the core. The only problem is, that the other pipelines are disabled.

The same thing was said about the 9500's vs 9500 Pro's, some worked some didnt. You can be sure the extra pipelines will be able to be enabled... just gotta wait until someone disocvers how!

If there are no artifacts in your softmodded 9800SE then you can safely hardmod it to obtain a true 9800Pro.

I prefer using ATis genuine driver togather with patched file from http://softmod.ocfaq.com

nice improvement you got there Jeffwang
does softmodding includes risks? can it damage the card?

its purely drivers kahuna so as long as you arent overclocking it as well no, if it doesnt work just uninstall and reboot.

i tried it with an old 9500 128 softmod to 9500pro and sadly it didnt work, though the card is kinda messed up already, it will only work in 2d with no artifacts when i flash it down to a 64mb 9500

so maybe i'll consider buying 9800se instead of the pro, thanks.
though the 9800se's bandwidth is 128bit and the 98000pro's is 256bit, right?

it depends on the 9800se see this page for what one to look for http://softmod.ocfaq.com/faq.php